Despair

There is another dream my mind revisits. An evil, feverish dream... I am walking on the cobblestones beside the Mississippi River, and it is twilight time. As I pause to watch the water rushing by, I see something move in the darkness. It's an apparition of some sort, a man who is only half there. His face seems familiar. The ghost begins to move until it is out of view behind a floodwall. The dream asks me to follow this spirit, and I do. I climb the barriers beyond the area deemed safe. There are still cobblestones beneath my feet, but I am much closer to the river now. It mists my face like ocean waves, and it smells of catfish. The stones I am walking on are wet and greasy and this path is sloping ever downward. But I can still make out the spirit ahead. It keeps rounding brick walls, yet at all times the river follows at my right.
The cobblestones slowly turn into stairsteps as the sky grows darker, and from somewhere I have produced a lighted torch. The ground levels out below, and there at the bottom stands the faded spirit, close to the crawling river's edge. As I reach flat ground I wave the torch and see myself surrounded by many shades, faded people who don't seem to notice me. Now the spirit I have followed puts on a pair of thick glasses, and I recognize him as my grandfather. I am mortified, yet I see that he cannot speak to me, and I am too unsure to say anything to him.
A small light is now moving across the surface of the water, and as it draws near, I can see that it is a lamp hanging from the bough of a small boat. And standing in the boat is a tall cloaked figure clutching a long pike, which he sweeps like an oar. He approaches the bank, and my grandfather's spirit moves to enter the boat. I plead with this Charon-figure to allow me to ride. My grandfather gives the ferryman coins and they both wave me in.
We glide across the surface of the river, which seems completely placid save for the occassional eel or tentacle that roils to the surface, and the sky has changed to a violent neon color. Everything is lit vibrant, but still there are shadows everywhere. I squint downriver at the opposite shore to see if I can spy our destination... I stare and then I know. There is a forest of spiky trees and atop them, men and women impaled, writhing in agony yet dim and hardly present at all. I have to squint to see, but I spy a large mountainous terrain with a large fortress built into it and in the center, a collosal door that has begun to opun for us. The river rushes in to flow through it, and now I see that the river is pure blood. Our ferry's destination is the Underworld.
I become frightened and I plead with my grandfather's silent spirit. I explain to the ferryman that my grandfather was a good man when he was alive and that I myself am still among the living. Neither of us belong in this place. Neither the ferryman nor the spirit move and we are about to pass through the doors of this hell. Seeing no other way out, I leap out of the boat into the warm river of blood and struggle to swim against the current. I exert all my strength to push against the rushing crimson waters. I swim past other sullen shades who moan and drown beneath the waves, but I have the advantage of being alive and my pace is stronger. I finally reach a tiny island of moss and dead trees. I climb up the brittle branches and survey my surroundings, but it is too dark too see my way out, and the river seems like an ocean with no banks. I do not even know the direction of the hellmouth I swam away from. I wrap myself around the slimy limbs and try to sleep, but I know that there will be no dawn to wake me up...