After what felt like an eternity of being torn apart and remade in Sauripur, the Yamduts dragged me from the city. The journey resumed. We walked through a landscape of despair, my soul still screaming with the phantom pain of iron teeth. After another timeless stretch of walking, we came to a forest.

It looked almost peaceful from a distance. Tall, slender trees with broad, dark green leaves. But as we drew closer, I saw the truth. The forest was called Asipatravan. The Forest of Sword-Leaves.

The leaves were not made of plant tissue. They were long, razor-sharp blades of dark, polished steel, sharpened on both edges. They trembled in a wind that made no sound, their edges catching the dim light with a menacing gleam. The Yamduts did not walk through the forest. They dragged me into it.

“Every lie you have ever told,” one of them hissed, “every secret you have kept, every time you have twisted the truth for your own gain… now you will feel what your words did to others.”

He yanked the rope, pulling me off my feet and dragging me through the undergrowth. The sword-leaves sliced at my naked soul-body. They were not clean cuts. They were deep, gouging wounds that tore through my spiritual flesh. The pain was sharp, shocking, and relentless. I was being flayed alive by a thousand tiny swords.

With every cut, a memory.

Slice. A deep gash across my back. I remember being Dimple, on the phone with my boss, telling him I was sick so I could meet Sameer for lunch. The casual, easy lie. Now I felt its cut.

Slice. My arm is laid open to the bone. I remember being Maya, telling my father I had finished my homework when I had spent the entire evening on social media. The lie felt harmless then. Now it had a razor’s edge.

Slice. A cut across my face, near my eye. I remember being Dimple again, telling Priya that I loved the dress she bought, while secretly thinking it was hideous. A small, white lie to protect her feelings? No. Here, it was just another wound.

The forest was not silent. Vultures, their feathers the color of dried blood and their beaks made of hooked iron, sat on the branches. As I was dragged past, bleeding from a thousand cuts, they would swoop down. They didn’t just peck. They tore. They ripped strips of my flesh away, their iron beaks shockingly strong. My screams were music to them.

I tried to stand, to run, but every movement just brought me into contact with more sword-leaves. It was a choice between the agony of being dragged and the agony of moving myself. There was no escape.

I lay on the forest floor, a shredded ruin, as the vultures feasted. Then, the Yamduts would drag me onward, my body healing just enough to be sliced open again by the next set of trees. This was the forest of lies. This was the price of every untruth, big or small. And as I looked ahead, I saw that the forest stretched on, far beyond the horizon.

Index of: Journey Of Hell: The Unforgotten Promise

• A Warning to the Reader
• A Mother’s Testimony
• Chapter 1 The God of Small Betrayals
• Chapter 2 The Sins of a Mother
• Chapter 3 The Soul and The Body
• Chapter 4 the Road of a Thousand Regrets
• Chapter 5 A Desert of Burning Rage
• Chapter 6 The Prison Before Birth
• Chapter 7 A River of Self
• Chapter 8 The Twelve-Day Ghost
• Chapter 9 The Refusal
• Chapter 10 The Universal Law
• Chapter 11 The City of Hounds