The sunset, with its golden-orange glow on the western horizon, could no longer soothe the dark corners of my heart. Instead of bringing peace, the darkness that slowly descended always filled me with an overwhelming fear, seizing every inch of my chest until I could barely breathe. How could it not? For nearly two months, I had been forced to lock all this hellish weight and fear away inside my own head. I knew full well I would never be able to face the consequences waiting for me. The outside world would drag me off and punish me mercilessly the moment they got wind that Darliah—the woman I had secretly married—had met a horrific death at my own hands. Today, exactly three months after her tragic death, I was standing in the same spot again. Staring into the void, I tried to make sense once more of the chain of terrible events that had led to nothing but endless regret. The worst part was, I had only just realized I’d done the stupidest thing of my life—a bloody sacrifice that had brought me nothing but a lifetime of damnation. That evening at the shack was still clear in my memory. “Honey, how long are we supposed to keep hiding this marriage? My belly’s going to get bigger every month. If the villagers start getting suspicious and ask who’s responsible, what am I supposed to tell them?” Darliah asked in a rush. Her demanding voice broke the silence in the room that night as I arrived with a packet of the rujak bebeg she’d ordered. I didn’t answer right away. I just stood frozen in the doorway, watching her move about the cramped living room, its walls made of woven bamboo. I set the food on the table, then dropped onto an old rubber chair. It creaked sharply beneath me, as if protesting the weight of my tense body. Darliah didn’t even look up from what she was doing. Her slender fingers continued their careful work, knitting a tiny pair of baby socks for the child still growing inside her. “You promised you’d divorce Marpuah soon because she’s barren and can’t give you a child. You even swore to God you’d take me away from here and give me a much better life. But look at us now. I’m still left to rot in this rickety shack, with woven bamboo walls and a leaky thatch roof!” Darliah’s voice began to tremble, rising with bitter disappointment. She stopped knitting and glared at me. “If you really can’t keep those rotten promises, then we should split up right now! Let me leave with Suji. He’s a real man. He said he’d accept me and this child just as we are, without making us hide like thieves!” Darliah’s last words left me reeling. The mention of another man and her threat to leave struck straight at my pride. My blood suddenly boiled, burning away every trace of reason until my vision went black. Possessed by a demon of rage, I rose without a word, hurried into the kitchen, and grabbed the first sharp object my eyes landed on. A thin-bladed kitchen knife was now in my hand. Without the slightest hesitation, I lunged at Darliah from behind. My left hand clamped over her mouth to stifle her scream, while my right drove the knife into the middle of her back. Shhk! Darliah jerked violently in my grip. But I didn’t stop. The rage burning in my chest had made me lose control. I stabbed her frail body again and again, blindly unleashing all my frustration until at last she went limp and collapsed, covered in blood on the floor. My ragged breathing filled the room, which had suddenly reeked of blood. Warm droplets stained my work clothes and spattered across part of my face. My hands shaking violently, caught between panic and satisfaction, I dragged her body out to the backyard. Beneath the dimming sky, I began digging in the earth with a crude shovel. Ignoring my weak, trembling knees, I hauled Darliah’s stiff body toward the narrow hole, panting as sweat streamed down my whole body. I shoved her into the grave and hurriedly covered her with dirt. The physical exhaustion and immense mental strain of what I’d done left my legs unable to support me. I collapsed face-first onto the mound of wet earth, with no headstone to mark it. Near midnight, I slowly came to. The annoying buzz of thousands of mosquitoes swarming around my head had woken me. An icy night breeze carried the smell of blood that still clung to my clothes. I opened my eyes and looked around. Everything was pitch-black. Even the moon seemed reluctant to appear that night, hidden behind a procession of dark, heavy clouds overhead. Crickets called back and forth in the distance, as if trying to break the silence of this hidden grave, but their chorus only made the strange, dreadful atmosphere even more oppressive. The first drops of drizzle on my face finally made me fully aware of the horrific thing I’d done just hours before. Trembling with fear and anxious about what tomorrow might bring, I got up and ran back to the shack. Suddenly, rain poured down in torrents, and fierce gusts battered the shack’s dried-leaf roof until parts of it came loose, soaking everything in the living room. But right in the middle of my panic beneath the downpour, a devious idea suddenly crossed my mind. I deliberately tore down the remaining front section of the shack’s roof with my own hands, making it look as if the place had been wrecked by a natural storm. I needed an alibi to wipe away every trace of the bloody murder inside the house. I don’t know what dark force suddenly filled me with such extraordinary courage that night, but even the flashes of lightning and the thunderclaps that followed couldn’t shake my nerve anymore. The shack now lay completely ruined and in shambles. Feeling that my task was done, I quickly left that cursed place, somewhat relieved. No witnesses had seen me, and I’d left no evidence inside the house—except for the shovel I’d carelessly abandoned in my haste beside Darliah’s grave in the backyard. A few days later, my fear briefly eased as I sat in front of the television. On the news, I saw a report about Darliah’s body being found in the ruined shack. The detectives and police said that not a single neighbor could be questioned about the victim’s activities before her death. Even after a thorough examination of the crime scene, the forensic team hadn’t found a single fingerprint or any physical clue that could identify the main suspect. That night’s storm had wiped everything clean for me. For a while, I felt safe, like I had the upper hand. In the cruel depths of my heart, I justified what I’d done. I thought it was better to take Darliah’s life, along with the unborn child that threatened my legal standing, than to lose Marpuah—my lawful wife, who had given me a luxurious life, a respectable standing in the community, and every worldly comfort I could never bring myself to give up. Then the day of reckoning came without warning. It all began when I grew suspicious of Marpuah’s increasingly strange, cold behavior. Driven by curiosity, I secretly followed her as she headed toward the backyard garden, where the animal feed was stored. I stopped behind a thicket of trees when I spotted Marpuah alone with Guntur, a young man who worked as our buffalo herder and livestock caretaker and lived in a small hut at the far end of the garden. I stood frozen, watching with my own eyes as the wife I adored flirted and exchanged loving smiles with one of our hired hands. “So when exactly are you going to divorce that Mulyo?” Guntur whispered, looking at Marpuah with a disgusting, meaningful stare. “Just be patient a little longer, dear Guntur. I’m trying to find the cleanest way to leave him. I’m coming up with a plan to kick him out of the house without giving that lazy, useless man a single penny of the marital assets,” Marpuah replied, utterly confident and cold, not a trace of doubt on her lovely face. My wife’s words made my whole body go rigid as stone. My heart seemed to stop beating right then and there. In the quiet garden, all the vile deeds, betrayals, and barbarity I’d inflicted on Darliah suddenly played back before my eyes, like an old film reel being forced to spin. The pain, emptiness, and despair Darliah had once felt now drove into my chest with many times the force. Tears slowly trickled down my face, mingling with Marpuah and Guntur’s affectionate laughter in the distance. Alone, my pride in ruins, I heard a terrible realization whisper in my ear: Was this what they called karma?