I didn't understand what all the panic was about, so I could only stand there in silence. I had no idea what the young man's shouts meant, either. He ran back and forth around the village in a group, warning everyone who was out and about that afternoon. Everything felt chaotic as people hurried to save themselves and rush into their respective homes.
This was the first time I'd ever seen a sight like this—the villagers running around when I had just returned home. I had no idea what was happening.
All I knew was that I had reached the village and would soon be home.
Tik...
Tok...
Tik...
Tok...
It was 5:58 p.m., and I was still standing there, watching the villagers run toward their homes. I was baffled by their behavior. Usually, at this hour, the villagers would still be gathered in front of their houses, chatting or spending time with one another. But this time, everything had changed in an instant.
BAM... BAM... BAM... The doors began slamming shut one after another.
In the blink of an eye, every house looked deserted. Cihalimun Village now appeared empty. The houses were tightly locked, and not a single person remained outside. Even the banging of batons carried by the young men running around had fallen silent.
I was still confused. Before I went to prison, Cihalimun Village had never been like this around sunset.
But just as I was thinking that, I suddenly felt an intense presence approaching, raising goose bumps all over my body. A red light suddenly appeared overhead, covering the stars and moon that were supposed to emerge when night fell. The dim red glow slowly spread over the village.
Then, little by little, mist began to appear—the nighttime mist that covered the entire village. But this time, the mist that should have been white was red instead.
I shuddered at the sight. This was the first time I'd ever witnessed anything like it.
This was the first time I'd seen red mist in the village. Usually, the entire village was covered only by a thin white mist.
I could only stand there in silence. My legs felt too heavy to step into the village. I stood at the village gate, which was made of carefully shaped stone to mark the entrance to Cihalimun Village.
“This really is Cihalimun Village, but why...?” I thought, utterly bewildered.
Clang
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
“Oh my God, what now?”
I was suddenly shocked by what I saw.
The sound of cracking filled the air, coming from inside the village. From the gate, I could just make out the village behind the mist, but I could hardly believe my eyes. The village I'd known all this time was slowly beginning to transform.
“What’s happening?” I said, as if refusing to believe what I was seeing.
Crack
Crack
Crack
I instinctively backed away several steps. Suddenly, the ground in front of me cracked. The fissure split into several smaller cracks that spread toward the center of the village. Then smoke began pouring out of them.
“Ugh... it smells like sulfur,” I said, covering my nose with my hand.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Everything in front of me was changing. The trees in the yards suddenly withered, their leaves spontaneously catching fire and burning away until only their dried-out trunks remained. Then the houses in the village began slowly peeling apart.
The sturdy walls started flaking away before my eyes. The lamps in the yards suddenly gave off a different color, becoming a dim red that made them even more terrifying. On top of that, the peeling walls had turned a horrifying blood red.
I panicked at what I was seeing. For a moment, I thought the thick mist in the forest had made me lose my way and led me into a bunian village—the kind of village some people, especially those who lived in West Java, believed existed.
A ghost village that usually appeared in the middle of the forest when night fell. Maybe I'd entered the wrong village, because Cihalimun Village had never been this terrifying.
But I still didn't understand. The bridge connecting the village, the village entrance gate, and even the houses I'd seen earlier were exactly the same as those in the village where I lived. Even the people gathered around the dirt bikes earlier had been my friends from school.
“Why has my hometown turned into this? How did it become like this?”
Arghhh
I suddenly felt dizzy from thinking too deeply about what was happening.
“This isn’t right. I need to get out of here for now,” I thought.
I tried to turn around, trying to move away from the village that had transformed into something horrifying before my eyes.
I broke into a light run and headed back down toward the bridge, trying to cross it again.
Crack
Crack
Crack
Crack
Clang
The cracking sounds had now disappeared, but I didn't want to enter the village before I understood what was happening. It would be better to cross the bridge and return to the forest, then stay there until morning. Maybe by daylight, my hometown would return to normal.
By then, many villagers would come out to sell things or go to work, and I could make sure whether what I'd seen really was Cihalimun Village or not.
Drap drap drap.......
I kept running until I finally reached the bridge that marked the border between the village and the forest.
But...
I suddenly stopped. The bridge was no longer there. In its place was only an incredibly deep chasm, gaping around the village.
The chasm was so vast that I couldn't see its end. I couldn't see the forest I'd crossed earlier on the other side, either.
“What do I do? I can’t go back into that terrifying village, but it doesn’t seem safe to stay here, either.”
I could only stand there staring at the chasm. I was sure there had been a bridge here just moments ago.
But everything had vanished in an instant. My mind suddenly went blank. I couldn't cross the bridge again. I was trapped. I understood even less of what was happening. Why had my village suddenly turned into this?
As I stood there thinking in a panic, I suddenly heard a sound from above, like a woman laughing at me. Her laughter was horrifying, as though she were mocking me in my confusion.
Hee hee hee...
“There’s a human still outside the house tonight.”