My surrender was absolute. The thought of Rohan and Avi enduring this… it was a lever that broke my will completely. When Katha came for me, I didn’t fight. I let her take me. But before she could cast me back into Maya’s suffering, I had to ask. The questions had been tearing at me, a desperate need for some kind of logic in this cosmic madness.

“Katha, wait,” I said, my soul-form trembling before her.

“Please. I need to understand.”

She tilted her head, her expression unreadable. “Ask.”

“This place… this path… is this for everyone?” I asked, my voice small. “I mean, we are Hindus. Is this Hindu Hell? What about Christians, or Muslims, or people who don’t believe in anything? Do they go somewhere else?”

Katha’s response was immediate and chillingly simple. “You think the universe cares what you call yourself? You think the law of gravity checks your passport before it pulls you to the earth? This is not about religion, Dimple. This is about Dharma. It is the law.

The law of cause and effect. The law of action and consequence. It is older than every faith you have ever heard of. It is the operating system of the cosmos.”

She gestured to the desolate landscape around us. “A man can call God by a thousand names. Allah, Jesus, Krishna, or even The Universe. The name does not matter. The law only cares what you do. Do you spread love, or you spread hate? Do you create joy, or do you create pain? A man who lives a life of compassion and service, no matter what he calls himself, will find a peaceful path. A man who lives a life of selfishness, betrayal, and cruelty will walk this road. His God cannot save him from his own actions. He is his own actions.”

Her words stripped away all my cultural certainty. This wasn’t a story from my grandmother’s books. This was a universal, inescapable truth.

“So a good person…” I whispered, my mind latching onto the only branch of hope it could find. “A truly good person… what is their journey like? For them… for Rohan and Avi…”

For the first time, a flicker of something like sadness touched Katha’s icy features.

“The path is a mirror, Dimple. It reflects what is inside the soul. For a virtuous soul, one whose heart is pure, this journey is not a torment, but a procession.”

“The Yamduts,” she explained, “do not appear as monsters. To the pure soul, they are radiant guides, their faces beautiful and serene. They come not with ropes, but with garlands of flowers. The path is not of spikes, but is smooth and cool, shaded by wish-fulfilling trees that rain down fragrant blossoms. The river Vaitarna is not a torrent of filth, but a gentle stream of sweet nectar. The sixteen cities are not places of punishment, but cities of honor, where the soul is welcomed as a hero and praised for its good deeds. The journey is a celebration of a life well-lived.”

The contrast was so beautiful, and so brutal, it made me weep. The path of flowers and nectar was what Rohan deserved. It was what Avi, my innocent boy, deserved. The thought of them walking this road of spikes instead… because of my failure… it was a pain sharper than any physical torment.

“The soul creates its own heaven and its own hell long before it dies, Dimple,” Katha said, her voice now flat and devoid of emotion again. “Here, it simply has to live in the house it built for itself.” She pointed toward the path. “Your daughter built a house of pain. It is time for you to return to it.”