"Now then My Child Amit, let's start the trial"
The moment I heard those words, I realized that it was something that would decide the fate of my soul. Either my soul will rest in peace or it will burn in agony in the depths of the abyss for millennia or maybe something else. But one thing is for sure he won't go easy on me.
"Pardon me, my lord but I could not comprehend what that would mean. Kindly elaborate so that I can prepare for what is yet to come." I asked him, shivering from the reverberation of his words.
"As I said, I will judge your soul based upon your actions. I believe that you are familiar with the courtrooms present in your previous world, this 'Divine Courtroom' is similar to that except for one thing which is that everything here will be judged and swayed by me." God said it with a calm expression on his face, and he was no longer grinning, he started to pretend like a real judge, with an emotionless look on his face.
"What am I guilty of? What did I do to be put on a trial? I appealed to god with a tense expression.
"Do you have the courage to claim that you haven't committed a single sin?"
The exact moment after attending to those words, I bowed my head in humiliation. I could no longer look at the god. I was ashamed not because of committing sins but because of asking him that question in the heat of the moment. Usually, I always consider anything with a cool mind. Even if someone is dying, I will first consider the drawbacks of helping the person and if helping the person would cause me completion then I will ignore the situation like I never saw it happen.
"I apologize for my impudence, my lord, it would be kind of you to forgive me. May I ask for an explanation regarding the 'divine courtroom'?" I asked with a cool mind and in a serious but graceful tone. After all, You wouldn't prefer to anger the judge, right?
Also, I am ready to confront my sins and virtues. I wouldn't regret it even if I were to be convicted of being a sinner. I will simply accept and ask for an opportunity to atone for them. That's the least I can do. Furthermore, I'm quite relieved to know that God will judge me, not some avaricious monkeys. If it's God then I will let my feelings burst and I won't have to worry about what people will say since only my lord is here. But still, I'm rather frightened since this is the first time I will be judged not to mention by a God.
"Ahem, you are quite oblivious. The rules are already popping up in front of you. Look over them yourself. You have ten minutes before the trial begins." God said coughing similar to how an old judge on earth would do.
When I looked in front of myself again, I found a scroll-like screen with the title saying, 'Only fools will dare to defy the following rules'. I'm certainly not a fool so rest assured I won't defy a word of it. The screen displayed the following statements:
1)There is only one rule of the 'Divine courtroom' which is; that the judge will create whichever rule he wants and everyone else present in the courtroom will have to abide by it.
2) The following is an explanation of the 'Divine courtroom' as per your request.
The Judgment Bench is the throne of the judge and only the judge is allowed to enter the booth.
The virtuous/ Sinner jury booth is divided into two facets, with each facet consisting of a pot. One pot will show the percentage of dark emotions and the other will show the percentage of pure emotions in one's heart.
The Witness Booth consists of a screen of clouds that will display the part of one's life the judge wants it to display.
The Game of Fate booth contains a planet-sized coin that will be tossed based on the ratio of emotions and the scale of karma. If the coin says yes, then one will be shown some mercy by the god, and vice versa.
The Scale of Karma Booth contains old scales that will weigh your actions and divide them into Sin and virtue.
The Judgment booth is the sixth one where the condemned one is supposed to stand and abide by the judgment of the Great judge.
3) Do not sweat about anything else in the courtroom.
4) Note-. All the above-mentioned rules and instructions can be manipulated by the judge as he sees convenient.
The scroll-like screen disappeared as soon as I finished reading. And I understood the conclusion of that scroll-like thing. It basically said that Everything here depends on the judge's perspective and all the other things are just for decoration.
Apart from the conclusion I thought of, one more thing I found helpful was rule No.3 which said not to sweat about all the other things except the six booths, because there were several imaginary wandering throughout the courtroom which I found attractive and stunning. But I was afraid that they might suddenly turn into ferocious and bloodthirsty beings, you never know what might happen. They say even beautiful flowers have thorns on them.
So I felt relieved to know that the lioness-faced creature having dragon claws, haired like a beautiful maiden, body marks of a cheetah, and the tail of a serpent, was not harmful to me.
Also, the weird-looking peacock was kinda disgusting since it had eyes on the feathers throughout its body and one more at the end of its tail. There even was a creature who looked exactly like a lion but his eyes were emitting fire and it was levitating in the air without wings and had only two legs.
The creature that astonished me the least was the dragon since it looked normal.
But, I gotta say that the seahorse had two faces each on either side and the irony was the seahorse had wings to fly in the air but it still was crawling on the floor. I guess some things never change regardless of the place.
The creepiest creature there was like an octopus without its upper part, all I could see was its eight legs, and every leg was covered with feathers and thorns.
Two more creatures that I thought were breathtaking, were the butterfly, which was exactly like a butterfly but was huge and had dazzling crystals on its wings, and the other one was also built like the butterfly and its axis body was of catfish's, having tentacles around the mouth of gold.
There were many other small creatures but these were the creatures that stood out.
What added to the beauty and magnificence of these creatures was the shiny blue, pinkish, neon, and golden cloak of aura around their bodies. They were shining even more than the moon. A real heavenly experience if I must say.
'So even the gods have weird fantasies' or so, I thought and giggled out loud enough for god to hear me.
"Maintain discipline in the courtroom" God, no, the Judge said in a strict tone to warn me, and then I locked my jaws.
After standing still and worrying about my fate, the time to begin the trial came. The time I spent here felt relatively slower than that of Earth. I feel like it's been nearly 20-25 minutes of Earth, but it's only been 10 minutes if you go according to the judge's time.
"Ahem, we are about to begin the trial to judge the verdict's soul, which is Amit's soul. Amit's past actions and current arguments will decide his soul's fate".
As he struck the hammer against the bench a majestic seat suitable for his unmatchable level appeared and he sat on it. Then as he waved his hand and signaled towards the 'Witness booth' the screen of clouds started displaying a fragment of my past life in which a teenage boy was shown shoplifting and not only once, but the boy did it regularly, and when one day when there was security checking going on at the exit gate of the supermarket, he put the item in the grocery bag of a rather poor looking man and then the police charged that fellow for shoplifting and made him pay fine to the mart. The boy wasn't bothered by the trouble and humiliation the man faced due to his actions and he continued his actions till the mart started using CCTV. The teenage boy was none other than the 13-year-old me.
The screen showed many moments in which I was always shown exploiting others for my benefit, ditching others for my benefit, not helping others, theft, and abusing smaller kids. All these incidents were trivial compared to the next incident that was shown. It portrayed a small boy who was getting beaten by some other guys for stealing their lunch box and other costly belongings. But the one who stole all those things was none other than me. I was bored that day and wanted to experience something interesting. I still remember the next day when I passed by that street, I heard some people talking about how a beggar child died due to some bullies who had beaten him to death. And the most concerning part was that I didn't feel an ounce of guilt and regret.
"Do you have anything to say about these incidents to defend yourself?" Judge asked me in the same serious tone without looking at me.
"I acknowledge that I was responsible for those incidents and hence I have nothing to defend myself, Your Majesty" I answered looking down at the bottom of the cabin.
"Since you have nothing to say, we will move to the next procedure", upon saying that he pointed toward the 'Scale of Karma Booth' which contains the divine scales to evaluate my actions.
The scales started measuring my actions and after the process was concluded, it was clear that the result was not in my favor, it was visible that the scales were leaning on the 'sins' side. It was a close call, you could say that it was 45% in my favor, but still, since the weight of sins was greater, I kinda lost this round too.
"Ummm, so your sins are greater than your virtues, huh?" He said it while noting something in the book, similar to what normal judges do.
"Yes, it seems so, Your Honor. I'm ashamed to accept it." I said in a humiliated tone.
"Now then let's move to measure the proportion of dark and pure emotions inside your heart. If this round also goes against your favor then I'm afraid that it's more probable that the 'Divine judgment' will be harmful to your soul." He said this while showing a bit of concern.
Upon waving his hand toward the 'Virtuous/ Sinner jury booth', the two pots labeled as 'Dark Emotions' and 'Pure Emotions' started gathering the emotions inside my heart that were flowing like a river visible to my eyes. After some time this process too was concluded.
To be frank, before the procedure, I was convinced that even this round would not be in my favor, since I always knew that the negativity encompassing my brain was like an ocean compared to the lake of positivity. But I was astonished that the result was in my favor. To my surprise, the positive emotions I had were 80%, and only 20% of negative emotions were residing in my heart.
Then I realized that the brain and heart are two different organs. What our heart contains is the true image of ourselves which is something we never want to accept. And what our brain houses is the delusional image we create and want to assign ourselves. Even if we hide ourselves in that delusional image, our true self in the heart will never cease to exist.
I always wanted to be a cold-blooded and stone-hearted person. I thought that this world was full of problems, and the only way to escape those problems was to exploit others mercilessly. I wanted to be a sadist and believed that I didn't deserve to be happy. But today I, once again remembered that I still have that old, warm-blooded, soft-hearted, and compassionate self alive inside my heart.
I decided that I would never reject my true self again if I ever got a chance to reflect and atone for my vices, which was looking nearly implausible.
Just when all those thoughts were flooding my mind, without wasting a second the judge said "Looks like this round was in the convict's favor. Before moving to the next procedure, I must emphasize that three factors affect the next process among which the first two are the results of the last two procedures and the third one is luck. If the coin portrays 'Yes' then you will be granted some 'mercy' and if it shows 'No' then I'm afraid that the 'Divine Judgment' will be against you".
"I accept the conditions, My Lord", I said with humility.
After the judge snapped his fingers, the coin started flipping in the 'Game of Fate Booth', and after a minute the coin finally landed on the floor and the result was…
The coin ended up showing 'No', and hence the result was against me. Henceforth, I lost 3 out of 4 procedures which would mean…
"This process ended up going against your favor and here you have 3 out of 4 procedures." He said it while writing something down.
"Hence, this 'Divine courtroom' convicts you as the sinner".Dhum. He struck the hammer against the bench. Tick.. He broke the nip of the pen in his hands after he was done writing. I wondered what the was writing.
The second after he completed his statement, the chains shackled me up which emerged from the bottom of the 'Judgement Booth' in which I was standing. Before I knew it, I was completely immobile.
"The 'Divine Judge' of the 'Divine Courtroom' passes the 'Divine Judgement' that the convict's soul will burn in agony in the depths of the abyss for millennia". He sounded as if he was about to giggle but when I looked at him he was serious then I thought I must be hearing things.
"The 'Divine Judge' of the 'Divine Courtroom' passes the 'Divine Judgement' that the convict's soul will burn in agony in the depths of the abyss for millennia", huh.." I mumbled in a sad and regretful tone. The words used by the judge reckoned with the words I used before the trial. I again felt like he was peeking inside my brain. That is not a big deal for him to accomplish since he is a god, right? Well, I wasn't particularly sad or disappointed since I had already considered that this might happen to me. But one thing that will sting me forever is that only when I decided to reflect and atone for my vices, I was convicted of being a sinner. And I will never get that chance I wanted. This would be the only thing that would bug me in those millennia.
"So as I said , either the 'Divine Judge' of the 'Divine Courtroom' will pass the 'Divine Judgement' that the convict's soul will burn in agony in the depths of the abyss for millennia
OR...