Logic Behind the Cracks, Lira (32), a Data Analyst not a graphic designer sat in her minimalist-industrial apartment in South Jakarta. The walls were bare, as if deliberately rejecting memory. Three years ago, Raka, her fiancé, died in a mysterious car crash in Puncak. Lira was driving, Lira was the one who survived, physically unscathed. Raka, who always spoke of Eternal Love and Ink That Never Fades, was now just a corrupted file in the cloud.
Lira's routine was a defense mechanism. Coffee. Code. Sleep. Yet, for the past six weeks, the mechanism had been glitching. Raka's sandalwood cologne scent appeared suddenly in the bathroom, smelling cold, like air leaking from a freezer. Lira, who trusted data, logged it, Frequency, 4x/week. Location, Near water source. The doctor called it Olfactory Hallucination (parosmia) due to nerve trauma. Lira agreed, but she started adjusting the angle of the bathroom mirror so she wouldn't have to look at her own reflection while washing her face. It wasn't her reflection she was avoiding, but who might be standing behind it.
The Antagonist's Introduction: The Threatening Hypothesis. This morning, at a cafe with concrete interiors, Lira met Bima, Raka's former supervisor, a blunt engineer. Maya, Lira's friend, had tactfully excused herself. Bima wasn't there to comfort, but to analyze. "I know you're still distressed," he said, cutting straight to the point. "But Raka is long gone. What remains is just the effect of severe P-TSD and your guilt."
Lira, defensive, tried to change the subject. As she reached into her work bag for her tablet, her hand brushed against something soft, a sheet of Japanese rice paper. On it was a hyper-realistic sketch of Raka's face (a piece Lira was certain she had burned a year ago), and in the corner, Raka's distinctive handwriting. "Lira, I've finished our last painting. Don't forget the promise." Lira's heart didn't thump, it paused for a beat. She remembered the promise. The one she executed in the pouring rain. The secret euthanasia promise with a high-dose morphine injection Raka had smuggled from the hospital where his mother was treated. No one else knew about it.
That night, as Lira was compulsively purging old data on her laptop, the power went out. In the total darkness, Lira heard a very distinct metallic click. Not the wind. The sound of her apartment door lock being turned. She froze. The door had been double-locked from the inside.
Inciting Incident, undeniable Data at 02:00, the power flickered back on. Lira found an Express package on the kitchen counter a worn stainless steel box, Raka's old First Aid kit container. Inside, Raka's silver locket (which should have been destroyed with the car) and an industrial, waterproof USB flash drive.
Lira connected the USB to her laptop. It contained only one audio file named "Eternal.wav".
She played the file. It was Raka's voice, calm, almost flat, "Lira, if you hear this, I know you did it. Our love doesn't die; it just needs a... transfer." The recording stopped.
Suddenly, the audio jumped. Raka's voice returned, but it sounded compressed and not like a scream, but an algorithmic whisper resembling digital feedback, "Your body is my new server. I need connection... through... the Blood Code."
Lira, the rationalist, thought it was a cruel prank. She yanked the USB out. As she touched the laptop screen, the screen cracked itself exactly where her finger made contact, and from the fissure, thick blood dripped blood she was certain was not hers. She looked toward the window: in the reflection of the glass, Raka's silhouette stood outside, not smiling, just staring with jet-black eyes, like dead pixels.
Debate, Hunting for the System Bug. Lira spent the next 12 hours without sleep. She performed a full inspection of her apartment. Locks, Windows, Ventilation, Wi-Fi Router. No trace of physical intrusion.
Maya (whom Lira called in a panic) pleaded: "Leave that apartment, Lira. You're going insane. It's just the projection of guilt you won't admit."
Lira hung up. As a data analyst, she knew she couldn't run from a bug in the system. This entity, whether a ghost, a psychotic projection, or someone's sick game, had violated the laws of physics and probability that she believed in.
She grabbed the stainless steel box again. Raka's silver locket felt warm, almost hot, in her palm. She returned to the "Eternal.wav" file. Using the advanced audio analysis software she owned (supposedly for cleaning client podcasts), she broke down Raka's voice spectrum.
Analysis Result, Raka's voice at the beginning of the recording was genuine, sampled from an old voicemail, edited. However, the algorithmic whisper at the end, which mentioned the "Blood Code" and "my new server" that was an anomaly. The frequency was too low, nearly infrasonic, and had a repetitive pattern resembling encrypted data burst transmission. Not a human sound. Not audio. It was Data.
Lira played the recording again and again, filtering all background noise.
Flashback , three Years Ago. Heavy rain in Puncak. The smell of oil and hot metal. Raka was trapped in the passenger seat, his eyes staring at Lira with a cold look, not pleading. "Time's up, Lir. Please, help me. Execute the protocol."
Lira, shocked and bleeding from her forehead, trembling, retrieved the high-dose morphine injection from Raka's First Aid kit, the same stainless steel box now on her desk.
"Don't die like this, Raka," Lira whispered. Raka didn't answer. He just pointed to his left arm. On his skin, Raka had written something with a permanent marker, blurred by the rain, but clearly visible, 44⋅18⋅79. A sequence of numbers.
"Remember this code, Lir," Raka whispered, his tone urgent, almost commanding. "We have to... cheat death. Finish your task. Transfer."
Lira injected the morphine, her tears mixing with the rain. She thought she was ending her lover's suffering. She thought it was an act of brutal love. But Raka's last words were not a goodbye. They were a command.
Lira's guilt swelled. Not because she killed Raka but because she had become the executor in a ritual she didn't understand.
Digital Corrosion and the Limits of Rationality. Lira tried to discard the USB and the locket, but her hand could not release them. She tried to enter work mode, opening a client data report.
Suddenly, her monitor flickered. Not a simple glitch. The entire spreadsheet, full of numbers and financial data, shifted, in less than a second, into a hyper-realistic sketch of Raka's staring eyes. The sketch appeared as a digital overlay, like an unremovable watermark.
Lira slammed her laptop shut. The screen went dead. She reached for her phone to call the police (or at least her psychiatrist). On the home screen, her standard wallpaper a clean geometric design had been replaced by a selfie of Raka from the night of the accident. The photo was dark, blurry, and a crack on Raka's phone screen was identical to the crack that had just appeared on Lira's laptop.
"This is not an olfactory hallucination or P-TSD," Lira muttered, her tone returning to its cold, analytical state. "This is a structured intrusion. He's using old data to manipulate my sensory input. He's looking for a new server."
Lira now realized. This horror wasn't about Love That Doesn't Die, but about a Dark Promise she helped fulfill. She had to find the source of the bug. Raka's Old House in the suburbs, where Raka conducted his strange spiritual practices before they met, was 0⋅0⋅0 the Origin Point.
Epilogue of the Journey, exiting the System, Lira moved quickly, like a reprogrammed drone. She put on her leather jacket, grabbed a small backpack (containing only her laptop, backup battery, and Raka's locket). She left her wallet, keys, and office ID on the desk. Everything connecting her to the "normal Lira" identity was abandoned.
As she stood at the door, she glanced back at her minimalist apartment. In the corner of the room, a shaft of candlelight (which she had lit the night before) had gone out, but the shadow on the wall lingered. Raka's silhouette was now not just standing, but kneeling, as if writing something on the floor.
Lira turned away. Empty. She double-locked the door and rushed to the underground garage.
The drive out of the metropolis felt like climbing over a heap of obsolete data. The city of Jakarta felt like a giant, overloaded server network. Lira drove, crossing the wet city limits.
All navigation data on her phone suddenly corrupted. Google Maps showed her as a spinning blue dot with no destination on a blank map. She had to rely on her memory.
She remembered Raka once said, "All places have their own Code, Lir. You just need to know the keyword."
The keyword. 44⋅18⋅79. The code on Raka's arm. Lira pressed the first three digits (44) on her car's dashboard (it was Raka's old car, full of analog hardware). The crashed digital map suddenly recovered, and the navigation light blinked toward a small road in the outskirts of Bogor that should have long been unregistered in the system.
She was not looking for answers. She was looking for the final data set to complete the Failed Euthanasia Operation.
Raka's Old House was waiting. And there, Lira knew, she wouldn't find a ghost. She would find a Protocol.
The chapter is complete and sets the stage perfectly for Act Two. The core conflict is now firmly established as Lira's logic vs. Raka's Protocol.
Would you like to move on to Chapter 2, where Lira arrives at Raka's Old House and begins to discover the details of the "transfer" ritual?