Raka did not sleep until dawn.
The gamelan music continued until just before dawn, sometimes near, sometimes far, as though circling the house. When the first rooster crowed, the melody vanished just like that, leaving behind a silence that felt even more frightening.
Morning light pierced through the gaps in the window.
Raka mustered the courage to open the front door.
The door was covered in long scratch marks. The wood had peeled away into five parallel lines, deep and black as though burned.
There was fresh mud beneath them.
And something that sent a chill down his neck.
A strand of long, grayish-white hair.
“Mas Raka!”
Sari’s voice came from the yard. She hurried over carrying a thermos and a parcel of rice.
“I saw your lamp go out last night. Did you hear anything?”
Raka showed her the scratch marks.
Sari’s face immediately went pale.
“It came to your house.”
“What came?”
Sari did not answer. Instead, she picked up the white hair with a handkerchief and put it into a small bottle.
“Don’t touch it directly.”
Raka was beginning to lose patience. “Sari, enough. Since last night, everyone’s been talking in half-truths. What exactly is in the Forest of Lost Souls?”
Sari looked toward the forest before answering softly.
“That place wasn’t always an ordinary forest. There used to be an old hermitage in the middle of it. People came there to ask for one thing: to forget.”
“To forget what?”
“Grief. Resentment. Guilt.”
Raka fell silent.
“But,” Sari continued, “what they called upon to help them wasn’t human.”
The morning wind blew gently. Mahogany leaves rustled like whispers.
Before Raka could ask anything else, a commotion broke out in the direction of the village hall.
A woman came running, crying hysterically.
“That’s Bu Laras,” Sari said. “Come on!”
They ran toward the village hall. Many villagers had already gathered there, but the atmosphere was strange—not loud, but filled with frightened whispers.
In the middle of the crowd, Bu Laras clutched the arm of her husband, who sat dazed on a bamboo bench.
“Sir, look at me! It’s me, Laras!”
The man stared blankly at her.
“Sorry... who are you?”
The woman burst into tears.
“Don’t joke around...”
“I’m not joking,” the man replied softly. “I really don’t know you.”
Raka felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
Sari whispered, “He helped search for Bayu at the edge of the forest last night.”
Bu Laras pointed to a little child standing fearfully behind her.
“If you don’t know me, then look at your child!”
The man stared at the child for a long time.
Then he shook his head.
“I don’t have a child.”
The crowd recoiled as one.
The child began to cry.
Raka swallowed hard. There was no sign that the man was possessed. His eyes were clear, his breathing normal, his face simply... empty.
As though part of his life had truly been erased.
Suddenly, an old man in a black turban stepped forward from the crowd.
His body was thin, but his gaze was as sharp as a knife.
“Mbah Wiryo...” several villagers whispered.
The old man looked at the man who had forgotten his family, then let out a long sigh.
“How many times were you called at the edge of the forest?”
The man thought.
“Twice... maybe three times.”
The crowd immediately began to tremble.
Mbah Wiryo closed his eyes for a moment. “It’s too late.”
“No!” Bu Laras screamed. “Please, help my husband!”
The old man looked at her with pity.
“It isn’t only his memory that’s gone.”
Raka mustered the courage to ask, “What do you mean?”
Mbah Wiryo turned toward him for the first time.
“You’re Sukarno’s son, aren’t you?”
Raka nodded.
The old man’s eyes narrowed.
“So the blood has finally returned.”
His words made several villagers glance uneasily at one another.
“What does my family have to do with that forest?”
Mbah Wiryo did not answer. Instead, he took a handful of rice from a cloth pouch and scattered it over the head of the dazed man.
The grains of rice fell to the floor.
The man suddenly screamed.
It was not the cry of a human in pain, but the cry of an animal caught in a trap.
His body arched backward. His eyes bulged.
And another voice came from his mouth.
An old woman’s voice.
“Don’t take what’s mine...”
The villagers screamed in terror.
Bu Laras fainted instantly.
The voice gave a quiet laugh from the man’s throat.
“Hehehe... one more has forgotten...”
Then his head slowly turned toward Raka.
Even though his body remained rigid, facing forward.
His neck twisted far too much.
And in a voice mingling male and female tones, he said:
“Your brother isn’t dead yet.”
Raka’s heart stopped for a moment.
The creature smiled through the man’s face.
“He’s learning to forget you.”