How Can Dead Souls Cry Out from Under the Altar?

And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had. And they cried with a loud voice and said: Until when, O holy and true Ruler, do You not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And to each of them a white garment was given, and it was said to them that they should rest yet a short time, until also the number would be complete of their fellow-servants and their brothers, who would be killed just as they were.
Revelation 6:9-11 NBG51

Here we read of souls under the altar that had been slaughtered and that cry out. They are rightly “sacrafices.” Under a literal altar, literal blood of offerings is seen. But in this vision there is a figurative altar, and there no blood is seen, but souls are seen. Soul and blood are synonymous in biblical usage.

for the soul of the flesh, it is in the blood, and I Myself have assigned it to you to make a propitiatory shelter over your souls on the altar; for the blood, because of the soul, it makes a propitiatory shelter…
Leviticus 17:11

Blood can also “speak.”

And He said: What have you done? Hear, the blood of your brother cries to Me from the ground.
Genesis 4:10

… and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks more powerfully than Abel.
Hebrews 12:24

The cry for vengeance of the souls under the altar (in Revelation 6) can be understood in the same way as Abel’s blood, which at the time also “cried.” Not literally, therefore, but figuratively.

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