The ink on the King of Tuyul's obsidian term sheet had barely finished evaporating into bluish wisps of ectoplasm before Tama was already rearranging the furniture in Sector Four's communal breakroom.
"Move that altar to the left, Big P. We need better Feng Shui for investor relations," Tama barked, tapping furiously at his holographic dashboard. "If the Q3 projections don't show at least a three-hundred percent increase in fright-engagement, we're going to have to pivot into urban legends about cursed microwave ovens."
The Senior Pocong groaned, dragging his tightly wrapped linen heels across the linoleum floor while pushing a heavy stone offering table. "I have cervical misalignment from three centuries of poor burial posture, Tama. Now I'm doing interior design for a predatory startup. My ancestors are weeping grave dust."
"Your ancestors didn't have to worry about server maintenance costs in the cloud, Big P. Focus on the core metrics," Tama replied without looking up, his translucent fingers flying across the glowing UI. "By tonight, Gentayangan.co isn't just an app; it's a fully realized haunt-economy."
The transition from chaotic, freelance hauntings to a structured, data-driven fright-market hadn't been easy. For centuries, local entities operated on pure intuition—screaming in dark alleys because it felt right, or standing under banyan trees just to maintain tradition. Tama was changing all of that. He had introduced the Scare-Score KPI Matrix, a real-time tracking system that measured physiological panic in mortals via nearby smartphone biometric integration.
Just then, the breakroom door swung open with a dramatic, phantom draft that blew a stack of unpaid soul-tax notices across the room. Strutting inside was the astral plane's most notorious social media sensation, wrapped in a shimmering, emerald-green kebaya that trailed wisps of weeping-willow leaves.
"Listen to me, CEO darling, if my lighting in the new app interface makes me look like an unrendered polygon again, I am deleting my account and haunting your browser history for eternity," Kuntilanak announced, tossing her long, jet-black hair over her shoulder while checking her reflection in a polished brass urn.
"Kuni, babe, you look breathtaking. Ectoplasm is practically glowing on your cheekbones," Tama said smoothly, flashing his best corporate charm offensive. "And nobody is getting unrendered. In fact, we’re pushing your new viral campaign live in ten minutes. We’re dropping the 'Scream-Terror' vertical and moving into lifestyle-horror curation."
Kuntilanak paused, her pale lips parting in genuine intrigue. "Lifestyle-horror? Are we talking minimalist weeping in Scandinavian-designed apartments, or classic graveyard chic?"
"We're talking 'Aesthetic Agony'," Tama declared, projecting a massive floating holographic banner across the room that read: GENTAYANGAN.CO: CURATED CRYING FOR THE MODERN MORTAL. "Instead of just jumping out of a closet and scaring someone into a mild heart attack, our ghosts will provide bespoke psychological hauntings tailored to the victim's exact demographic profile."
The Senior Pocong stopped pushing the stone altar and stared at Tama with hollow, disbelieving eye sockets. "You want us to personalize our trauma delivery? What happened to the good old days of simply rolling down a stairwell with a sickening thud?"
"Disruption happened, Big P!" Tama snapped, leaning forward with manic enthusiasm. "Manual labor doesn't scale. If you roll down a stairwell, you scare one guy and maybe ruin his khakis. But if Kuni here drops a cryptic, algorithmically optimized whisper into a teenager's Bluetooth earbud while they're doom-scrolling at 3:00 AM? That’s high-yield emotional engagement. That drives retention."
Kuntilanak giggled, a chilling, melodic sound that somehow managed to double as a brand-awareness strategy. "I adore it. Can we charge extra for ambient weeping sounds? Gen Z loves sad girl aesthetic."
"We can bundle it with our premium subscription tier," Tama confirmed, tapping a key on his dashboard to lock in the pricing model. "Tier One is free-to-play standard haunting. Tier Two gives mortals custom sleep paralysis demons. Tier Three locks them in their own bathroom with flickering lights and a sponsored brand placement."
"You're a monster, Tama," the Senior Pocong muttered, leaning heavily against the wall. "And I don't mean that in the cool, supernatural sense. You have the soul of a middle-management accountant who died during tax season."
"I take that as a massive compliment," Tama grinned, adjusting his tie. "Now, listen up team. The beta launch at the old abandoned asylum on the outskirts of South Jakarta is in one hour. The King of Tuyul is sending his auditors to check our ectoplasm conversion rates, and if our churn rate is higher than five percent, he’s going to repossess Big P’s burial shroud as collateral."
Kuntilanak gasped, clutching her emerald kebaya in mock horror. "Not the shroud! That vintage linen is the only thing keeping his vertebrae together!"
"Exactly. So failure is not an option," Tama said, his voice dropping into a sharp, decisive executive tone. "Log into the app, sync your location beacons, and let’s show the afterlife how a real unicorn scales."
The breakroom dissolved into a blur of frantic energy as Kuntilanak began reapplying her spectral makeup for maximum engagement and the Senior Pocong reluctantly began practicing his optimized, high-efficiency hop. Tama stood in the center of the chaos, watching the glowing metrics tick upward on his dashboard. The afterlife was finally getting organized, and for the first time since his fatal coronary, Tama felt truly alive.