Journey Of Hell | CH:53 (The Final Bargain)

As the last word was written, the pen fell from my numb fingers. My work was done. I was empty.

The soft, pearlescent light filled the room. Katha was standing before me, her face a mask of calm, cosmic neutrality.

“It is done,” she said.

“Yes,” I whispered, my throat dry. “The book is finished. The pact is fulfilled.” I looked at her, my heart a frantic bird in a cage of ribs, a desperate, fragile hope I thought had been extinguished, flickering back to life. “My family,” I said, my voice cracking. “Rohan. Avi. Maya. You promised.”

“I do not break my promises, Dimple,” Katha said. “The terms of the pact have been met. Your family will be returned to you.”

A sob of pure, unadulterated relief tore from my throat. It was a sound of a dam breaking after a lifetime of pressure. I fell to my knees, my head bowed, weeping with a gratitude so profound it was a physical pain. “Thank you,” I cried, over and over. “Thank you.”

“They will be returned to Earth,” Katha continued, and her voice, calm and clear, cut through my joyful tears like a sliver of ice. “They will live out full lives. But there is a condition, Dimple. A law of the cosmos you must understand. When a soul is given a new life, the memory of the past is wiped clean.”

I looked up, a cold dread beginning to seep into the warmth of my relief, chilling it from the inside out.

“They will forget this place,” she stated, each word a carefully placed stone sealing a tomb. “They will forget their torment. They will forget your sacrifice. They will return to their old natures, with all their flaws and weaknesses. Rohan, with his pride and his secrets. Maya, with her despair and her casual cruelties. They will live life exactly as they used to be, oblivious. Is this an acceptable outcome for you, Dimple? A temporary reprieve, only for them to commit new sins and risk this path all over again when they die?”

The room grew cold. The truth of her words was a brutal, horrifying weight. My sacrifice, this whole journey of witnessing and writing, would be for nothing but a temporary stay of execution.

It was a cosmic loophole that fixed the body but left the soul diseased. Returning them to their old lives was just resetting the clock on their damnation. It was the cruelest, most hollow victory imaginable.

“No…” I whispered, the word catching in my throat, a dry leaf of sound. “No, that is a worse hell than any I have seen.” The image of them, laughing and living, but walking blindly back towards the same fire, was an agony beyond any physical torment I had witnessed.

I fell forward, my forehead touching the cold floor, not in defeat, but in a final, desperate prayer. “Katha… I understand now,” I said, my voice muffled by the carpet. “The promise was for their souls. Not for their bodies. I do not want them back for myself, to be the broken people they were. I want them to be safe. Forever.”

I looked up, my eyes clear and burning, my voice steady with a purpose that dwarfed all my previous resolve. “I have a final bargain to offer.”

“The pact is complete,” Katha said, her voice softening, a hint of sorrow in its depths.

“No. This is the real pact,” I insisted, pushing myself to my feet. “This is the only one that matters. Take the merit of this book. Take the merit of my suffering. But do not return my family to Earth. Do not return them to me. Return them to God. Let them find peace in His eternal abode, where there is no more sin, no more suffering, no more cycle of birth and death. Their eternal peace is more important than my temporary possession of them. Let that be my unforgotten promise.”

A profound silence filled the room. Katha looked at me, her ancient eyes seeing not just a sinner, but a mother performing the ultimate act of selfless love. This was true detachment. This was a merit beyond any she had recorded.

She was still for a long, long time. Then, she slowly, deliberately, nodded her head.

“The Law is about balance, Dimple,” she said, her voice filled with a strange, resonant awe.

“An act of such perfect, selfless love creates a new and powerful balance. The bargain is accepted. Their debt is paid. They will go to the Lord.”

A wave of joy so pure, so overwhelming it was a light that extinguished all darkness, flooded my soul. I had done it. They were safe. Truly safe.

Index of: Journey Of Hell: The Unforgotten Promise

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Journey Of Hell | CH:53 (The Final Bargain)

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