[Day 2]

Kirana woke up because of a loud clang outside.

She remembered that the village chief said there would be a village festival today. She still found it magical, though, that when she went out, she found the whole village decorated with festive red.

Or blood red. She didn’t know which. Anyway, the festival started with a really big noisy noises, with people playing music left and right. It was so noisy that she wanted to cover her ears tightly. It kind of hurts.

The other two girls also woke up and walked outside. They brought them to a seat separate from the male players.

The festival was happy. Too happy, she’d say. Kirana took a deep breath. There was food, dancing, music. Even the shy high school girl next to her, Miranda, smiled happily.

Nothing happened at noon. Coming evening, her intuition grew stronger. Something was off.

The stage suddenly had a bit of gloom onto it. Kirana kept her own position at the ready against any danger that might occurred. However, nothing much happened. The dancers on the stage went down, replaced by another set of dancers. Kirana wondered why they didn’t get tired after dancing for the whole day.

“My wife has the honor to perform for everyone,” the village chief said. “Please, enjoy.”

There left a single woman on the stage, with flowy robe on her. A shawl was tied to her waist and she started moving. Her move grew faster and faster each second, and Kirana’s bad premonition grew even stronger along with it. With a loud thud, the woman suddenly laid down on the floor, unmoving.

Kirana observed the villagers’ reaction to the side. None of them seemed surprised by the turn of event. Even… The village chief even looked delighted. Kirana looked back at the fainted woman on the stage and found that she had disappeared.

Beside her, Miranda took her arms tightly in fear. Kirana let her. She felt an eerie atmosphere around, as the music had stopped and no one moved.

After what felt like centuries, the village chief moved forward on the stage and bowed. “Thank you for coming to the first day of the festival, everyone. Please, go back and rest.”

The villagers went back first. The six of them was walking last, seemingly waiting for each other. The bespectacled young man, Kevan, was the one who break the silence. “Did you guys see that?”

They all nodded. “She just disappeared…”

“Be careful when you went back,” Kevan said. “It’s getting more and more dangerous.”

Everyone nodded and went back to their respective houses. There was a yelp from Miranda when she was about to lay down. Kirana looked over.

“My hand!” The girl exclaimed.

She looked over and saw a strange mark on Miranda’s right wrist. It was like a flower, but the petal looked almost flowy rather than stationary. She frowned. Where did she saw this mark before?

“What… What is this?” Miranda’s voice trembled with fear.

“Was it here this morning?”

Miranda shook her head. “It suddenly appeared…”

Seeing that Putri didn’t speak, Kirana sighed. “It’s okay… It’s going to be alright.”

The girl’s eyes turned to her, trembling, but nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m going to go out to investigate,” Kirana said, seeing that it was still evening and none of them wanted to sleep yet. “You guys can stay here if you want to.”

Miranda hesitated. “Can’t you stay…?”

“There’s no guarantee this house will be safe,” she continued. “Don’t you want to know where and what mark that was?”

Miranda glanced at her, and finally nodded. “I understand… But I’ll stay here.” Her voice almost sounded like a whimper.

Kirana nodded, understanding her fear. In any case, frankly, taking the kid would just slow her down. The curt woman, Putri, was still not saying anything, so she ignored her and went out by herself.

The village was deserted. It was like after the festival ended, the villagers just went into their houses and locked the door tightly. Perhaps they did, she mused.

Just a few steps away, she met the brothers that just came out from the village chief’s house. Unfortunately, they weren’t alone. There was that young man that she absolutely disliked. What was his name again? Oh, Jet.

The man smiled widely at her, but Kirana didn’t respond. She didn’t have a good impression on that guy

“Do you want to go together?” The amiable Banyu asked, as usual.

Kirana nodded. “Sure.”

Ignoring Jet, however, wasn’t easy. The man had no knowing of the word ‘shame’. He kept smiling at her even so often, but Kirana kept ignoring him, so he started to poke her around. Bintang, who noticed, put himself between the two of them. Kirana shot him a grateful look. She didn’t want to start a fight with another player at this time.

They went to the back of the village chief’s house. Kirana noticed that the poisonous plant was gone. Did… the village chief used it to poison his wife? But it didn’t explain the wife’s disappearance on the stage out of nowhere. There must be ghosts in this dungeon.

They also went to yesterday’s river. Kirana noticed that the river was somewhat red. Was it the reflection of the evening sky, or was it…

They stayed away from the river, remembering yesterday’s happenstance. However, jet didn’t know about it. He went to the riverside.

Nothing happened to him, though.

Kirana wondered if it was because it wasn’t night yet. Didn’t ghosts only come out at night?

After going around the village, there was after all only so much places they could go to. Seeing that they couldn’t find anything, they all decided to go back.

Kirana hadn’t given up yet, however. She stayed in the living room, intended to go out after nightfall, when the old lady owner of the house came out of the kitchen. What was her name? Oh, Seruni.

The old lady smiled kindly at her. “Young lady, you haven’t gone to sleep yet?”

Kirana stared at her for a second, and then gave a polite smile. “Hello, granny, I can’t sleep.”

“Ah?” The old lady sat and poured her some tea. She didn’t take it. “What are you thinking about? You’re still so young. A scholar, isn’t it?”

She found that the way these people referred to them was very weird. ‘Scholar’, what scholar? It sounded very old-school. Nowadays people just said college students.

She nodded, however. “Granny, may I ask… Today’s festival, what do you think about it?”

Since they were university ‘scholars’ who were here to observe the festival, they must’ve already known what it was about. However, Kirana had no idea. Asking directly would destroy her character setting, so she changed it to interviewing the villagers.

“Ah, we’ve been doing this for hundreds of years,” the old lady chuckled. “Our village tradition that has been passed down for so long. I’ve seen in for so many times, it’s really no special at all. We do it every year, after all.”

“Has it always been so… cheery?”

“Yes, of course. The more festive it is, the happier our guardian god would be.” Mrs. Seruni smiled. “My husband is the shaman of our village, so every time the festival happened, he is busy taking care of injuries that might happen since people are just too excited.” She laughed, but Kirana almost shuddered at her tone.

“Can you tell me more about your village’s guardian god?” She asked carefully.

“Do you need to note it down?” The old lady asked her.

“No, no need, I have a good memory,” Kirana smiled.

“Very well then. Our guardian god lives in the river. He is very benevolent to our village. It is him that protect us from many dangers of the forest.”

If she observed carefully, it was indeed true that most of the village, except the entrance, was almost surrounded by river. Was the danger in this dungeon from the forest? But it wasn’t right, either. The village chief’s wife disappearance, and more importantly, the dungeon boundary… She mused for a second before uttering her next question. While this old lady was willing to answer, it was best to ask as much as she could. “How long will the festivities last?”

“All week of course! You should know that, you are here for a week, right?”

Kirana almost broke in cold sweat. The old lady’s eyes stared at her without moving, and by the second, it looked scarier. Her head turned fast. “Of course, I know that granny. But I mean, will the dancing and music go on every day? I am a bit sensitive to sound… A week of that is…” She grimaced.

“Ah… You poor kid. Well, no worries. All the loud music is only for today and tomorrow. On the third day, we have something even more special…” Mrs. Seruni smiled. It should be amiable and reassuring, but the smile somehow didn’t reassure her.

“Very well. Thank you so much, granny. I can now sleep.”

“Enjoy your night,” she bid her goodbye.

Kirana went back to the room given to them. The granny was definitely suspicious. She intended to investigate this house upon midnight.

For now, she slept. []