By the time the sun reached its absolute zenith, burning directly overhead, Haya had left the open shoreline of Tanjung Karang far behind. He didn't want to go home. He couldn't bear the thought of sitting at the kitchen table under his mother's watchful gaze, or seeing the silent, guarded warnings in Amar's eyes. Instead, he pushed his bicycle toward the dense, emerald boundary where the village plains gave way to the foothills. What used to be a rugged terrain of steep slopes in his hazy childhood recollections was now a clear network of pathway tracks, though the jungle itself had grown thick with colossal trees and hidden rocky rivers when compared to his late memories.
The shade of the canopy brought a sudden, dropping chill, but the air deeper inside the mountain forest was thick and stagnant. Haya locked his bike against a wild fern bush and began to walk deeper along the damp, moss-covered trails that ran parallel to the roaring sound of the river.
I think too much.
He needed physical exhaustion. He wanted his muscles to scream, wanted the steep incline to force the air out of his lungs until there was no room left in his brain to think.
Chill down a bit, Haya… he told himself.
But the mountain didn't care about his boundaries.
As he scrambled over a mossy ridge, his boots sliding slightly on the slick clay, the rushing sound of the river suddenly changed pitch. The roar of the fresh water cascading over boulders warped into a soft, rhythmic hush... hush... hush—the distinct cadence of small waves breaking on a sandy shore.
Haya froze, his fingers digging into the rough bark of a nearby tree to steady himself.
Down by the edge of the crystal-clear mountain stream, where the water pooled into a calm, shaded emerald basin, the sunlight filtered through the leaves in broken, shimmering patterns. And there, standing right in the middle of a mossy river boulder, was the silhouette.
The girl in the white one-piece summer dress, once again.
She was looking down into the rushing water, her small hands resting gently against the wide brim of her straw hat to keep it steady against a phantom wind. The blue ribbon tied to her hat fluttered, vibrant and sharp against the deep green jungle backdrop. It was a completely impossible sight—a coastal apparition trapped in the heart of a mountain river.
Why here? Haya's inner voice vibrated with a sickening sense of vertigo. He didn't blink. He just stared through the space, his mind violently trying to stitch together the damp smell of mountain moss with the dry salt of the sea. You don't belong in the mountains… Do you? Who are you? Why are you pulling me apart?
He took a desperate step forward, intending to break the distance, but his boot snapped a dry twig. The sharp crack echoed through the ravine, and the vision shattered instantly. The girl vanished, leaving nothing but the cold mountain stream rushing endlessly over the gray stones.
Haya remained there for hours, lost in his mind again. Seeking an escape from his own racing thoughts, he finally decided to soak in the cold water to calm his mind, taking off his shirt and slippers first before letting the freezing currents numb his skin.
By the time late afternoon arrived, painting the sky in pale shades of amber, his mother's weathered silver Proton Wira rumbled up the gravel driveway of their house. She had finished her long, tiring shift at the nursery, her hands worn and her shoulders slumped from a grueling day of moving heavy stocks.
Amar was waiting on the porch, his eyes immediately scanning the interior of the car as his mother opened the driver's door. His heart did a violent flip when he realized the passenger seat was empty.
"Mom," Amar said, his voice instantly tight as he descended the porch steps. "Haya isn't with you?"
His mother paused, adjusting her handbag over her shoulder, her face turning pale in an instant. "What do you mean? Wasn't Haya staying at home?"
"I thought... I thought he went to the store to help out with the new shipment," Amar said, a cold wave of panic washing over his chest. "He never showed up?"
"No," Mom answered in mounting confusion.
Amar turned back toward the house, shouting over his shoulder. "Inari! Get out here!"
Inari scrambled out onto the porch, her manga completely forgotten, her expression shifting from bored to deeply unsettled as she saw the sheer gravity on her brother's and mother's faces. Within minutes, the porch became a hotspot of rising panic.
"Where could he have gone?" his mother's voice trembled, her hands shaking as she gripped the porch railing. "He just recovered from that fever, Amar! His mind... what if he went back to the—"
"Mom, calm down," Amar interrupted quickly, though his own voice was dangerously close to cracking. He exchanged a sharp, knowing look with Inari—a silent agreement to keep their mother from spiraling into the dark history they all protected. "Haya is seventeen. He's grown up and he has friends, so maybe he's just with them?"
"Yeah, Mom," Inari chimed in, her voice forcedly light as she tried to soothe the trembling woman. "He probably just forgot the time. You know how he gets when he starts staring at things."
To keep the panic from suffocating the house, Inari retreated into the living room and pulled out her phone. She didn't call Haya—his phone had been ringing straight to voicemail all day. Instead, she opened a private group video call. It was a specific group chat consisting only of Amar, herself, Zul, Danish, Hanna, and Annis. Haya was deliberately excluded from it.
Within seconds, the screens popped up one by one, revealing the worried faces of their friends in their respective bedrooms.
"Hey, what's going on?" Zul asked, his face close to the camera. "Why the sudden video call?"
"Is everything okay with the open hut?" Danish added, pulling his glasses down.
Inari held the phone between herself and Amar so everyone could see them. "We don't know where Haya is. He's been gone since before subuh. He didn't go to the shop, and he's not answering his phone. We wanted to check if he's with any of you."
On the split screen, Hanna leaned closer to her camera, her brow furrowing with immediate concern. "He's not here. He didn't say anything to us after we finished the hut yesterday. Is he okay?"
Both Danish and Zul answered in the negative, their anxiety spiking upon hearing that Haya wasn't with his friends. Hanna tried to comfort Haya's mother, rushing her words in a flurry of concern, while Annis jumped in from the other side of the call to help soothe her at the same time.
The frantic coordination ended with their mother sitting down, her eyes brimming with tears as she softly thanked them for their help.
While the frantic voices echoed through the phone speakers in the living room, a solitary figure was walking the narrow paths along the side of the home to go inside.
Haya was drenched in sweat. His thin shirt was plastered to his skin, covered in a mixture of mountain dirt, river grit, and the dry dust of the lowlands. A small, black canvas backpack that he had packed with his supplies hung loosely over his shoulders, weighing heavily against his aching spine. His mind, however, was completely relaxed now; relieved by finally asking the questions that had been burning inside him, he trudged toward his front gate.
He pushed the front door open, the old wooden frame creaking loudly.
"I'm back," Haya muttered, his voice hoarse.
He stepped into the living room and froze. The entire house was gathered in the front hall. His mother was sitting on the sofa, her eyes red, while Amar and Inari stood by her side holding a phone that was loudly broadcasting a chorus of familiar voices—Zul, Danish, Hanna, and Annis were all talking at once over the video call.
The moment Haya's dirty boots hit the floor tiles, the room went dead silent. The faces on the phone screen stopped talking, all eyes locking onto his disheveled, sweat-stained appearance.
Haya stood there, thoroughly confused. "What... what is everyone doing? Why are you all staring at me like that?"
Before he could even lower his backpack, his mother closed the distance between them. Her face was twisted in a mixture of raw terror and fury.
"Where were you?!" she shrieked, her voice cracking as she slammed her hands against his shoulders and shook him violently. "Do you have any idea what time it is?! Where have you been all day?!"
Haya staggered back a step, completely caught off guard by the sheer violence of her reaction. "Mom, I just went for a ride. I went to the beach, then up to the hills... I'm seventeen, Mom. I can at least take care of myself—"
"Don't you dare argue with me!" she cut him off, her voice dropping into a desperate, choked sob as she completely deflected his reasoning. "You don't just disappear! You don't leave this house without telling us where you are going! You have no right to do that!"
"Mom, I'm just trying to ease my mind!" Haya tried to raise his voice, trying to pierce through what he saw as absolute, irrational ridiculousness. "Zul and Danish go out all the time! Why is it always a crime when I—"
But his words were violently swept aside. His mother didn't let him finish. With a broken cry, she lunged forward and threw her arms completely around his neck, pulling him into a fierce, suffocating embrace.
Haya's posture went rigid. He stood bent down by his mother's embrace due to the significant height difference between them, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides as he felt her body trembling violently against his chest. Hot, heavy tears began to soak through the shoulder of his dirty shirt, and he could hear the ragged, terrified gasps for air coming from her throat. It wasn't the anger of a strict parent punishing a rebellious teenager. This was something entirely different.
She was completely relieved, but beneath that relief was a profound, deeply rooted terror. She was holding onto him as if she had just pulled him back from the edge of a grave.
Over her trembling shoulder, Haya's eyes met Amar's. His older brother was standing perfectly still, his face dark with anger, his lips pressed into a thin, tight line. Inari had lowered the phone, and the muffled, worried whispers of their friends leaking out of the speaker finally stopped when they heard his mother crying. Inari's wide eyes wandered away, looking thoroughly annoyed, actively refusing to even look at her brother, Haya.
A heavy, unsettling realization settled deep into Haya's gut. He looked down at his mother's weeping form.
Why is she this scared? I'm just a teenager who stayed out late. This isn't normal.
The sheer desperation in her grip didn't feel like maternal worry; it felt like trauma. It felt as though his family wasn't just afraid of him getting lost in the mountains—they were terrified of him not coming back. And as the evening light completely died outside the window, Haya knew that the invisible fortress of silence his family had built around him was finally beginning to show its form.