Rain began to fall when Arga left the basement.
Not heavily.
But enough to dot the windshield with drops of water.
The wipers moved slowly.
Arga drove without turning on any music.
Usually, he needed something to fill the ride home. Music, a podcast, or the sound of the radio.
That night, he wanted to hear his own thoughts.
Unfortunately, his thoughts were too loud.
At a red light, Arga stopped.
He watched the red light reflected on the wet asphalt.
Suddenly, a voice appeared in his head.
A woman's voice.
"Don't look back."
Arga raised his head.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel.
He knew that voice.
Nara.
The memory surfaced so quickly that Arga didn't even have time to determine whether it was truly a memory or merely the product of his troubled mind.
The light turned green.
The car behind him honked.
Arga started driving again.
But throughout the rest of the drive, the sentence kept repeating.
Don't look back.
He tried to remember when Nara had said it.
He couldn't.
There was only the voice.
And the fear.
When he reached the apartment, Arga didn't go inside right away.
He sat for a while in the car, which was already turned off.
Rain could still be heard drumming on the basement roof.
He picked up his phone.
There were no messages from Raka.
No messages from an unknown number.
Arga opened his gallery.
The photo was still there.
He zoomed in on Nara's face.
There was something strange about looking at it now.
Before, he had only seen the woman he had once loved.
Now he saw someone who might be hiding a part of his life that he couldn't remember.
Arga closed the gallery.
Then he went up to the apartment.
10:31 p.m.
Arga opened his laptop at the living room table.
He wasn't working.
He opened an old folder that he hadn't touched in years.
The folder was stored on an external hard drive.
Its name was simple:
2015.
Arga himself had forgotten why he had never deleted it.
Inside were several subfolders.
College.
Friends.
Bandung.
And one folder named N.
Arga stopped when he saw it.
The folder contained only eleven files.
Several photos.
Two voice recordings.
One text document.
And a short video.
Arga didn't open anything right away.
Instead, he closed the folder.
Then he opened it again.
Like someone who knew he was opening a door that should have stayed closed.
He selected the first photo.
Nara.
The second photo.
Nara and him.
The third photo.
A group of friends.
The fourth photo.
Nara laughing.
Arga stopped.
He zoomed in on the photo.
Behind Nara was a campus bulletin board.
There was nothing strange about it.
He moved on to the next photo.
Then the next.
There was no Bandung Station.
No photo from July 17, 2015.
Arga opened the file properties.
Most of the photos were from 2014 and early 2015.
Not a single one was dated July 17.
He opened the text document.
There were only a few old notes.
Task lists.
Phone numbers.
Addresses.
Things that had once seemed important and now no longer meant anything.
Arga closed the document.
Then he looked at the two audio files.
One was only twenty-three seconds long.
The second was nearly three minutes.
Arga put on his earphones.
He selected the first file.
A hissing sound played.
Then Nara's voice.
"Arga?"
Arga froze.
The voice sounded young.
Very young.
He had almost forgotten what Nara sounded like when she was speaking normally.
The recording continued.
"If you hear this later..."
Nara's voice stopped.
The sound of a vehicle could be heard in the distance.
Then she gave a small laugh.
"...don't laugh."
Arga held his breath.
"I'm serious."
The recording ended.
Only twenty-three seconds.
Arga opened the second file.
The same voice.
But this time, Nara didn't sound like she was joking.
"Arga, I just want to say one thing."
Several seconds of silence.
"If I change my mind tomorrow, don't be mad."
The sound of breathing could be heard.
Then Nara continued.
"Sometimes people have to leave not because they want to leave someone behind."
The recording paused for a moment.
"Sometimes they leave because—"
The audio crackled.
Then the recording ended.
Arga took off his earphones.
His hands felt cold.
He didn't remember ever hearing that recording.
Yet the file was on his laptop.
Which meant he had saved it at some point.
Or someone had sent it to him.
Arga looked at the file date.
July 16, 2015.
One day before the date on the ticket.
One day before the photo at Bandung Station.
One day before something he had never been able to remember clearly for the past eleven years.
His phone vibrated.
Arga flinched.
An unknown number.
He didn't open the message right away.
The screen displayed only a notification.
1 new message.
Arga stared at it for several seconds.
Then he opened it.
You found the recording.
Arga stood up.
He looked at the laptop.
The N folder.
The two voice recordings.
He typed:
"How do you know?"
The reply:
Because I made it.
Arga felt as though the air had suddenly vanished from the room.
He typed:
"Are you Nara?"
There was no answer for a long time.
Arga waited.
Then:
Do you want me to be Nara?
Arga didn't understand what it meant.
He typed:
"What do you mean?"
The reply came a few seconds later.
If I say yes, will you believe me?
Arga stared at the screen.
He didn't know.
He wanted to believe it.
But that was exactly why he was afraid.
"If you're not Nara, who are you?"
This time, the reply didn't come right away.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
Arga almost gave up.
Then his phone chimed.
A photo had arrived.
Not an old photo.
A new one.
Arga opened it.
The image showed a wooden table.
On it were a white mug.
A book.
And a photo lying faceup.
Arga zoomed in on it.
His chest tightened.
The photo on the table was the same one he had just put back inside the black box.
A photo of himself, Raka, Dito, and Nara.
But there was one difference.
The photo in the image had additional writing on the back.
Handwriting.
Arga zoomed in on the bottom of the photo.
The writing consisted of only one sentence.
Don't trust what you remember.
Arga stared at the photo for a long time.
Then his eyes shifted to the white mug beside it.
The mug had a small crack in its handle.
Arga recognized it.
It was the mug he used every morning to drink coffee.
The photo was new.
Very new.
Someone had just taken it.
Inside his apartment.
Arga slowly turned around.
The living room was empty.
The door was locked.
The window was closed.
There was no one there.
He stood without moving.
Then his phone vibrated again.
One message came in.
I never said I was outside.
Arga read the sentence.
He felt the blood drain into his feet.
He looked at the apartment door.
Then the window.
Then the living room.
There was no one there.
His phone vibrated again.
The final message:
Try opening the bottom drawer of your desk.
Arga didn't move.
He stared at the desk across the room.
There were three drawers.
The top drawer contained documents.
The second held stationery.
He almost never used the bottom drawer.
Arga walked over to it.
Slowly.
He knelt down.
His hand closed around the drawer handle.
Before pulling it open, he stopped.
Something inside him told him not to open it.
But curiosity won in the end.
He pulled the drawer open.
Inside were only a few old cables, batteries, a charger, and a small object that left Arga unable to breathe for several seconds.
A key.
Not the key that had been inside the black box earlier.
This key was larger.
And hanging from it was a small metal tag.
17.
Arga recognized the key.
He had seen it before.
Eleven years ago.
In Nara's hand.
His phone vibrated again.
This time, the incoming message contained only three words.
You remember the key.