The darkness enveloping the Grand Ballroom was no ordinary darkness. It was a pitch-black, suffocating darkness that smelled of death.
Salim lay on the thick carpet floor. His face was pressed against fabric fibers smelling of dust and cleaning agents. He couldn't move. His body was totally paralyzed, as if his motor nerves had been unplugged from the main switch in his brain. Yet, terrifyingly, his consciousness hadn't fully extinguished.
He could still hear.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sounds of bodies falling were heard one after another, like ripe fruit dropping from trees during a storm. Dani, Rizki, Salma, Udin... all were now helpless heaps of flesh on a party floor turned silent slaughterhouse.
From the corner of his half-open eyes—because his eyelids were too heavy to close completely—Salim saw the staff access doors swing wide open.
Blinding white light flooded in from the corridor, slicing through the Ballroom's darkness. Human silhouettes emerged. They no longer wore neat hotel waiter uniforms. They wore bright orange HAZMAT (Hazardous Materials) suits, complete with full-face gas masks covering their entire faces.
They didn't panic. They didn't shout for ambulances. They moved with cold, structured efficiency.
"Sector A, secure Subject Alpha," a heavy voice spoke from behind a gas mask, distorted by a voice modulator.
"Sector B, load up. Ensure no one chokes on their own vomit. Tilt their heads," another voice ordered.
Salim felt a hand in a thick rubber glove grip his shoulder. He wanted to rebel. He wanted to scream, "Don't touch me!" But his tongue was numb, just a useless lump of flesh in his mouth.
His body was flipped over roughly. A medical flashlight beam was shone directly into his pupils.
"Subject 27-E. Pupil response slow. Sedation 95% effective," the officer reported.
"Take him. Load him into Transport Unit 3."
Salim felt his body being lifted. Not with a stretcher, but carried like a sack of rice. His head lolled back, staring at the dark Ballroom ceiling.
As he was carried out, he saw a sight that would haunt him forever. Hundreds of his cohort mates, Rajawali High students who were laughing happily just moments ago, were now being dragged, shouldered, and stacked onto metal cargo trolleys. Maya was visible on one of the trolleys, her blue dress hiked up, her hair trailing on the floor. Rinto was dragged by his feet by two officers, his head bumping against the door frame but he didn't react.
They... treat us like slaughter cattle... Salim thought, rage exploding in his chest but trapped within physical paralysis.
They were taken out of the hotel. And when the outside air hit his face, Salim realized another massive lie.
There were no beautiful tropical gardens. No infinity pools.
The "Hotel" building was actually just a giant hangar whose interior was designed to resemble a hotel. Their room's glass walls earlier were just high-resolution LED screens displaying fake ocean views.
Outside the hangar, there was only an old concrete dock, blinding industrial floodlights, and rows of military trucks with dark green canvas covers. And at the end of the dock, the rusty cargo ship Salim saw in his "dream" on the bus was now real before his eyes. P-27.
Salim's body was thrown into the back of a truck along with piles of other students' bodies. He landed on something soft but hard. It was Rehan's back.
The truck started moving. Rough jolts made Salim dizzy. His consciousness began to thin. The Nano-Machines in his blood began taking over brain functions, forcing him into hibernation mode for data synchronization.
Sleep, Salim... a voice whispered in his head. Not a human voice. It was the system's voice.
Salim's world collapsed into binary codes.
In The Interphase
The dream was strange. No storyline. No monsters or angels.
There was only a Loading Screen.
Salim felt himself floating in a black void. Around him, numbers and mathematical formulas flew like fireflies.
Integrals... Fibonacci Sequence... Game Theory...
Formulas he had learned in school suddenly felt so alive. They were no longer just writing on a blackboard. They glowed, pulsated, and merged with his nerves.
Logic Synchronization: 78%... 89%... 100%.
Strategy Module: Active.
Emotion Suppression: Active.
Elsewhere in the same void, Udin was dreaming about muscles. He saw his own muscle fibers being reinforced, his bones coated in steel. The pain from years of karate training was erased, replaced by perfect muscle memory.
Alya dreamed of anatomy. She saw transparent human bodies where every vital organ glowed red. The location of arteries, the heart, weak points in the neck. Her medical knowledge was re-indexed, not to heal, but to survive.
They were unaware that while they slept, their bodies were being altered. Their party clothes were stripped by officers inside the cargo ship sailing through fierce waves. Silk pajamas and evening gowns were thrown into the trash.
In their place, they were dressed back in Rajawali High School Uniforms.
White and gray. Complete with ties, Student Council logo belts, and standard black shoes.
Why uniforms?
Because for Mr. Adrian and the organizers, there was no symbol more poetic than seeing teenage innocence symbolized by school uniforms, stained with blood and mud in a slaughter arena. The uniform was their identity. The identity of victims.
21:30 WIB – Point Zero
Sea wind carrying salt and a fishy smell hit Salim's face.
Cold. Wet. Rough.
Not hotel AC wind. Not classroom fan wind. This was the wind of the wild.
Salim jerked awake.
He didn't open his eyes slowly like in the hotel earlier. His eyes snapped open wide, snap, as if a switch was forced on. His heart immediately pumped blood with a combat rhythm.
He woke up in a sitting position. Breathing heavily.
The first thing he saw was darkness. Only pale moonlight broke through the gaps of dense leaves above him.
Forest?
Salim felt the ground where he sat. Wet soil. Sand mixed with humus. A protruding tree root.
He looked around. He wasn't alone.
To his left, Salma was trying to stand while holding her head, her usually neat hair now tangled with dry leaves stuck in it. To his right, Udin was already in a defensive stance, his eyes wild scanning the darkness even though his consciousness hadn't fully recovered.
Rehan lay flat on his back, staring at the night sky with a blank gaze. Alya sat hugging her knees, her body shivering from cold.
And they all... wore school uniforms. White and gray uniforms that now looked ridiculous and fragile amidst this wilderness.
"Where... are we?" Salma's voice sounded hoarse, breaking the night silence filled only by crickets and distant crashing waves.
Salim stood up. His legs were steady. No dizziness. No nausea. His body felt... upgraded.
He checked his pockets. Empty. Wallet, phone, loose change, all gone.
He checked his wrist.
The prusik bracelet from Maya was still there.
Salim sighed in brief relief. At least one real thing remained.
But then, his eyes caught something glowing on the ground, right in the center of the circle where the five of them had been placed.
Five rectangular flat objects. Their screens glowed dimly in the dark.
Tablets.
Not the famous brand tablets they used for gaming. These were thick industrial tablets, encased in shockproof matte black rubber casings.
Salim walked closer, picking up one of the tablets. On the lock screen, a name was displayed: SALIM NUR HIDAYAH – GROUP 27.
"Pick up your tablets," Salim ordered flatly. His voice sounded different. Colder. More calculative. The effect of Nano-Machines suppressing emotions began to work without him realizing.
His friends obeyed. They picked up their respective tablets.
Just as Rehan touched his tablet screen, the five objects beeped in unison.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The screens turned blood red. A logo appeared: an image of a Rajawali Bird (Hawk) with its neck ensnared by barbed chains. The Rajawali High logo modified into a symbol of slavery.
Then, running text appeared on the screen.
WELCOME TO ISLAND 0.
STATUS: ALIVE.
TIME: 21:30 WIB.
ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS: 200/200.
GROUPS REMAINING: 40.
PHASE 1 MISSION: SURVIVAL.
MAIN RULE: DON'T DIE.
"Don't die?" Alya repeated, her voice trembling in horror. "What kind of joke is this?"
Rehan, who had been silent, suddenly tapped his tablet screen rapidly. He tried entering the settings menu, trying to find a system loophole.
"Locked," Rehan muttered. "Custom OS. No internet access. No Bluetooth. Only a local intranet connecting all these tablets to a central server."
"Central server?" Udin asked.
" The Host," Rehan answered. "Someone is controlling us from somewhere."
Suddenly, a very loud speaker voice shattered the forest silence. The sound came from a watchtower hidden behind trees, not far from their position. The same female voice they heard in the Ballroom.
"Attention, Cohort 27 Assets. The simulation has begun."
"You are on Island 0. Area size: 15 square kilometers. Territory limit: Open sea. Attempting to swim out means automatic execution by patrol drones."
"Your supplies are zero. Your weapons are zero. All you possess are the uniforms on your bodies and the tablets in your hands. That tablet is your life. If the tablet is destroyed, the collar on your neck will detonate."
Salim reflexively touched his neck.
There was a necklace.
A thin metal choker circled snugly around his neck. Cold. And there was a small indicator light blinking green.
Everyone panicked, feeling their own necks. Salma tried to pull the collar, but it was useless. Locked tight without a gap.
"Your goal is simple: Survive until sunrise on the seventh day. However, resources on this island are limited. Food, water, and medicine are distributed randomly. And..."
The voice gave a terrifying pause.
"...to reduce population burden and increase resource efficiency, the system will award Life Points to any group that successfully 'eliminates' another group."
"Happy fighting. And may the odds always favor the strong."
Click.
The speaker died. The forest returned to silence. But this time, the silence felt far more gripping.
Elimination.
That word echoed in Salim's ears.
Salma fell sitting on the ground, face pale. "They... they want us to kill each other? We're classmates! We're schoolmates!"
"Not anymore," Salim said. He stood tall, staring into the forest darkness.
Salim's eyes adapted quickly. In the distance, about 500 meters from their position, he saw a glint of dim light from another group's tablet.
"Starting this second," Salim continued, looking at Salma, Udin, Alya, and Rehan in turn. "The status 'classmate' is deleted. There are only 'Allies' and 'Enemies'. Group 27 is an Ally. The rest... are threats."
Udin clenched his fists. "I don't want to kill people, Lim."
"We don't have to kill unless forced," Salim answered. "But we must be ready if they want to kill us."
Rehan lifted his tablet. "I found something. There's a 'Rules' menu in the bottom right corner. But the content..." Rehan frowned. "...It's Ancient Literature? Poetry? What the hell is this?"
Salim approached, looking at Rehan's screen. Correct. The game rules weren't written in clear bullet points, but in stanzas of old literary poetry full of metaphors.
"Where blood spills, flowers grow.
One life lost, a thousand breaths whole."
"A riddle," Salim concluded. "They don't just want us to fight physically. They want us to play with brains. If we misinterpret the rules... we die foolishly."
The night wind blew harder, shaking the leaves of wild palm trees around them.
21:45 WIB.
Fifteen minutes had passed since they woke up. At 39 other points on the island, 195 other students were experiencing the same panic. Crying, screaming, or vomiting from fear.
But Group 27 didn't cry. They stood in a circle, backs facing each other, eyes staring at every compass direction.
Under the cold moonlight, Salim saw his reflection in the momentarily dark tablet screen. His face looked the same, but his eyes... the look in his eyes had changed. No longer the Salim thinking about fritter prices. There was only Salim calculating probabilities of death.
"Simulation starts," Salim whispered.
And far away there, the first scream was heard. A scream of pain slicing through the night. Someone in another group, whoever it was, had just become the first victim of panic—maybe falling off a cliff, or maybe... attacked by their own friend who lost their sanity.
Game on.