“Who will die tonight?”
Ardi's words did not sound like a threat. That was precisely what made them more frightening. He spoke in the voice of someone who had witnessed death too many times to distinguish between a warning and a decision anymore.
Raka stared at the wall behind him.
The words SECOND PLACE MUST CHOOSE were still wet. Black liquid dripped from the end of every letter, sliding slowly downward like ink freshly drawn from a body.
Naya stood beside him, breathing shallowly. “Choose between who?”
Ardi did not answer.
The trophy on the floor pulsed once.
Ash flew from the small recess in its base. It did not fall to the floor. It spun through the air, forming three thin circles before clinging to the wall.
Names appeared.
BAYU ADITYA.
SENO WIBISANA.
MAYA MAHENDRA.
Raka felt his entire body go rigid.
The last name was his mother's.
“No,” he said.
Ardi looked at him. Blood ran from his temple to his chin, but never fell. “Three people took a piece of your victory.”
“Not my mother.”
“She signed your withdrawal form.”
“She tried to pull me out.”
“After everything was over.”
Raka stepped forward. “You're lying.”
“If I were lying, you wouldn't remember your own voice.”
The trophy gave off a crackling sound.
Then a child's voice came from inside it.
“I want to win.”
Raka covered his ears, but the voice still entered through the bones of his skull. He recognized a room he had never remembered: a smaller hall, yellow lights, empty chairs, and Ardi's hand gripping his.
The little boy who was him stood beside the stage.
Ardi knelt in front of him.
“You want to win?” young Ardi asked.
Little Raka nodded.
“Then don't look behind you.”
But he looked anyway.
Behind Ardi, Bayu stood with Dr. Seno. His mother was near the door, crying soundlessly. Someone unseen was holding Ardi by the shoulder.
Then Ardi was pushed.
Not from the stairs.
Not from the edge of the stage.
He was pushed toward a black door standing open behind the curtain.
Ardi turned as his body crossed the threshold.
He was still holding little Raka's hand.
Their fingers slipped apart one by one.
Raka opened his eyes with a scream.
Naya grabbed his shoulder. “Raka!”
He collapsed to his knees. The floor of the records room felt wet. When he looked at his palm, he saw a black mark in the shape of five small fingers.
“I remember,” he whispered.
Ardi stood several steps in front of him. “Not all of it.”
“Who pushed you?”
“The person who refused to choose.”
“Bayu?”
“Bayu held the trophy.”
“Seno?”
“Seno changed the scores.”
“Mom?”
Ardi lowered his head.
“Your grandmother?”
Ardi finally raised his face. “Your mother opened the door.”
Raka turned to Naya.
“What door?”
Before Naya could answer, the sound of a key turning came from behind the records-room door.
Click.
Click.
Someone was trying to get in.
Naya picked up a shard of glass from the floor and gripped it like a knife. “How do we get out?”
Ardi pointed to the emergency stairs.
The iron door at the end of the room appeared closed, but black water was flowing beneath it. Raka stood and picked up the trophy. It was still cold, but this time it did not resist his touch.
On the surface of the number 1, a crack formed a diagonal line.
“If I choose,” Raka said, “what happens?”
“One person will die.”
“And the others?”
“The others will live with the true memory.”
“What about you?”
Ardi smiled sadly. “I've been choosing for too long.”
The key in the front door stopped moving.
His mother's voice came from outside.
“Raka, open up. I know you're in there.”
Naya went pale. “She's still in the hospital.”
“That's not her,” Raka said.
The voice tapped on the door.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
“Raka, don't listen to Ardi. He wants to take your life.”
Ardi did not deny it.
Raka looked at him. “Is that true?”
“If I wanted to take your life, you would never have remembered the past.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want you to give it back.”
The records-room door shook. Dust fell from the ceiling. Through the gap beneath the door, the shadow of a woman in a hospital jacket crawled like a long hand.
Naya grabbed Raka's arm. “We have to go now.”
They ran to the emergency stairs.
Raka kicked the iron door. It opened, but the stairs beyond no longer led to the floor below. They descended into darkness filled with the sound of applause.
Slow applause.
Steady.
Like the night Ardi was declared the loser.
Naya stopped. “These aren't stairs.”
Ardi stood behind them. “This building holds places that were never recorded.”
“What if we go down?”
“You'll see who chose.”
From the records-room door came the sound of his mother screaming.
“Raka!”
The scream changed into the voices of three people at once.
Maya.
Seno.
Bayu.
All of them called Raka's name from behind the door.
Raka gripped the trophy tighter.
“Down,” he said.
Naya looked at him. “Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Good. At least you're still sane.”
They began descending the stairs.
Each step felt colder than the one before it. The walls on both sides were covered with photographs of competitions. The winners' faces had been scraped away until their eyes, noses, and mouths were gone.
Only the trophies had been left intact.
In the last photograph, Raka saw himself as a little boy.
He stood on the podium, raising a trophy toward the camera. Ardi was not beside him.
Bayu was not there.
Neither was his mother.
Only a large shadow covered the entire background.
Raka stopped.
“Don't look at it,” Ardi said.
“What is that?”
“The first-place winner.”
“Wasn't that me?”
“Your name was only written in its place.”
From below the stairs came the laughter of a child.
Raka's voice.
“I want to win.”
Then young Ardi's voice answered:
“Then choose me.”
Raka descended faster.
The stairs ended in an underground hall. The room was larger than the building above, with a small stage in the center and three chairs facing it. The back wall held a long list of student names.
Some had been crossed out.
Some had been burned.
At the very bottom, it said:
FINAL SELECTION — TONIGHT.
Bayu Aditya stood on the stage.
Raka's father looked much older than he had a few hours earlier. His shirt was covered in stains, and the number 2 on his palm had turned into an open wound.
Dr. Seno stood beside him. His face was pale, but he was still alive. An old cassette-tape cable was wrapped around his neck, fused to his skin like a black vein.
His mother stood on the other side of the stage.
She was crying.
This time Raka was sure it was his real mother.
“Raka,” she said. “Don't come any closer.”
Bayu raised his face.
“It's time for you to finish what we started.”
Raka climbed one step onto the stage. “Dad killed Ardi?”
“No.”
“Dad saw him get pushed.”
“I saw.”
“Who?”
Bayu looked at the trophy in Raka's hand.
“You.”
The room instantly filled with the sound of a cassette tape turning.
Raka saw that night again, but this time from a different angle. Ardi had not been holding little Raka's hand. Ardi had been trying to pull him away from the black door.
Little Raka was crying.
Behind him, the large shadow pushed Ardi's body.
But little Raka's hand rose.
His fingers touched Ardi's back.
Not pushing.
Holding him back.
But the shadow used the little hand as a way in.
Ardi turned and screamed:
“Don't let it use your name!”
Then the black door swallowed him.
Raka staggered.
“Ardi didn't die because of me.”
“No,” Bayu said. “He disappeared because I left that door open.”
His mother cried harder. “I opened the door because they threatened to take you away.”
“Who?”
No one answered.
The shadow behind the stage moved.
A tall shape stood between the curtains. It had no face, but it carried a gold trophy in its hand.
Ardi stepped onto the stage.
“Now you know,” he said. “You can give me back my name.”
“How?”
“Give the trophy to the person who made you win.”
Raka looked at Bayu.
His father dropped to his knees.
“Don't give it to me.”
Dr. Seno laughed hoarsely. “So you're finally scared?”
Bayu turned to him. “You falsified the scores.”
“And you let me.”
“Because you threatened my son.”
“Because you wanted your son to win.”
The two of them stared at each other with hatred that had grown old.
The trophy in Raka's hand suddenly grew hot.
The number 1 cracked apart completely.
A small hole appeared behind it.
A voice whispered from within.
“Choose.”
Raka looked at his father.
His mother.
Dr. Seno.
Ardi.
The faceless shadow.
Five people.
But the wall listed only three names.
Raka understood.
The choice was not about who would die.
It was about who would bear the blame.
He walked toward his father.
Bayu shook his head. “Raka, don't.”
Raka raised the trophy, but did not hand it over.
“All this time, Dad said I won second place.”
“I had no choice.”
“That's what everyone says.”
“If I refused, they would take you away.”
“So Dad chose Ardi.”
Bayu covered his face.
Raka turned and faced Dr. Seno.
“You were the first to change the scores.”
Seno smiled. “I only wrote down the numbers.”
“And my father let you.”
“Then your mother opened the door.”
“That's right.”
Raka raised the trophy to chest height.
“Then no one person should have to bear it all.”
Ardi looked at him, his face slowly changing.
“Raka.”
“I won't choose one name.”
The shadow behind the stage moved forward.
The floor trembled.
From the walls, black blood began dripping from every name that had been crossed out.
Raka pressed the base of the trophy against the floor.
“If this victory was built on all their lies,” he said, “then the name that must be erased is the victory itself.”
The trophy shattered.
Screams filled the hall.
Not Ardi's scream.
Not his father or mother's.
The screams of hundreds of people whose names had been erased from the list.
The stage split apart. The faceless shadow lunged toward Raka.
Ardi ran and stood in front of him.
Ardi's body became transparent when the shadow crashed into him.
“Run!”
Raka did not move.
“You'll disappear!”
Ardi turned. For the first time, his face looked like the face of an ordinary student. Not pale. Not covered in blood. Just a young man who looked tired.
“I've been gone since you won.”
“If I run, you'll die.”
“I didn't die because of you.”
The shadow pierced through Ardi's body. He staggered, but kept hold of Raka's arm.
“Run, second-place winner.”
Raka clasped his hand.
“Your name is Ardi Pratama.”
Ardi looked at him.
“Your name is first-place winner.”
The shadow screamed.
Raka repeated it louder.
“Ardi Pratama is the first-place winner!”
The walls of the hall cracked. The photographs caught fire. Dr. Seno collapsed, screaming. Bayu wrapped his arms around Raka's mother and pulled her down from the stage.
Ardi gripped Raka's hand tighter.
“Don't let go,” he said.
“I won't.”
“You let me go before.”
“I was little.”
“I know.”
“I'm sorry.”
Ardi smiled.
“It's not your turn to apologize now.”
The trophy shattered into shards of light.
The faceless shadow was sucked into the hole beneath the stage. The applause changed into sobbing, then disappeared one sound at a time.
When the hall fell silent again, Ardi began to fade.
Raka was still holding his hand.
“Don't go.”
“I'm not going.”
“Then?”
“I'm going home.”
Ardi's fingers slipped free.
This time, not one by one.
He released Raka's hand calmly.
Before vanishing completely, Ardi whispered:
“Don't trust the person carrying the gold trophy.”
The light went out.
Raka fell to the floor.
When he opened his eyes, he was in the records room of the old building. Naya was shaking his shoulder. Outside the window, the sky was beginning to pale.
There was no underground hall.
No stage.
No Dr. Seno.
His father and mother were lying near the door, still alive. Bayu was holding Maya's hand. Between them lay dull shards of the trophy, which had turned to dust.
Naya was crying silently.
“Raka, wake up.”
He sat up slowly.
In his palm was one thing left over from the trophy.
The black nameplate.
The words on it had changed.
ARDI PRATAMA — FIRST PLACE.
Beneath it, a new sentence had appeared.
FIRST CHOICE CANCELED.
Raka stared at the wall of the records room.
All the names that had once been crossed out had returned.
Except one.
BAYU ADITYA.
His father opened his eyes.
From outside the building, the sound of approaching sirens could be heard.
Naya helped Raka stand. “We have to leave before the police get here.”
Raka did not answer.
He stared out the window.
In the campus courtyard, a man stood holding a gold trophy.
His face was not clearly visible.
But Raka recognized the gray suit he was wearing.
Dr. Seno.
The man raised the trophy toward the building, then smiled.
Ardi's reflection appeared once more in the glass ball of the gold trophy.
His lips moved without making a sound.
Raka could read the words.
“This is only the first place.”