The Journey Beyond
The Rainbow Bridge and the Path to Vega
When Rohan’s heart took its final beat, he felt no fear. Just a sudden lightness, like a leaf caught in a gentle breeze. He hovered above his lifeless body, watching the hospital room fill with frantic activity. But none of it mattered anymore.
He drifted, silent and unseen, through the world he had known. For sixteen hours, he lingered. He watched his wife sob over his hand, watched his daughter whisper prayers, and watched his dog, Buzo, whimper and pace near the door, sensing the emptiness.
As the final minute of the sixteenth hour ticked away, the world around him changed. A swirling darkness pulled him gently, like a river into a cave. It was not frightening—but ancient, mysterious. The cave stretched endlessly, carved from obsidian and silence. Rohan floated forward, feeling each moment grow heavier with meaning.
Then, ahead—light. Blinding, golden, and warm. It was the light of a thousand suns, and it didn’t burn. It embraced. It revealed.
Before him shimmered a glowing arch, crystalline and shimmering with colors that danced like mist—the Rainbow Bridge.
On the other side stood creatures. Animals. Familiar and unfamiliar. A kitten he once rescued, wagging its tail like a dog. A bird he had fed every morning on his balcony. A cow from his village he had caressed in childhood. And Buzo—young again, eyes shining like moonlight.
They stepped forward together, joy radiating from them. The kitten brushed against his leg. The cow bowed its head. The bird chirped a song of welcome.
But among the gentle faces were others. Animals whose eyes held sorrow, or anger. A crow he once chased as a boy. A dog he had kicked in fear. A snake he had crushed beneath his boot.
They blocked the bridge.
The animals he had loved spoke with no words—only feeling. “You may cross.”
But the ones he had harmed growled, eyes burning. “He cannot pass freely.”
Suddenly, Buzo stepped forward. He barked—not in threat, but in defense. One by one, the kind animals surrounded Rohan, forming a circle of forgiveness. The angry ones, though unwilling, stepped aside, snarling but retreating. Rohan crossed the bridge, trembling.
As he stepped onto the other side, he was lifted upward—not by wings, but by light itself. Through clouds of stardust and chords of music he could not hear with ears, he was carried to a brilliant blue world far beyond the Earth.
The planet Vega.
There, beneath a vast sky of silver moons, stood the God of Death—not a demon, not a skeleton, but a towering figure made of stars and silence. Its eyes saw all. Not just Rohan’s deeds, but his thoughts. His regrets. His unspoken kindness. His ignored cruelties.
"You are a soul woven from light and shadow," said the God, its voice like a river over stones.
"You have caused pain. And you have given love. For each, there is balance. But for the pain... punishment is due."
And so began the Karmic Trials.
He walked barefoot across fields of thorns—each thorn a lie he had spoken. He drank water made bitter by every broken promise. He wept beneath trees where the leaves whispered the names of those he had hurt.
But not all was despair.
Every year, on Earth, his daughter lit a lamp for his soul. She chanted ancient mantras. His wife fed the poor in his name. Each act of love sent beams of light to Vega, easing his burden, cooling the fires.
The God of Death watched.
“Your debt is not forgotten, but it is softened,” it said.
Some souls, he was told, would remain in Vega—a land of peace, where the air hummed with harmony. These were the enlightened, those whose karmic accounts were settled. They became guides, whispering into the dreams of mortals.
Rohan, however, had one more path to walk.
“You will return,” the God said, “Not as punishment, but as promise.”
He felt his soul drawn once more, toward a cradle waiting in a small village in Kerala. There, a child would be born under the light of Vega, with a strange love for animals and an old sadness in his eyes.
And somewhere near that house, a stray dog would bark once at the sky, wag its tail, and sit at the gate—waiting.
