he Yamduts dragged my soul, a tattered ruin, from the iron embrace of the tailor’s needles in Suchimukha. The workshop of the miser faded into a grey mist, and a new landscape resolved around me. The air grew heavy, thick with a smell that was both acrid and foul, like chemical waste mixed with swamp gas and decay. It was a smell that burned the nostrils and made the soul retch.

We stood on the shore of a vast, bubbling swamp. It was not the river of filth or the ocean of pus. This was a mire of thick, caustic sludge, the color of slate, that popped and hissed as foul gasses escaped its surface. Jagged, crystalline salt formations, sharp as broken glass, jutted out from the muck, and the ground at the water’s edge was a treacherous carpet of bone shards and razor-sharp shells left behind by previous sufferers.

This was Ksharakardam. The Hell of the Caustic Mire.

“This Naraka is for the proud,” a Yamdut’s voice ground out, the sound like stones grating together. “For those who, puffed up with the vanity of their birth, their wealth, or their knowledge, look down upon others

For the arrogant who disrespect the holy, the elder, and the good. You placed yourself above all in life, Dimple. Here, you will be brought low.”

Without another word, they seized me. They didn’t push me in. They dragged me, headfirst, into the burning sludge.

The contact was not a simple burning. It was a corrosive fire. The thick mud clung to me, its acidic properties eating away at my spiritual flesh, dissolving it layer by layer. The sharp crystals and bone shards hidden in the mire tore at me, opening up new wounds for the caustic filth to invade. It was the agony of being simultaneously flayed and dissolved.

They dragged me under the surface, into the suffocating, burning blackness of the swamp’s depths. The pressure was immense, and the pain was a constant, searing fire. For a soul that had spent a lifetime cultivating an image of superiority, this was the ultimate humiliation. I, who had walked in expensive heels on polished floors, was now being dragged through the lowest, most corrosive filth imaginable.

Memory. I am standing in my pristine living room.

In Ksharakardam, the proud are taught the ultimate lesson in humility. Those who live their lives looking down on others must spend an eternity being dragged through the filth beneath their feet.

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
• Chapter 45 Sukaramukha, The Hell of the Unjust
• Chapter 46 Andhakupa, The Dark Well
• Chapter 47 Dandashuka, The Hell of Serpents
• Chapter 48 Avatanirodhan, The Hell of Suffocation
• Chapter 49 Paryavartan, The Hell of Mockery