It was a cloudy night with a slight breeze blowing from the sea, the combination of the sound of waves and coconut leaves soothes the mind. The silent night was calming, at least for the man standing outside the 24-hour convenience store.
Safwan was a night owl, not by his own choice unfortunately. Ever since he was small, he was having difficulties sleeping at night and staying awake and active during the day. It was like he was born nocturnal.
Obviously, with such a lifestyle he was scolded numerous times by his parents, making him the troublesome child of the family. Also having an intelligent older sister and a sports genius of a little sister makes his odd behaviour really stand out.
But Safwan was also smart and athletic, not that the world knew about it. It wasn’t his fault that all academic and athletic tests and practices were done during the day, a time where he can’t operate at full efficiency.
‘Phew~, if only I was in those ‘another world’ stories. I would totally specialize in night operations, maybe become the best assassin in the world.’
It wasn’t the first time he fantasized about it, and with the rise of the genre in stories and anime that he consumed, it won’t be his last.
“Wan! Hey Wan! Safwan!” shouted another man that appeared from the convenience store. He was Safwan’s co-worker for the night shift, a full-time worker who also loves to do night shifts.
“I told you not to slack off earlier right? 15 minutes for a coffee? Really? Don’t tell me you need to grind the coffee beans and boil the water and stuff? Come on lah!” he said.
“Sorry man, just lost myself basking in the moonlight.” Safwan apologized, scratching the back of his head, laughing.
“It’s fucking cloudy, dumbass. Huuh~ come on, get inside. We need to restock the shelves.” his co-worker sighed. It wasn’t the first time Safwan had slip out of the store just to ‘bask’ or ‘take in’ the moonlight. Sometimes he even wondered if Safwan is a vampire or a werewolf.
Safwan shrugged his shoulders and followed the man inside. He can let his imagination continue running wild in his mind while working. That will make the bland work pass by quicker, while also making his mistakes increase. Well, there’s pros and cons in everything, so he won’t bother.
As his body began falling into the rhythm of unboxing, labeling, checking the quotation and putting the product on the correct shelves, he heard a cough coming from his general left. It sounded very close, like someone a few meters away, but there’s nobody with him in that aisle.
‘What the hell? Am I hearing things now? Is it my turn to experience the unseen and hauntings like in the stories?’
Even though Safwan lives in a community that believes in the supernaturals and weird superstitions, he did not really believe or care about it that much. Most of the old Malay superstitions are made as a warning for children to behave, that’s it.
What, if you lie on the floor belly down and you swing your feet up, your parents will die? Or if you take a photo with two other people (three people) then one of them will die? Why is that? It is just so that children will not behave improperly (in case of lying on the floor with feet up) and the other is because it was expensive back then to take photos.But instead of telling the children that they frighten them with someone's death.
But hey if it works it works. Safwan remembered back when he was young when he and his cousins teased his younger sister, about how she wants their parents to die because she always lie down with her feet up, and when she cried everybody ran away because they knew they were the one who will die (from beatings) by the hands of his father. And running away and hiding only delayed the scolding (they didn’t get beaten because it’s also his sister’s fault), as lunchtime came around everybody needed to come home to eat.
“Uhurm!”
Once more, the cough pulled him out of his wandering mind. It still felt closer than it should be, but by now Safwan had pushed his thought of supernatural happening out of his mind. Inside the small store during the early morning or late night with only two employees working, the sound must have traveled faster, louder or stronger than normal. He glanced at his wrist watch on his left hand.
‘3.34 a.m. Yeah, not a coincidence at all. Come on man, why?’
He sighed, stood up and went towards the direction he thought was the correct direction he heard the cough from, which is the front cashier.
There he stood, the source of the cough. A man in his sixties with white hair and a scraggly white beard, wearing a black traditional Baju Melayu, with a black and gold Samping Songket neatly tied around his waist, and a Tengkolok also black and gold in color on his head.
He was an average height, well, as in average height in a Malaysian standard, which is around 168 cm (around 5’6”). But there was something in his stance that made him look larger or bigger, at least in character, someone that you don’t want to mess around with.
His right hand was on his side and his heels were closed together forming a V-shape, like a soldier in attention. However his left hand was on his stomach, clutching something like a golden brownish stick that was tucked in his Samping. Looking at the beautifully crafted handle of the thing, Safwan immediately recognized it.
‘A keris! Shit, is this a robbery attempt?’
It was a bit weird to rob a store with a keris, but this is not a country where you can easily obtain and own firearms. Robbing a store was also not a very common occurrence here, instead purse snatching or break-ins were more frequent.
“This is not a robbery, young man. I would never stoop that low. I just stopped by to give a message to you, from someone I served,” the stoic man said in a deep raspy voice. He still stood in front of the cashier, eyes focused on the rows of cigarettes displayed in a glass rack behind the cashier table.
‘What’s with all older men and their deep wise know-it-all voices? Making me jealous in the middle of the night. Well, at least I have a healthier beard. Heh.’
Still, Safwan won’t go closer to the suspicious man, especially when he’s holding a weapon, so he puts up his hands and backs away. The older man gave him a side glance and sighed.
“Young people nowadays, no manners, no hospitality, all of the things we Malay were known for, forgotten. Well, can’t blame you for that, what with the rise of hooligans and what not in these lands. A weak prey must always be vigilant to survive, after all.”
He slowly turned his body and walked towards Safwan.Closer and closer until he came face to face with him. His eyes were deep black, and there was something different portrayed in it, some kind of power. Something inhuman. It gave Safwan goosebumps and the urge to cower and bow down.
“Mohamad Safwan bin Mohamad Salim bin Abdul Rauf. Prepare your mind and strengthen your will, for today is the last time you will view this world as ordinary human. Will you fall to your own greed, as many have before you, or will you persevere and remain strong in your beliefs and morality,” he declared with a loud voice while spreading his arms apart.
Once again, Safwan had goosebumps all over his body. The older man’s voice echoed inside his mind, his breathing became hard and ragged, his eyes watered, his ears ringing and his knees buckled. But then a roar exploded in his mind, and a feeling of something washed over his body starting from his head all the way down to his feet.
So instead of stumbling over, he managed to stand on his feet and look straight at the adversary in front of him. The old man smiled maniacally. Oh, how good it must feel to smash that face on the floor and turn that smile into a frown. How nice it would feel to tear him to shreds and display his head in the ice cream freezer.
‘What the fuck?!’
Safwan shuddered at his sudden aggressive thinking. Never did in his life he thought about doing something like that. Well, sometimes, when some customers were being rude and acting like a dick, but it was all in his mind and he knew he won’t and can’t do anything about it. However, this time it’s different.
It felt like he would follow through with his word and really act on it. And he felt ecstatic about it.
“Excellent, you managed to stop his aggression. Can’t say that I’m too happy about it, since beating up ‘his’ new master was always a pleasure I enjoy giving. With this, I have fulfilled my duty to your great-grandfather, I have left his gift for you in your room on your campus.” he walked away before stopping again in front of the cashier, looked at the cigarette rack and swiped his hand in the air.
A single cigarette appeared between his middle and point finger, and he looked back towards Safwan.
“I have done my duty and received my payment,” he waved his hand that held the cigarette and smiled. “Welcome to the world of the unseen.”
And he vanished, like a smoke when the wind blew. After several seconds, Safwan’s body jerked strongly, and he looked around. It was a bizarre experience, like a lucid dream or hallucination. He was inside an air-conditioned store, but he was breathing loudly and sweating profusely, as if he was exercising.
He looked around once more, trying to find any evidence of his interaction with the older man. And his eyes stopped at the wall clock above the cashier, and his heart almost stopped.
It is 5.30 a.m. His simple interaction with the old man took 2 hours.
“Fuck this shit, I’m out.”
