Amodeuo

Tides and tides of spirits were swarming northward from everywhere. Dark shadows were darting across the sky, the glowing cleavages in the lava ground ejecting fumes of acrid gases that slowly consolidated and took forms of some demons that the mortals could never have imagined before being dragged down to this damned world. There was no order, but everything was moving forward in a somnambulistic manner because there was no sense either. By who were they controlled these creatures would never know, since all they were able to see was impenetrable darkness. A heavy haze forever shrouded the whole place, its blinding assault overpowering the most vicious sandstorms in the upper world by a mile.

Nevertheless, the reign of the undead was not indeed unlit. Lining the prisons of the deceased were high-lifted torches burning the hellfire. The scarlet flame, twisted by the strong dark wind but undying with the power of shackling, illuminated this place to an extent whereby nothing beyond the border was visible. Still, the omnipotence of the Master was illustrated clearly enough by the sense of overwhelming suppression here, so that the overawed creatures dared not have the remotest idea of escape apart from sleeping, walking and waiting.

When phantom shapes were seen dancing all over the place, Amodeuo understood it was the Time of Confession again. He was oblivious to the passing of day and night, for there could be found no knowledge of time, but he had long become wearied. Released from the Wheel of Will, he drifted onto the thoroughfare, only to be crammed between throngs of other spectres who used to be the most sinful, vengeful and impudent malefactors in their earlier lives, until the Master rightfully transformed them into undifferentiated marionettes of false animation. They did not live their lives; they had no lives. They were damned to this dungeon by the Holy High, who well believed their Master would never relinquish his grasp on them again.

During every Confession, all forms of the lifeless were arisen to the sizzling ground overlooked by the citadel of the Master. It was no exception now. Fumes of grey and black intertwined, where shadows shifted and stillness mounted. These condemned creatures confessed by staying silent. The Master's menial servant first viewed the rabble with demoniac satisfaction, then its beady red eyes gleamed. This time, there was something out of synch.

Amodeuo stumbled his way over the ragged volcanic surface that loomed over him like some nightscape, something unparalleled by the most sinister nightmare because it was no dream. In truth, it was always better to be ensnared in a dream than in one's waking. So at this moment, he had to find his way out. Right now.

The Master, along with his henchmen, had arranged a multitude of wickedly intricate plans to prevent his property from fleeing the lower world. The ghosts marooned here had been deprived of sense, feeling and therefore could carry out nothing beyond a moron's ability, but there were small flaws as well. Amodeuo's mother, a demigod, was so attached to her mortal son that she was determined to rescue him out of the dingy Hades, provided he could manage to find the entrance of the secret tunnel without being detected. The weekly Confession thus stood out as the best opportunity, when everything was due to concentrate at the Master's palace. Of course, he alone had been creeping in the opposite direction on the venture of seeking for freedom.

The hapless escaper noticed the thinning of the dismal smog as the flat plateau drew to an end. He stopped over the edge of the fathomless cliff, squinting into its abysmal darkness towards the bottom, where his vision was all but ruthlessly devoured. He started to doubt its credibility: was this chasm really the gateway to the Elysian Fields? It appeared to be leading to somewhere all the more intolerable than this prison, which was most willing to push him down and seal his accursed spirit there. The swirling earthward wind, gaining force as it chanted the mass of demise, was acting as if approving his speculation.

Suddenly, the air roared and the land rocked. Amodeuo, shaken out of his normality, quickly hid himself by leaping down to a narrow ledge on the sheer wall of the cliff, teetering on the edge. Just then a monstrous form was heard charging by. No, there was a horde of them. He realised something grave was on the go, probably the rumoured, and most likely futile, uprising of the entire repressed population. A face-to-face conflict against the Master was literally ludicrous, he thought, and that brute was a god. Maybe it was worth the try to follow his mother'advice. He could almost remember someone saying that the most likely escape could be via the most unlikely place of all.

Amodeuo released himself from the notches of the scalding rocks so that his weightless body rode on the wind toward a place unknown. It might be the Elysian Fields, or it might not; he might regain his real being, or he might have it dissolved. However, the most important of all was that he was free again.