I woke from the memory of my own dismemberment, my body drenched in a cold sweat. The phantom aches were so real I could barely move. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, and a new kind of despair washed over me. It was not fear. It was hopelessness.

What was the point?

If my husband, the man I thought was so good, was a sinner destined for this path… if my daughter was… if I was… then who wasn’t? The whole world was filled with flawed, broken people telling small lies and committing small betrayals. Was everyone walking this road?

When Katha appeared, I didn’t wait for her to speak.

“I don’t want to go tonight,” I said, my voice flat, devoid of the fire of my previous rebellion. This was a deeper exhaustion. “I don’t see the point of this book anymore.”

Katha tilted her head. “Explain.”

“You said it yourself,” I said, sitting up, the words spilling out in a bitter rush. “This law is universal. It doesn’t care about religion. But people do. Christians believe they go to Heaven or Hell based on their faith in Jesus. Muslims believe in their own Day of Judgment. My own friends believe in reincarnation, that we just come back to learn new lessons. Nobody believes in this. This… meticulous, brutal accounting. So who is this book for? Who will believe it? If everyone is a sinner, and everyone has their own story about what happens after death, then what am I doing this for? Why am I enduring this if it will change nothing?”

I expected her cold fury, the terrifying version of her from before. Instead, her expression was calm, her voice patient.

“You think truth requires belief, Dimple? Does gravity require your belief to hold you to the Earth? Does fire require your belief to burn you? The Law is the Law, whether a person believes in it or not. Their belief is irrelevant to the consequence.”

She drifted closer to my bed. “You ask who this book is for. It is not for the devout of other faiths.

It is not for the staunch atheist. It is for the millions just like you. The ones who are ‘spiritual but not religious’. The ones who pick and choose convenient beliefs. The ones who think that because they are ‘good people’ in the eyes of society, the small sins don’t count. The ones who think that God, however they define Him, is a doting grandfather who will overlook their transgressions because their intentions were ‘mostly good’.”

“This book,” she said, her voice dropping to an intense whisper, “is a bucket of ice water for a world that is comfortably asleep. It is not to convert them to a new religion, but to awaken them to the reality of their own actions. Most will not read it. Many who do will dismiss it. But some… a few… will feel the cold dread of truth in its pages. They will see themselves in your betrayals, in Maya’s despair, in Rohan’s secrets. And they might… just might… change their path.”

A new question, born of a desperate, flickering hope, surfaced. “But what about those who already have? People who have lived bad lives… like me… like Rohan… can a person change? Or is it too late? Is the account already written?”

Katha’s gaze held mine. It was not a comforting gaze, but it was direct. “The debt for past actions must always be paid, Dimple. The law is absolute. What is done is done, and it has a consequence. That cannot be erased.”

My heart sank.

“But,” she continued, her voice sharp, “the soul can stop accumulating new debt at any moment. At any second, a person can choose a different path. They can choose kindness over cruelty, truth over lies, compassion over selfishness. A person who has lived ninety-nine years as a sinner can, in their hundredth year, live as a saint. They will still face the consequences of those ninety-nine years, but their new, virtuous deeds will create merit. And merit is the only thing that can ease the journey. It is the food that can satisfy the ghost’s hunger. It is the toll that can be paid at the city gates. It is the shield that can lessen the blows of the Yamduts.”

“It is never too late to stop making things worse, Dimple,” she said.

“It is never too late to start building a better path for the future, even if you must first walk the agonizing road of your past. That is the point of this book. To convince one person, just one, to stop digging their hole deeper. To choose a different way, right now, in this very moment.”

Her words didn’t offer comfort. They offered a terrifying, stark purpose. The weight of it was immense, but it was better than the void of hopelessness. I had a job to do.

“It is time,” she said. And I knew she was right.

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
• Chapter 12 A Forest of Lies
• Chapter 13 The Weight of the World
• Chapter 14 The Price of Meat