That night, Karangtengah was struck by the same nightmare all at once, in nearly every house.
Andini woke up gasping for breath, cold sweat dampening her forehead. In her dream, she had seen a black, mist-shrouded figure spreading from the peak of Bukit Kemuning, crawling down toward the village like smoke searching for something to burn. She had heard voices—faintly familiar screams, like echoes from eighty years ago, when the plague first attacked this village.
She had barely begun to steady her breathing when a loud thud came from outside the house, followed by the panicked shouts of her neighbors.
Andini ran outside, and what she saw made her blood run cold.
Three of Pak Slamet's goats lay sprawled in the yard, dead without warning, foam bubbling from their mouths, their eyes wide open as if they had seen something horrifying before death claimed them.
"It's just like before," whispered an old woman among the growing crowd, her voice trembling. "Exactly like they told it during the first plague. The animals died first, before the people started getting sick."
The news spread quickly throughout the village. By dawn, three more houses had reported the same thing—livestock dying suddenly for no apparent reason, several villagers complaining of sudden high fevers, and most alarming of all, two young children at the far end of the village suddenly losing consciousness. Their eyes were open but empty, as if they were asleep with their eyes still awake.
Andini ran to the dance studio as fast as she could, her heart pounding with a fear unlike anything she had ever felt before.
She found Branjangan standing in the middle of the dance studio, his form fainter than it had been the day before, like a candle flame with only a little time left before it went out completely.
"It has awakened," Branjangan said as soon as he saw Andini enter, his voice heavy with something that sounded like despair. "The plague spirit. It hasn't fully risen yet, but it's conscious enough to start seeking victims again."
"The children who passed out—"
"It's trying to absorb what little strength they have left," Branjangan cut in, his face tightening. "Eighty years ago, it did the same thing before it fully rose. If it manages to awaken completely—"
"How long?"
"I don't know for sure," he answered honestly. "But my anchor is holding back only a third of the strength it should be able to contain. If that heavy machinery reaches the dance studio tomorrow as planned and destroys this sacred ground, my last anchor will be severed completely. And once that happens, it will be entirely free."
Pak Marto, Mbah Kartareja, and most of the village elders gathered at the dance studio that morning. All their faces looked the same—pale and frightened, yet also filled with hope directed at a single person.
"Nduk," Mbah Kartareja said softly, "we won't force you. You've heard everything you need to know. But we can't lie either—we don't have much time left."
Andini looked around the room at the faces of people she had known all her life, now placing their hopes in her even though none of them had said so directly.
She turned toward Baskoro, who stood in the corner of the room, his face tense but his eyes full of support, even though Andini knew how difficult this was for her friend.
She turned toward her mother, who had just arrived, still out of breath from running from home. But there were no words of prohibition in her eyes anymore—only the concern of a mother who trusted her daughter to make her own choice.
Finally, she turned toward Branjangan, the figure who had waited for eighty years, who even on the brink of his own destruction was still holding himself back from forcing her.
"If I decide to complete the Closing Movement now," Andini said quietly, her voice firmer than she had thought she could make it, "how likely is it that I'll end up like the dancer before Grandma?"
The room fell completely silent, waiting for Branjangan's answer.
"I can't promise you anything," he answered honestly, never looking away from Andini's gaze. "But I can promise you one thing—if you choose this, I will protect you with everything I have so you remain yourself until the end. I won't let you disappear, Andini. Whatever it costs me."
Andini drew a deep breath, feeling the full weight of the decision she had to make that night—not a decision forced on her by anyone, not one made solely because time was running out, but a decision born from her own understanding of what was at stake and what she believed was worth fighting for.
"Then," she said, looking at everyone in the room one by one before finally meeting Branjangan's eyes again, "I will complete the Closing Movement. Not because I'm being forced to. But because this is my choice—for this village, for my family, and for you."
A collective sigh of relief rose from the room, but Andini knew this was only the beginning, not the end of their struggle.
Outside the dance studio, the night wind suddenly turned cold, and from the direction of Bukit Kemuning's peak, a long howl that came from no animal echoed throughout the village—a sign that something that had slept for eighty years was finally beginning to open its eyes.