The rain had stopped hours ago, but the scent of wet soil still lingered in the warm night air of Balikpapan. Dimas sat at his desk, a single desk lamp illuminating the pages of his journal while his laptop blinked patiently beside him. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, waiting for the right sentence to form in his head.
His bedroom wasn't much. Just a wooden bookshelf, half-filled with manga and second-hand paperbacks; a guitar in the corner gathering dust; and a window half open to the humid night. But for Dimas, this small space was his entire universe. It was where he wrote. It was where he escaped.
Unlike most seventeen-year-olds in his school, Dimas didn't spend his nights playing games or scrolling through social media. His world was built with words. Fictional ones. He didn't mind being alone — at least that's what he always told himself. He liked the quiet. Or maybe he had simply learned how to survive in it.
He opened the draft of his latest story on the writing platform he used — a story titled "Letters to Someone I'll Never Meet". The title had come to him on a sleepless night months ago, and since then, he had poured pieces of his heart into it, one chapter at a time. It wasn't his most popular story. But it was the most honest one.
Tonight, he had just uploaded Chapter 38 — a quiet, melancholic chapter filled with self-doubt, hope, and a single, lingering line:
> "Maybe we write to strangers because they're the only ones who really listen."
He hadn't expected much from the post. A few likes. Maybe a short comment or two. But then, just as he was about to shut his laptop, a new notification blinked.
[Anonymous Comment on Chapter 38]
Dimas paused. He clicked.
> "I don't know who you are, but I feel like you've been writing straight to my heart. Every sentence feels like something I've been too afraid to say. Thank you for existing. – A Reader Who's Trying to Hold On."
His heart skipped.
It wasn't long, but it felt heavy. Real. Like someone had reached across the silence and touched the very core of what he'd been trying to say.
He read it again. And again.
And then, slowly, he leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, his mind racing.
"Who are you…?" he whispered.
It wasn't the first comment he'd received. But this one was different. It didn't feel like a reader admiring the writing. It felt like a soul responding to another soul. Like… they were in the same room, even if they were continents apart.
His mind wandered — where was this reader from? What were they going through? What had made them write such an emotional note at what was probably midnight in their part of the world?
He checked the time. It was 10:17 PM. Maybe on the other side of the world, someone was reading his words by a small bedside lamp, in a room no one else ever entered.
Dimas opened a new tab. Then he closed it again. He almost replied to the comment, but something stopped him.
What if replying broke the magic?
What if this person wanted to stay anonymous for a reason?
What if… it was better to just let it be — a soft thread between two strangers that didn't need to be pulled?
He opened his journal and wrote, in his own handwriting:
> "Tonight, someone understood.
I don't know their name, their face, or where they live.
But for the first time in a long time, I don't feel like I'm writing into the void."
Outside, a distant thunder rolled over the city, and the wind rustled the leaves.
Dimas closed his eyes.
Maybe, somewhere out there, someone needed his stories more than he ever thought possible.
And maybe, just maybe, he needed them too.
---
The next morning, both Ayana and Dimas wake up to a world that looks the same, but something inside them feels slightly different. Neither of them knows it yet, but their stories have just begun to slowly entangle—like the first thread of a tapestry they're about to weave together, word by word.