The Apocalypse of Judas - Chapter II

81

The Apocalypse

of Judas

Chapter Two: The Purging

“Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me” – Jer. 2:22

I fell, thrown from a the great apex of a grey and ancient precipice, cast by the left hand of Judas Iscariot.

Form and Spirit followed fast and followed faster as consciousness unburdened spiraled ever Hellward. Light from the mawish Hellmouth raced far beyond my horror-wide eyes. Below me darkness deep begot queer luminosities. No more pure, white illumination but a wound-raw red-yellow fangs a’flickerin’. Plummeting headlong and bodywise through soot-heavy air I screamed a scream no man has ever screamed. The whipping lash of sin-barbed winds tormented mine naked form. Frigid moans tortured mine scorched ears. Blood-stained zephers carried the charred stench of burning flesh and my tongue wretched as if from rancid milk soaked in the grave.

Pin-point glints swelled to barrel-broad torches. Thunder roared like a dying lion in the night. Darkness presently fled, relinquishing a soft light to this grey plane. Blinding brilliance and deafening din collide, embracing mine senses within a cold, rigor-mortic grip. Mine eyes, overwrought from dread, burned to cast out the shadows, my mind burned to cast out the madness. Sight slowly slipped through the cracks of my Self like a waning moon through iron gaol bars.

I was better off blind.

Mine eyes beheld a great walled city resting upon the side of Mount Desesperance. Ebon towers of Babylonian proportions pointed Heavenward like an accusing finger. Plumes of obsidian clouds ebbed forth from tall peaks; hollow of core and shallow of reason. Titanic brass wall, carved akin to burning arms embosomed the Satanic city with interlocked digits of indomitable will.

A blackened hand of pitch smoke and scarlet flames reached up from the bowls of a vie column, engulfing me within six fingers of sharp-sinned rage.

Somber silence shattered psychic sound. A storm rode my soul like a pale rider. Blood boiled, flesh froze, bones broke.

The rapidness of mine descent was matched only by the suddenness of the impact. For time uncounted and space unseen I remained still upon the foul-fell floor, broken and fetal and cold.

“Upon your feet, child of Seth!” Judas’ tired voice reverberated throughout my skull like the tolling of some immortal dolorous bells.

Exhsusted moans pried open mine fear-clenched orbs. Scarlet veils of iridescent haze swathed my vision, azure extremities of nerve-freezing fear raked mine nudeness.

Infernal images branded my psyche with whispered wails of imploring clamor. Streets carved and netted the filthy city with feces, bones, and form-following eyes. Liver-black clouds hung low with leaden weight, confining streets into tunnels. Blood-bricked dwellings loomed grave-level, crushed against cloud-piercing towers of brass and glass. A sea of corpulent souls flooded sullen streets, crawling upon each other with taloned fingers and gnashing teeth. The foul odor of rotting fruits and decaying meats pressed hard against my weary senses.

“The City of Sheol.” Voiceless words once again laid siege against my mind. The Disdained Disciple leaned with tired demeanor against a twin-arrowed post of rust and iron, “X” pointed South as “Jupiter” rode East.

Fearful inquiry branded quivering lips. Hysterical rage snapped out at the Psychopomp, Judas, Iscariot. The Betrayer greeted my advance with restraining hands and embracing lips.

“God’s Strength.” Angelic thunder roared behind Judas’ whispered thought. Hart-warm serenity coated my anxious spirit like righteous, Palladium armor. Hand-in-hand Judas led me through the sea of obese souls, thick with great arms and wanting fingers.

Weather-gnawed terraces of eroded bars scaled the squalid living structures. Prejudice and judgement did glare down high retribution from above steel staired-balconies.

Towering devils, long of limb and short of sympathy, fished the obese with tall pitched forks of starved souls and borrowed bones.

Corpulent non-corporeals, pricked up high and fed to flame-belching windows, delivered pleads on to the earless and displayed tears to the eyeless. Broken and burnt wings, bttered past beauty, flapped with baleful glee at ach stout soul selected.

Courage inflamed and curiosity embraced I once again strove to comprehend my damnation. A warm glow rippled from the Thirteenth Guest as his gaze did fall upon mine form. Judas’ hand slipped from mine like a nightmare lost to the morning glory. The Fallen Disciple glided away as if on unseen wheels; eyes fixed upon mine, stern and stark. His last words, like water to the dying man, echoed through my beguiled mind like a Papal Bull; “God’s Strength.”

Before terror-fleet feet could grant fearful egress I found myself spread and lifted on high. My Self raged with burning misery, my spirit wailed with freezing vexation. My tormentors passed me on high above weight-heavy clouds of soot and ash. Air and hope grew thin and thinner yet. Damned moans were lost beyond sound and reason. Sharp-souled forks thrust me through an enflamed portal of sin and steel. Flaming fangs seized my bones as burning tendrils constricted my defiant form. My Self expanded, growing in size and purpose, first distending my flaming fetters then rending them whole. A canon roared and brightness devoured me.

A musty aroma slowly slithered through my nostrils; stale and sweet like a forgotten wine cellar, stagnant and sour like an abandoned mortuary. Clawing squeaks crawled about my feet as naked tails scurried over mine toes. Brightness faded and sight recovered. I gazed catatonically with a frozen visage of burning dreadfulness. An putrefying, Antediluvian wine cellar greeted my unfettered orbs. Cobweb strewn casks of flesh and faith flanked mine form and feared mine soul. Dermal kegs tapped at the umbilicu and cased in frames of human ribs and spine.

A withered carpet of living rodents undulated beneath my naked soles; nails needle and fangs feed. Rodent rage rose on high to raze my rear. With fleetness of feet and quickness of mind I did make most mortal haste. Starving squeals and lashing tails crashed at my heels. Through congealed shadows mine eyes did burn, transfixed on discovering egress, blissfully ignoring a fearful need to gaze hindwise.

As if a hideous hand outstretched from dark waters, Hope flooded mine vision and thoughts with directed purpose.

Blinking with incredulity I witnessed Titanic brass-bound doors floating as if on a sea of stark and sullen shadows. Mine arms, extended out in fanciful terror, groped ever for this image of serendipitous salvation. Hunger-wracked tongues darted over my form tasting my sweat-glazed flesh as rust-screeching hinges tested both faith and sanity.

Flickering rays of golden hope squeezed between the darkest doors. With speed-of-thought and will-of-God I leapt for fear-of-life.

The layers of Hell itself shook as if the armies of Hannibal marched mountain-ready but I could not perceive of the massive doors of dark and brass slam sealed. I fell to mine kness, seeking to find the breath I had lost that moment thus.

Hannibal’s trumpets did blare over those mountainous shadows, sending legion of terror storming through mine heart. Retribution tore through serene silence with ebony tusks and thindering strides. Rage-stained eyes shot out from dark corridors like flaming arrows, impaling my thoughts and slicing my soul. What pierced my Self was not the soft, aqueous humor of man nor beast but filth-ridden pools of sizzling grease and boiling fat.

Sweet egress became as a forgotten dream in the crushing coils of a prehensile trunk. My voice, cracked with terror, beseeched this obsess beast with words of heavenly mercy. Words the earless demon-lord would never perceive. Fetid grave-breath washed over mine frigid face as I beheld bulbous-bellied Behemoth, Dark Lord of Gluttony and Covetousness.

Deep beyond squirming corridors of living rodents and crawling lice Behemoth bore my bone-bag body. Shadow-carved doors gave way to as endless room brimming with apathy and indifference. Corpulent coveters, writhing in rhythmic choir, eternally crawled through the chilling repository of their own sins --- a vast wine vat of bone and cartilage. Three towering demonesses, wanting of heads and heavy of hooves, danced not upon the vine-grown-grape but the sin-soaked souls filling the basket around them.

Black Bellied Behemoth bellowed forth with sounds harsh and brackish breath. Mine form did fall limp with impotent rage and spent fury. Eyes sealed tight I prepared for Hellish pain and demonic fury. With might and pride and rage-of-soul Dark behemoth cast me forth into the Brass Vat of Sins!

Hoary hooves flailed mine flesh and smashed mine soul, crushing hooves stomped out viceful sins and broken commandments. My sins ran like tears; mournfully and abundantly. A rich, full-bodied flavor guaranteed to tickle the palate and tease the tongue. As the last dry drops od succulent sins slowly seeped forth from the ag-rusted spout I felt my Self carried away on high by fig-stained hands.

Amidst wine-smirched shadows I flew safe in Judas’ arms. With might-of-mind and want-of-will the Dark Disciple’s thoughts did tell. To be summoned in the Self is to be cleansed in the flesh. Mine body was broken and shivered as the dying leaf against an autumn breeze yet failed me not. Warm music filled mine veins and poured into mine wounds; re-knitting bones and re-growing flesh. Celestial psalms healed demonic damage .

Once, our Lord and Savior, Jesus, was delivered by Judas into the claws of evil. Six times that my fate fell.

Before two streets of crossed signs, “IX” and “Moon” I found Beguiling Beelzebub, gaunt of form and needful of ears. Lies and no-truths poured from tight lips as fleas and flies, maggots and lice boiled from shadowed, empty eyes. A flaming brank of barbed gold compressed his clenched countenance. Beelzebub stood upon a carpet of writhing maggots surveying his sea of jaundiced souls. Long tongues knotted in hangman nooses paraded before my tear-filled eyes. Joining their ranks I froze with every envy I ever entertained and I burned with each falsehood I ever spoke.

I shouted for mercy and found my Self pulled from the quavering quagmire of quislings by fig-fragrant fingers.

Free from torment was a mercy but a mercy that would not continue.

Dropped before freedom I was left before a court of silver candles. Abhorrent Asmodeus ruled the cross-streets of “VIII” and “Mercury” with hungry hands and pyrite eyes. The earless Demon-Lord stood engulfed in a storm of malicious spirits and ill-gotten gain. Souls, brimmed with false needs and ravenous wants pleaded under tearing claws of soul-greedy demons. Past pain-torn layers mine flesh was torn from form and stripped to bone. Demonic discipliners bore my skin like fine furs as they liberated organs and sinew with voracious violence.

When naught but fat and feces remain to fed Asmodeus’ carpet of giant red ants was I liberated. Fig-fetid fingers fetched Far flung forms. Organ-to-flesh, bone and sinew my Self did reform as if through fire and fate. Fortune most foul the spiritual flaying was destine to begin anew.

Penance to fate it did endure with urgency immediate and prejudice continued. The lecherous ogling of lustful Rosier my torment did continue. There, below the rotting wooden cross-sign of “VII” and “Venus” I stared into the black and Rosebloom eyes of adulterous lust putridly personified.

Crowds of carnal miscreants cowered upon flowing floors of gnawing roaches. Phallic-formed demons clawed control of Self and sin. Dismembering mouths fell upon terror-quivering flesh with teeth of rust and barbed wire-lips. Mouthed palms spat out torn and swallowed manhoods as rusty meat grinders pulp organs, cock, balls and all.

Long diseased wired hooks held open mine mouth displaying teeth shut tight like the Walls of Jericho. The hand of a six-fingered demon did crush mine toothen wall as were parchment dry and old. Unfinished they endeavored to sate my amorous appetite with mine own ground organs and manhood. Flesh and fluid did run down my throat with arousing displeasure and erotic sin.

A Templar’s blade of pain tore across mine form as Self and soul floated away like a forgiven confession. A warm healing glow filled my thoughts and restored my Self. Embosomed in golden light, cocooned in faith I closed my eyes.

A din, as familiar as Sunday bell, stabs my mind to consciousness.

Fear-focused orbs fall on signage old and faded. “Mars” and “VI” read sprawled in guts and gore, blood and sinew. Red-tempered souls thrashed and tore at clinging nets of burning barbs. Instruments of war and implements of hate flay anger from man and mate. Beyond a haze thick of strife and deep of smoke stood Angry Moloch; sword and shield, bones of steel. Odious eyes of slicing blades cut through sins of hate and battle of war. Purging trammels of flaming hooks and wailing devils of scorching horns tore rage and war from soul and Self. Swarms of blackest bees, buzzing on red wings, tore from my chest, feeding the earless and sustaining the eyeless.

With holes in my soul and tears in my sanity I was carried from that place of hate and horror by hands of peace and honor.

The Betrayer let me down. With gentle ease I descended.

Writhing leeches greeted my bare soles with sin-hungry fangs.

Mine Self looked up at the high sign, above the road beyond reach or bow. “Saturn” and “V” met mine eyes from judgmental heights. Headless souls filled with feces loomed down with grim-grinned grimaces mouthed upon their chests; their bodies covered in feces. Idle children consume parental hands with selfish glee and tormentor’s delight. Fathers’ cries and Mothers’ moans passed ‘tween hollow ears. Mine body did become as lead, my legs as straw. Heavy guilt weighed down through tear-drenched flesh. Fell I did most far to the distant floor of rotting coffins. Sickened I knelt over regurgitating the ingested fingers of my own progenitors.

Helplessly and hopelessly did I lay upon the stillness of my own rotting sins.

With clockwork whirls and clicking gears Loafish Belphegor’s throne of bronzed pride crushes over sinful souls and broken bones. Pipes and steam, spike-wheeled screams. A casting of his ebon wand sunk mine form through serpent-thick grounds of mud and sand like dead weight upon wintery waters. Slow swirling , tar-pool orbs never abandoned their scrying squares invading others’ lives and those who never truly were.

As rot and gore and flesh-of-Earth poured over eyes and ears and mouth I cried out for Judas. I cried out for Salvation.

I cried out…

One last time.