The morning after the assault, and my subsequent confrontation with Katha, I did not cry. The tears had been burned out of me. I moved with a slow, deliberate purpose. I showered, the water stinging the bruises on my skin. I bandaged the cut on my lip. And then I sat down and wrote, my hand steady. The violation had been a brutal, horrifying baptism. The weak, selfish, pleasure-seeking part of me had been killed. What was left was a core of cold, hard resolve. This book was no longer just a penance. It was my weapon. It was my purpose.

When night fell, I did not wait in fear. I sat on my bed, my back straight, and I waited for Katha. I was a soldier reporting for duty.

She appeared, and for the first time, her eyes held a new light. It was not compassion, not pity. It was acknowledgment. A silent recognition of the change in me. She nodded, once. And she touched my forehead.

The plunge into Maya’s soul was as violent as ever, but I met the darkness head-on. The Yamduts were waiting.

They dragged me from the memory of my own violation and cast me into the next Naraka.

The world shifted. The air grew thick with the coppery scent of blood and the sour stench of cheap liquor. We were in a vast, dark cavern. The only light came from rivers of molten iron that flowed in channels carved into the floor, casting a hellish, orange glow on the scene.

This was Ayahpaan. The Hell of Drinking Molten Iron.

“This Naraka is for those who betray their sacred vows through intoxication,” a Yamdut’s voice boomed, echoing off the cavern walls. “For the Brahmin who, sworn to a life of purity, drinks alcohol. For the warrior or merchant who drinks on holy days, abandoning their duty. For any soul who, in a position of trust, chooses the oblivion of drink over the responsibility they carry.”

The Yamduts dragged me forward. All around me, other souls were being tormented. Yamduts would hold them down, pry their mouths open with iron tools, and pour the glowing, molten iron from the rivers down their throats.

The screams were horrific, a gurgling, sizzling sound of a soul being incinerated from the inside out.

They grabbed me. They forced me to my knees. One held my head back, while another brought a ladle filled with the liquid fire.

“For every duty you abandoned for a drink,” it hissed.

The molten iron poured down my throat. The pain was absolute, a supernova of fire that consumed my tongue, my throat, my stomach, my very essence. My consciousness was erased in a wave of pure, liquid agony.

Then, I was whole again, kneeling, the memory of the fire still burning.

And the visions came, not just of alcohol, but of every form of intoxication we used to escape our duties.

Memory. I am Dimple, at a critical work conference. I am supposed to be networking, representing my company. But the open bar is too tempting.

My words become slurred, my jokes inappropriate. I make a fool of myself and damage a potential business deal. I chose the intoxication of alcohol over my professional duty.

Memory. I see Rohan. It’s the night before a huge exam in his engineering college. His friends come over with a bottle of whiskey. He knows he should study. His future depends on this. But the lure of a night of fun, of drunken laughter, is too strong. He fails the exam. He has to repeat the year. The intoxication of pleasure, chosen over the duty to his own future.

Memory. I am Maya. It’s the day of my brother Avi’s sixth birthday party. I am supposed to be helping my mother, watching the other children. But I am a teenager, bored and sullen. I lock myself in my room, not with drink, but with the intoxicating drama of my social media feeds. I am drunk on gossip and online validation. I hear my mother calling my name, needing my help, but I ignore her. I have abandoned my duty as a daughter and a sister for the cheapest drug of all: the screen.

In Ayahpaan, I understood that intoxication is not just about alcohol or drugs. It is about any pleasure we choose over our responsibility. We can be intoxicated with pride, with ambition, with laziness, with social media. Anything we use to escape our Dharma, our sacred duty, leads to this place.

Here, the Law forces you to swallow the ultimate intoxicant: a river of fire that burns away every excuse, every justification, leaving only the searing, agonizing truth of your own neglected responsibilities.

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
• Chapter 30 Sandash, The Hell of Pincers
• Chapter 31 Taptasurmi, The Hell of Burning Lust
• Chapter 32 The Sin of the Eye
• Chapter 33 Vajrakantak Shalmali, The Hell of the Thorny Tree
• Chapter 34 Vaitarni, The River of Broken Duty
• Chapter 35 Puyoda, The Ocean of Filth
• Chapter 36 Pranarodh, The Hell of Suffocation
• Chapter 37 The Ghost in the Room
• Chapter 38 The Nihilist’s Bargain
• Chapter 39 Vaishasan, The Hell of Hollow Rituals
• Chapter 40 Lalabhaksa, The River of Shame
• Chapter 41 Sarameyadana, The Feast of the Dogs
• Chapter 42 Avichi, The Waveless Hell
• Chapter 43 A Question of Fault