The journey continued. My nights are now a blur of cityscapes forged from sin, each one a new lesson in the horrifying precision of cosmic law.

We passed through Bahvapad, the City of Calamities, a swirling vortex where all the previous torments were mixed together. One moment I was being crushed by stones, the next sliced by sword-leaves, the next devoured by spectral dogs. There was no rhythm, only chaos. It was, Katha’s voice echoed, the punishment for those who lived a life of chaos, flitting from one desire to the next without thought or discipline.

We entered Dukhada, the City of Sorrow. Here, the pain was not physical. Here, I was forced to feel the pain of others. I felt the sharp sting of betrayal in my friend Priya’s heart when I gossiped about her behind her back. I felt the deep, lonely ache of my son, Avi, when I was too busy on my phone to play with him. It was a city of forced empathy, and it was more painful than any fire.

We walked through Nanakrand, the City of Many Cries, where the air itself was a weapon.

It was filled with the amplified screams of every creature I had ever harmed, from the ant I stepped on to the feelings I crushed with a careless word. The noise was a physical force that tore at my soul.

In Sutapta, I was boiled in oil, the punishment for the heat of anger and jealousy I had carried in my heart. In Roudrapur, the Ferocious City, I was torn apart by my own duplicates, forced to feel the violence of my own cruel words. In Payovarshana, I waded through a river of filth while acid rain fell from the sky, a punishment for every impure thought. In Sitadhya, I was frozen solid in a block of ice, the price for a cold and selfish heart.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of lifetimes, we arrived at the last city on the path. Bahubhiti. The City of Great Fear.

There were no specific torments here. The city itself was the torment. It was a landscape of pure psychological terror, a place that manifested my deepest, most personal fears. For me, it was a city of endless, identical office cubicles under a flickering fluorescent light.

In each cubicle sat a version of Rohan, sexting Priya on his phone. In another, a version of Maya, her face pale and accusing. In another, my boss, telling me I was fired for my incompetence. It was a custom-made hell, designed to break the mind.

As I was dragged through the gates of this final city, a new understanding dawned. The sixteen cities were not the punishment. They were the road. They were the long, agonizing journey to the place where the real punishment would be decided.

We were approaching the court of Yamraj. And the trial was about to begin.

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
• Chapter 15 The Question of Hope
• Chapter 16 The City of Strange Torments