Journey Of Hell | CH:41 (Sarameyadana, The Feast of the Dogs)

When Katha returned me to my body, the foul taste of Lalabhaksa lingered in my soul. My bedsheets were soaked with sweat. I felt stained, defiled, and hollowed out. There was no more rebellion in me, only a grim, bone-deep weariness and the cold resolve to see this through. The purpose Katha had given me was my only lifeline in this ocean of horror.

The plunge back into Maya’s soul was no less violent, but my landing was different. I was no longer just a terrified passenger. I was an observer, a student of this terrible place, noting every detail for the testimony I was condemned to write.

The Yamduts dragged me from the banks of that vile river. The landscape changed once more. The cloying smell was replaced by the dry scent of dust and old bones. We were on a vast, barren plain. There were no trees, no rocks, nothing but a flat, dusty ground that stretched to a horizon that seemed to shimmer with menace.

“This Naraka is called Sarameyadana,” the voice of a Yamdut ground in my consciousness.

“The Feast of the Dogs. It is for those who poison, who plunder, and who burn. For the arsonist who sets fire to a home. For the official who poisons the public well. For the robber who sacks a village. For the powerful who destroy the lives and livelihoods of others for their own gain.”

I looked around the empty plain, confused. Where was the torment?

Then, I heard it. A low, rumbling growl that seemed to come from the horizon itself. The ground began to vibrate. I looked out, and I saw a cloud of dust rising in the distance. A massive cloud, moving towards me with an impossible speed.

It was not a dust storm. It was a pack.

There were hundreds of them. The scripture says seven hundred and twenty. They were monstrous dogs, larger than wolves, their fur a matted, mangy black. Their eyes were pits of fire, and their teeth… their teeth were not iron this time. They were like jagged diamonds, glistening with a terrifying light. They were vajra, the scripture called them. Unbreakable.

They were not the feral beasts of Sauripur. These were soldiers. An army of divine punishment. And I was their target.

They did not surround me. They charged. It was a wave of black fur and diamond teeth. There was no time to scream, no time to run. They hit me like a tidal wave, and the world dissolved into a chaos of absolute, overwhelming pain.

Their diamond teeth did not just tear. They shattered. I felt my spiritual bones, my very essence, being cracked and splintered. They did not eat me with hunger; they devoured me with righteous fury.

Memory. The pain brings a vision. I am Dimple, sitting in a sleek boardroom. I am leading a hostile takeover of a smaller company. I am using every dirty trick in the book. Spreading false rumors to crash their stock price. Poaching their key employees. Poisoning their reputation with their clients. I am burning their village to the ground, not with fire, but with spreadsheets and legal documents. I remember the thrill of the victory, the feeling of power as I stood on the ruins of my competitor’s business.

Memory. I see Rohan. He is on the phone with his old business partner, the one he cheated. The partner is begging, his voice thick with tears. “You’ve ruined me, Rohan,” he sobs. “You’ve taken everything.” Rohan’s face is a mask of cold indifference. “It’s just business,” he says, before hanging up. He had plundered his friend’s life, leaving him with nothing.

Here, in Sarameyadana, the consequences of that kind of modern warfare were made real. We had been the corporate arsonists, the financial plunderers. And now, these dogs, these agents of Dharma, were the embodiment of the lives we had destroyed.

One of them, its diamond teeth dripping with my own spiritual essence, looked me in the eye. And in its fiery gaze, I saw the face of the junior colleague whose career I had sabotaged. Another had the eyes of Rohan’s betrayed partner. Another had the face of a small shopkeeper we had driven out of business.

They were the souls of our victims, given a form with which to exact their perfect, lawful revenge.

They devoured me completely, shattering my soul into a million pieces. And then, I was made whole again, standing on the dusty plain, just in time to see the terrifying cloud on the horizon, charging towards me once more. This was Sarameyadana. It was a place where you are not just punished for your sins. You are punished by your sins. And they are very, very hungry.

Index of: Journey Of Hell: The Unforgotten Promise

Piyu4k

Journey Of Hell | CH:41 (Sarameyadana, The Feast of the Dogs)

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