Waking up has become a violent act. My soul is torn from the pit of worms and thrust back into my body, but the sensations linger. I spent the morning convinced I could still feel things squirming beneath my skin, an itching, crawling horror that no amount of scrubbing in the shower could wash away. The memory of being food is not one the mind easily releases.

When night fell, I did not fight it. My purpose, grim as it is, is the only solid thing in my life now. I closed my eyes and waited for Katha.

The plunge was immediate. I was Maya again, my soul-body still bearing the phantom bites of a million worms. The Yamduts dragged me from the stinking pit of Krumibhojan, and the landscape shifted once more. The damp, earthy rot was replaced by a dry, searing heat and the rhythmic, clanging sound of metal on metal.

We were in a vast, cavernous forge. The air was thick with the smell of hot iron and burning coals. All around me, Yamduts stood over anvils, their monstrous forms silhouetted against the glow of fiery pits.

But they were not forging weapons. They were tormenting souls.

This was Sandash, the Hell of Pincers.

In their hands, they held enormous, iron tongs and pincers, the ends glowing cherry-red from the heat of the forges. They would pluck other souls from the ground, their forms writhing and screaming, and with a terrifying, methodical precision, they would begin to tear them apart.

“This Naraka is for thieves,” a Yamdut’s voice boomed over the clang of metal. “Not just the common burglar, but for all who take what is not rightfully theirs. The businessman who cheats his partner. The student who cheats on an exam. The friend who steals another’s idea. The politician who steals the people’s trust.”

They dragged me forward. Two Yamduts grabbed me, holding my soul-body fast. A third approached, holding a pair of red-hot pincers the size of my arm. The heat washed over me, a wave of pure agony before the metal even touched me.

It clamped the pincers onto the flesh of my thigh.

The pain was twofold. First, the searing burn of the hot metal, a fire that seemed to melt my very essence. Then, the Yamdut pulled. The tearing of my spiritual flesh was a pain so deep, so intimate, it felt like my identity was being ripped away. It tore off a piece of me and tossed it onto a pile of glowing embers, where it sizzled and dissolved.

Then, they did it again. And again. Each time, my body was made whole, only to be torn apart anew.

Tear. I see myself as Dimple in my office. A junior colleague, young and bright, has just pitched a brilliant marketing concept in a meeting. Later that day, I am in my boss’s office, presenting the same concept as my own. I remember the thrill of his praise, the satisfaction of stealing her idea and claiming it for myself. Here, a Yamdut’s pincers tear at my stomach, the seat of my ambition.

Tear. I am Maya, a teenager. I am in a shop with my friends. No one is watching. I slip a beautiful, expensive lipstick into my pocket.

The pounding of my heart is a mixture of fear and exhilaration. A small, stupid act of theft. Here, the pincers rip at my hands, the hands that took what was not mine.

Tear. I see Rohan. He is here, too, in another part of the forge, his face a mask of agony. And I see his sin. He is in a business meeting, shaking hands on a deal. I see the numbers on the contract, the way he has cleverly, legally, cheated his partner out of his fair share. The sin of the white-collar thief. Here, there is no legal protection. The Yamduts are tearing at him with their hot pincers, extracting the price of his greed.

They were not just tearing at my flesh. They began to pull at me in a different way. With a smaller pair of tongs, a Yamdut reached into one of the wounds on my arm and pulled. I felt a strange, excruciating stretching sensation, and it pulled out a long, shimmering fiber. It was a nerve. A spiritual nerve. The pain was a white-hot lightning bolt that electrified my entire being. This was the ultimate theft. They were stealing my very ability to feel, replacing it with a singular, unending agony. In the Hell of the Pincers, the thieves of the world have everything taken from them, piece by excruciating piece.

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
• Chapter 29 Krumibhojan, The Hell of Worms