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Journey Of Hell | CH:23 (The Anatomy of a Jailer)

I woke up on my bedroom floor, my cheek stuck to the cold wood. The blackness of Tamisra still clung to the edges of my vision, a suffocating, oily residue. The memory of unseen things biting and tearing at me, of the random, brutal beatings in the dark, was not a memory. It was a phantom pain that made my whole body ache.

When Katha’s light filled the room, I didn’t have the energy to scream or cry. I was hollowed out. I had questions that went beyond my own fate, questions about the very architecture of this nightmare.

“Katha,” I whispered, my voice a dry rasp. I pushed myself into a sitting position, my body trembling. “I have to know.”

She waited, her silence an invitation.

“The Yamduts,” I began. “On the path, they were just brutes. But in that… that Naraka… they were different. More cruel. What are they? Are they souls like me, being punished with this job? Or are they demons, born to torment?”

“They are neither,” Katha replied, her voice cutting through the gloom. “They are not being punished. They are the punishment. They are agents of Dharma, manifestations of the Law. Think of them as antibodies in the body of the cosmos, attacking the disease of sin.”

“But they are so monstrous,” I said, remembering their twisted forms.

“Their form is a mirror, Dimple. To the virtuous soul, they appear as radiant, beautiful guides. To the sinner, they appear as a reflection of the sinner’s own inner ugliness. Their cruelty is not born of malice, but of perfect, impartial justice. They are simply balancing the scales.”

A cold thought struck me. “What do they eat? They are always hungry. They feasted on my ghostly form. They threatened to eat me on the path.”

“They eat the offerings you make for your dead,” Katha stated simply. “The pind-daan, the food given in charity in the name of the departed—that is their sustenance.

That is the merit that nourishes them and satisfies them. When a soul arrives with merit, the Yamduts are appeased. But when a soul arrives with nothing, as you did… they must feed on the sinner themselves. Their hunger is the hunger of a law that has not been satisfied.”

The weight of my own negligence, of not performing the rites for Maya, for Rohan and Avi, crashed down on me again. I had starved them, and then I had fed the agents of their torture with their own spiritual flesh.

“Then why isn’t this taught?” The question burst from me, filled with a new anger born of despair. “If this is the absolute truth, if this horrifying system is real for every single person regardless of their religion, why is the world so ignorant? Why do our priests and gurus not scream this from the rooftops every day? Why are we fed comfortable stories about reincarnation and learning lessons when this is the reality?”

“Because the world does not want to hear it,” Katha said, her voice sharp and clear. “The truth has always been there, in your most ancient scriptures. But humanity has a genius for ignoring uncomfortable truths.

They prefer the false gurus who sell them easy comfort, who tell them that their desires are sacred and their sins are just life lessons. They prefer the politician who promises them prosperity without morality. They prefer to believe that a ‘good enough’ life is all that is required.”

“This knowledge is not hidden, Dimple,” she said, her gaze piercing me. “It is rejected. The world is a test. And the test is to see who will seek the hard, painful truth, and who will settle for the easy, comfortable lie.”

My heart sank. It was true. I had seen it in my own life, in my friends, in the world I consumed through my phone every day.

“One last question,” I whispered, dreading the answer. “The virtuous… the ones who go through the golden gate. What if their merit runs out? Can they fall from Heaven?”

“Heaven, as you call it, is not eternal,” Katha said, her voice a final, chilling lesson. “It is a temporary reward, a celestial resort where the soul enjoys the fruits of its good deeds.

The length of the stay is determined by the amount of merit in their account. When the merit is exhausted, when the last good deed has been paid out, their time is over. They are cast out of Heaven and fall back into the cycle of birth and death, to be born again on Earth according to whatever karma remains.”

The hopelessness was absolute. Even Heaven was just a temporary stopover.

“Is there no escape, then?” I asked, my voice barely audible. “Is everyone just trapped in this cycle of reward and punishment forever?”

“There is one escape,” Katha said, a strange light entering her eyes. “Moksha. Liberation. To not just go to Heaven, but to merge with God himself. To escape the cycle entirely. But that cannot be earned by merit alone. It can only be granted by the grace of a true, living Satguru, a perfect Master who has the authority to sever the bonds of karma completely.”

Her words hung in the air, a sliver of light in an ocean of darkness.

It was a hope so distant, so impossibly high, I could barely comprehend it.

“But you are not on that path,” Katha said, her voice turning cold again, shattering the moment. “You are on the path of consequence.”

She pointed towards a corner of my room, where a new, swirling black vortex was beginning to form. “The debt for deceiving your husband has not been paid. Tamisra was for thieves. Tonight, you go to Andhatamisra. The Hell of Great Darkness. It is reserved for those who betray a sacred trust.”

Index of: Journey Of Hell: The Unforgotten Promise

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