The questions I had asked Katha gave me a grim purpose, but no comfort. The moment she touched my forehead, I was plunged back into the abyss. I was dragged from the place of questioning and cast into a new horror.

The air grew thick, humid, and smelled of rot and damp earth. I was no longer on a plain or in a city, but at the bottom of a vast, circular pit. The walls were made of slick, dark soil, and the floor was a writhing, churning mass. It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing.

Worms.

Millions upon millions of them. They were not the small earthworms of my garden. They were pale, thick, and glistening, some as long as my arm, others as small as maggots. The entire floor of the pit was a living carpet of them, writhing over and under each other in a single, colossal organism of hunger.

This was Krumibhojan. The Hell of Worms.

This was Krumibhojan. The Hell of Worms.

“This Naraka is for the selfish,” the Yamduts’ voices echoed from the walls of the pit. “For those who ate without sharing. For those who honored no guests, fed no poor, and turned away the hungry from their door. For those who did not perform the sacred duty of the five great sacrifices, but lived only for their own stomach.”

Before I could process the words, they threw me from the small ledge I was on into the center of the pit.

The landing was not hard. It was soft, squirming, and utterly vile. I was waist-deep in a sea of worms. They turned their blind, hungry heads toward me as one. And then they swarmed.

It was not a pain of fire or blades. It was a squirming, crawling, burrowing horror. They swarmed over my naked soul-body, their tiny, rasping mouths latching on, chewing, devouring. They crawled into my mouth, my nose, my ears, their bodies filling every orifice. It was an agony of a thousand tiny, relentless bites, but the psychological terror was far worse.

It was the feeling of being consumed, of being turned into food, of being broken down and devoured by the very lowest of creatures.

As they ate me, the memories came.

Memory. I am Dimple, at home. I have bought a box of expensive, imported chocolates. I didn’t tell Rohan or the kids. That evening, after everyone was asleep, I took the box into the bathroom, locked the door, and ate them all myself, hiding the wrapper at the bottom of the bin. The secret, selfish pleasure of it. Now, worms were burrowing into the stomach that I had so selfishly filled.

Memory. I am Maya. It’s lunchtime. My little brother, Avi, is looking at my tiffin box. “Can I have one of your chips, Didi?” he asks, his eyes wide. “No,” I snap, pulling the box away. “Get your own.” I see the look of hurt on his small face. I didn’t care then. I only cared about my chips.

Memory. A beggar, old and frail, is outside the temple. His hand is outstretched. I, Dimple, avert my eyes and walk past, clutching my purse.

I tell myself he is probably a fraud, that he will just use the money for drink. It was an easy lie to justify my own lack of compassion.

In Krumibhojan, every crumb of food I had refused to share, every hungry person I had ignored, every guest I had failed to honor—each one had given birth to a worm in this pit. And now, they were all here, demanding to be fed.

They devoured my spiritual flesh until there was nothing left but a screaming consciousness. Then, my body would be remade, whole again, and the feasting would begin anew. There was no escape. I was simply food. An endless meal for the worms born of my own selfishness.

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
• Chapter 17 The Road to the Court
• Chapter 18 An Interrogation Before Judgment
• Chapter 19 The Hall of Judgment
• Chapter 20 The Book of Deeds
• Chapter 21 The Currency of Hell
• Chapter 22 Tamisra, The Hell of Darkness
• Chapter 23 The Anatomy of a Jailer
• Chapter 24 Andhatamisra, The Betrayer’s Hell
• Chapter 25 Raurava, The Hell of the Hunted
• Chapter 26 Kumbhipaka, The Cook’s Hell
• Chapter 27 The Question of a Beast
• Chapter 28 Kalasutra, The Burning Plain