I awoke from the molten rivers of Ayahpaan, my throat a column of phantom fire. The violation by Sameer had been a brutal, clarifying baptism. The weak, selfish, pleasure-seeking part of me had been killed. What was left was a core of cold, hard resolve. My purpose was my only shield. When Katha came, I was ready.

The plunge was a familiar violence, but my soul met the darkness head-on. The Yamduts were waiting. They dragged me into a new landscape, one that resonated with the cold, brutal efficiency of my former life. The air grew thick with the metallic clang of industry and the sickly-sweet smell of crushed bone and sinew. We were in a vast, cavernous space. All around me, giant millstones, forged from black iron and grooved like monstrous teeth, ground against each other with a deafening, soul-shaking roar.

This was Sukaramukha. The Hell of the Hog’s Mouth.

“This Naraka is for the unjust ruler,” a Yamdut’s voice boomed over the grinding. “For the king who punishes the innocent. For the minister who oppresses the people.

And for you, Dimple. For the manager, the team leader, the CEO—for any soul given power who uses it to crush the lives of those beneath them.”

Before I could protest, they seized me. Other souls, screaming in terror, were being fed into the great mills. I watched as a man who looked like a famous, ruthless CEO was forced between the stones, his soul-body flattened and shredded into a screaming pulp that oozed from the other side.

Then it was my turn. They threw me onto the cold iron slab that fed the mill. The stones drew me in with an inexorable, terrifying force. The pressure began at my feet, a slow, grinding annihilation. It was not a sharp pain, but the absolute horror of being unmade, of my very essence being crushed, atom by atom. The sound was inside my head, a wet, cracking, grinding noise that was the sound of my own spiritual form being turned to paste.

And as the millstones ground my soul, the memories, my corporate sins, were ground into me.

Memory. I am in a boardroom, my face a mask of cool professionalism. I am looking at a spreadsheet. To meet my quarterly budget, I need to “downsize” a department. I see the names on the list. One is a man who has been with the company for twenty years, a loyal, hardworking employee with a family and a mortgage. I know this will ruin him. I don’t care. He is a number. A liability. I sign the paper. His life is crushed so that my report will look good. Now, my own bones are being crushed in return.

Memory. I see Rohan. He is on a conference call with a small supplier, a family-run business. He is deliberately delaying their payment, using his company’s size and power to squeeze them, to improve his own cash flow. I see the memory of the supplier’s pleading emails, of his business eventually going bankrupt. Rohan had crushed him, not with stones, but with invoices and legal threats. Now, somewhere in this same hell, his soul is feeling the same grinding pressure.

The millstones reached my head. My consciousness was extinguished in a wave of pure, pressurized agony. And then, I was whole again, lying on the iron slab, waiting to be fed into the grinder once more. In Sukaramukha, I learned that the bloodless crimes of the boardroom have a price written in blood. Every life you crush with the weight of your authority will one day be the force that grinds your own soul to dust.

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
• Chapter 44 Ayahpaan, The Hell of Molten Iron