The Aurora penthouse in Kebayoran occupied the entire top floor, a 360-degree monument to the family's prosperity. Tonight, it was a pulsing beacon of light and noise, a spectacle visible from the ground thirty stories below.
For Rossie, it was the cage at the center of the zoo.
"Rossie, sayang! You look like a dream!" a tante she barely knew gushed, air-kissing the space near both her cheeks.
"Thank you, Tante," Rossie replied, the smile she had perfected now feeling like a hardening mask.
She moved through the crowd, a silver-clad ghost in her own home. Her mother, radiant in a sapphire dress, was directing a trio of overwhelmed caterers. Her father was by the bar, schmoozing with a politician, their laughter booming over the curated lounge music.
Her friends had cornered the DJ, demanding a song with a heavier bass drop. Every surface gleamed—marble, brass, and glass reflecting a hundred smiling faces that were not her own.
Rossie had received the same three compliments on her dress seventeen times. She had been handed four different champagne flutes, sipping from none of them. With every passing hour, the gilded void inside her seemed to widen, threatening to swallow her whole.
The itch beneath her collarbone had escalated. It was no longer a hum; it was a hot, insistent throb, a silent alarm bell no one else could hear. It made her want to claw at her own skin.
She found a moment of refuge on the smaller, secondary balcony, one that faced the darker, quieter sprawl of the south. The humid night air was thick, smelling of rain and diesel. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass partition, closing her eyes.
"Hiding?"
She didn't need to open her eyes. "Just breathing, Leo."
Her cousin, Leo, leaned against the railing beside her, lighting a cigarette he knew he wasn't supposed to smoke up here. "Looks more like you're calculating escape routes. Don't worry, they won't even start the 'Happy Birthday' song until 11:59. Mom's orders. Maximum drama."
Rossie gave a weak laugh. "Lucky me."
"Hey," he said, his voice softening. "You okay? You've seemed... off all week."
She wanted to say, I feel like my life is a lie. She wanted to say, There is a stranger living inside my skin.
Instead, she said, "Just post-grad angst, I guess. Too much future."
"Right." Leo took a long drag. "Well, try to enjoy the party. It's for you, after all." He nudged her shoulder and went back inside, the glass door sliding shut, sealing her back into the silence.
She stayed out there, watching the city's electric pulse, until her mother's voice, bright and commanding, cut through the noise.
"Rossie! Where is she? It's time!"
Rossie took one last, steadying breath. It's just a performance.
She slid the door open and was immediately consumed. The music softened, and all 150 guests turned to her. Her mother was holding a towering, multi-tiered cake, ablaze with sparklers.
"It's the countdown!" one of her friends shrieked, phone held high. "Ten! Nine! Eight!"
The chant was picked up, a drunken, joyous roar. Rossie stood frozen, a spotlight finding her. Her father was beside her, arm around her shoulder. Her mother's face was a mask of pure, uncomplicated love.
The itch. It wasn't an itch. It burned. It was a searing, white-hot brand, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.
"Seven! Six! Five!"
It was as if a string inside her, anchored by that mark, had been pulled taut.
"Four! Three! Two!"
She squeezed her eyes shut, a tear of pain and confusion leaking out.
"One... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROSSIE!"
The word "HAPPY" was the last sound she heard.
It happened at 12:00:00.
It was not a silence. A silence is merely the absence of noise. This was an unplugging of the world. The music didn't stop; it was erased. The roar of 150 voices was stolen, mid-syllable. The clinking of glasses, the shuffle of feet, the hum of the city beyond the glass—all gone.
Rossie's eyes snapped open.
The world was a photograph.
Her mother was still smiling, holding the cake, but the sparklers were frozen, their light trapped in static sparks. Her father's arm was still around her, but it was heavy and cold, like marble. Her friends, mid-cheer, were a gallery of gaping, silent statues.
Panic, pure and cold, seized her throat. She stumbled back, away from her father's frozen touch.
"Mom?" she whispered. The sound was horribly loud, echoing in a vibrationless vacuum.
She touched her mother's cheek. It was not flesh. It was hard, and impossibly, terrifyingly cold.
Rossie scrambled backwards, her heart hammering a desperate, lonely rhythm. "What's happening? What is this?"
She ran to the main balcony doors, fumbling with the handle. They were locked. She slammed her fists against the glass, but the glass did not rattle. It was like hitting solid rock.
"Hello? Somebody, help me!"
Her phone. She ripped it from her purse. The screen glowed: 12:00. No signal.
"A predictable reaction."
The voice. It was not a shout. It was a calm, resonant statement, and it came from the balcony she had just been on. The one she had thought was empty.
Rossie spun around, her back pressing against the cold, unyielding glass of the main doors.
A man was standing there.
He had not been there a minute ago. He was standing where she had stood, looking not at her, but down at the glittering, frozen sprawl of Jakarta. He wore an immaculately tailored black suit, the cut modern but severe. His hair was the color of old silver or moonlight, tied back neatly.
He looked, Rossie thought with a jolt of hysteria, like the owner of the building. Like he owned the whole city.
He turned.
His face was beautiful, but it was a cold, sharp beauty, like a statue carved from obsidian. He was ageless; he could have been thirty or a thousand. But his eyes... his eyes were ancient. They were not unkind. They were not kind. They were simply... patient. They were the eyes of a creditor who has waited centuries for an account to mature.
He looked at her, and his gaze traveled, for a fraction of a second, to the spot just beneath her collarbone.
The burning had stopped. The mark was now ice-cold.
"You are 21," the man stated. His voice was the only thing in the world that was allowed to move.
Rossie couldn't breathe.
The man, Maher Xander, gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod, as if acknowledging a ledger.
"The contract is binding," he said, his voice devoid of malice, holding only the calm certainty of a finalized transaction. "The account is due. I am here to collect."