The streetlight at the end of the alley flickered faintly. Dying. Just like the last scraps of sanity in Arka's head.
Rainwater dripped from the ends of his bangs, tracing his temples before falling onto the asphalt, which reflected a dirty orange glow. His shoes squeaked softly. Wet. Heavy. The used cardboard box in his hands was now little more than a heap of soggy pulp. Inside, the photo frame of his late mother still knocked against the coffee mug with its broken handle.
He stopped in front of a gate painted a faded green. His mother's house. The only refuge left after the world had chewed him up and spit him out all day.
But the gate no longer welcomed him.
A thick brass padlock hung from it. New. An iron chain was wrapped tightly around the hinges. Behind the gate, on the white-tiled porch Arka usually scrubbed every Sunday morning, stood two figures. Aunt Mira and Uncle Surya. They weren't taking shelter from the last of the drizzle. They were waiting. Waiting to deliver the final blow.
"What took you so long?" Aunt Mira complained. Her thin, shrill voice pierced the patter of rain. Her hands busily folded a sheet of paper bearing a notary's logo, making sure it was safe inside her imitation leather bag.
Arka stared at the iron chain. His mind went blank. "The gate... it's locked?"
"You still have the nerve to ask?" Uncle Surya stepped forward. His potbelly strained against his batik shirt. He lit a clove cigarette. Its smoke mingled with the scent of wet earth, creating a choking tobacco stench. "Your office already called the house. The police are going to get involved. Are you crazy, Ka? Embezzling billions from a project?"
Arka's chest thundered. Not with anger. With a confusion so dense it nearly smothered him. "That was Rian, Uncle. Rian used Arka's laptop. He... his gambling debts—"
"Where's the key? Give it here." Aunt Mira cut him off. Quickly. Snipping Arka's sentence out of the air. She waved a hand dismissively, as if her nephew's words were a corpse fly. "Don't drag my son into this. Rian's always been a good, godly boy. Unlike you, suddenly greedy and trying to take over Grandpa's land in Bogor. That's why I've been suspicious of your holier-than-thou act from the start."
The pain in Arka's upper abdomen grew sharper. It was no longer a pain on the surface of his skin. It crawled inward, prying his ribs apart from the inside. "This house... it's in Mom's name, Auntie."
"It was," Uncle Surya cut in. He held the cigarette between fingers yellowed by nicotine. "Now it's been collateralized. The bank came by this afternoon. Since you've been implicated in a serious criminal case, the family agreed this asset had to be protected. Transferred. Aunt Mira took care of the deed of gift last week. You're only staying here as a guest."
Taken care of last week.
Those two words echoed. They battered the walls of Arka's skull again and again until it felt ready to split open.
Last week. That meant this plan had been arranged long before Mr. Hendra shoved the termination letter at him that afternoon. Rian had borrowed his laptop. Aunt Mira had persuaded the notary. They had conspired. His own mother's flesh and blood had designed a trap to strip the clothes from his body, leaving him naked in the middle of a storm.
"Open the padlock," Arka whispered. His free hand gripped the iron gate. Green rust bit into his palm. "Arka needs to get his clothes."
"I already told Uncle Surya to throw your clothes in the trash out front." Surya tossed away his cigarette butt, grinding out the ember with the tip of his dress shoe. "Don't bring shame on the whole family. Starting tonight, your name is officially being crossed off the family registration card. The inheritance-relinquishment papers have already been taken care of."
"Crossed off..."
"We don't have a thief for a nephew." Aunt Mira looked him up and down. Her gaze measured him, assessing the last scraps of Arka's dignity, which had now sunk below zero. "Go somewhere far away. Don't contact Rian. Don't use the family name. If you do anything and report Rian to the police, Uncle Surya will be the one to put you away first, using evidence from your office."
Arka did not scream.
No fist came flying.
A person who has been destroyed too many times eventually loses the basic reflex to fight back. Arka simply stood there, frozen. He stared at his mother's younger sister's face. The lines in her wrinkles were so much like the woman who had given birth to him. Yet behind those pores, there wasn't a single drop of human empathy.
Aunt Mira turned away. She opened a folding umbrella and walked out through the small door beside the main gate. Surya followed. They passed Arka without a second glance, as though the drenched man were nothing more than an invisible, rusted utility pole.
The white SUV across the street started up. Its engine purred softly. Its headlights briefly swept across Arka's face, exposing his violently trembling jaw, before the vehicle finally drove off into the night. Leaving him behind.
Silence.
Only water dripping from the mango leaves broke it. Arka released his grip on the iron gate. His hand was filthy. The faint metallic smell of blood rose from his palm, torn by the rust. He lowered his head and stared at the ruined cardboard box by his feet. The glass in his mother's photo frame had shattered, splitting the woman's eternal smile into two broken halves.
Something inside Arka's chest snapped.
The sound was almost inaudible. Crack. Like a wet kite string pulled apart by the night wind. Darkness seeped in fast, filling the hollow he had spent twenty-eight years burying beneath patience, obedience, and the naive desire to be acknowledged.
Everything evaporated. Vanished without a trace.
That night, beneath Jakarta's sky, which reeked of wet asphalt and the spittle of betrayal, Arka Danuar died. Not his body—it continued to breathe. What died were the last remnants of his conscience. The last remnants of the heart that believed giving in was the path to salvation.
From that second on, there would be no more good person.
All that remained was an empty void and an acute hunger demanding to feed on the world in return.