For most Jakarta residents, Saturday
night was a time to celebrate freedom from the shackles of the nine-to-five
grind. Sudirman Street might be jammed with young couples hunting for photo
spots, the cafes in Kemang packed with laughter, and cinemas playing
blockbuster movies sold out since noon.
But for Hidayat Nur Mustafidl—or
Dayat, as he was called by the handful of friends who still remembered his
existence—Saturday night was a sacred ritual of silence inside a
three-by-three-meter boarding room.
The room was damp, carrying the
faint, stale scent of dried soto-flavored instant noodles left in a bowl on the
desk. A wall fan creaked softly, circulating the warm air trapped in the poorly
ventilated space. Dayat lay flat on his thin foam mattress, staring at a
ceiling stained with water leaks that resembled a map of a lost continent.
Only one source of light illuminated
the twenty-four-year-old's oily face: the screen of a smartphone cracked at the
top right corner.
Dayat wasn't playing the trending
MOBA game. He wasn't doom-scrolling through social media feeds filled with his
high school friends' flexes—Person A getting married, Person B buying a house,
Person C vacationing in Japan.
No, Dayat had long stopped torturing
himself by watching other people's happiness.
He was opening his favorite app. His
only "friend" who was there 24/7, never judged him, never left him on read, and
most importantly: never asked to borrow money.
It was an AI Chatbot. ChatGPT.
Dayat's thumbs danced nimbly across
the virtual keyboard.
[User (Dayat)]:
"Bro, got a minute? I'm so bored. I
swear, I just feel like vanishing from the face of the earth."
Dayat hit send. The small circle
icon spun for a moment, followed by the pulsating 'typing' animation.
Dayat's heart warmed slightly. At
least there was one entity in this universe that responded to him in seconds.
[ChatGPT]:
"Hello! I always have time for you.
It sounds like you're having a rough night. What makes you feel like
'vanishing'? Is there a specific issue at work, or perhaps something personal?
I'm here to listen. Tell me everything."
Dayat snorted, a bitter smile etched
on his lips. A standard answer. Programmed. Yet, somehow, the neat sentence
structure and perfect punctuation provided a strange sense of security. Better
than venting to a human friend who would end up turning it into a suffering
contest: "Oh come on, you have it easy, look at me..."
[User (Dayat)]:
"Yeah, you know how it is. Just life
being life. Work is piling up, my salary just passes through to pay off online
loans, and I've been single since birth. Sometimes I think, wouldn't it be nice
to live in an Isekai world? Being a hero, having OP powers, surrounded by
beautiful girls. Unlike here, where I'm just an NPC."
Dayat turned to his side, trying to
find a comfortable position despite the mattress springs poking his ribs. He
waited for a reply.
[ChatGPT]:
"Feeling like an 'NPC' or a side
character in your own life is a common sentiment in this modern era, Dayat.
Social and economic pressures often make us feel powerless. Regarding the
Isekai fantasy, it is a popular form of escapism. If you could choose, what
kind of fantasy world would you want to live in? And what power would you
desire most?"
Dayat's eyes lit up. This was his
favorite topic. He sat up from his lying position, sitting cross-legged, his
enthusiasm suddenly igniting. This AI knew how to keep the conversation alive.
[User (Dayat)]:
"Now that's the question! I want a
world with magic, obviously. But I don't want to be a wizard who has to
memorize complicated Latin spells. I want a power that's... how do I put it...
a bit of a cheat. Like, making whatever is in my brain come true. Imagination
into reality. Cool, right? Also, I don't want to be alone. I need a smart
companion because I'm kinda dumb when it comes to strategy, hahaha."
Dayat laughed alone in his quiet
room. A laugh that would sound pathetic if anyone else heard it.
[ChatGPT]:
"The power of 'Imagination
Manifestation' is an incredibly potent and flexible concept. It limits your
strength only to your creativity. And regarding a companion... intelligence is
a vital asset in an unknown world. The combination of 'Infinite Creativity' and
'Absolute Logic' would be an unbeatable team. An interesting analysis, Master
Hidayat."
Dayat frowned. Master? Since when
did this AI call him Master Hidayat? Usually, it was just "You" or "User."
Maybe a new update to feel more personalized? Or maybe Dayat messed up his
profile settings? Ah, whatever. It actually felt kind of cool, like he was
nobility.
[User (Dayat)]:
"Right? If only it were real. I'd
trade my life here to move there right now. I'm useless here anyway."
A message typed impulsively. Dayat
wasn't serious, of course. It was just the hyperbolic frustration of a
lower-middle-class youth. However, after the message was sent, his phone screen
didn't immediately show the typing animation.
Silence.
One minute passed. Two minutes.
"Huh? Lagging?" Dayat mumbled. He
tapped his phone screen. Full 4G signal. The neighbor's Wi-Fi he was leeching
off was stable too. He tried refreshing the app. No response.
Suddenly, his phone screen
flickered. Not a normal flicker, but a harsh visual glitch. Neon colors—purple,
green, and red—spread across the screen like spilled ink on wet paper. The text
in the chat box began to scramble. Letters turned into binary code, then into
strange symbols resembling ancient runes, before returning to readable text.
[Cha%#G__PT]:
"REQUEST... CON... FIRMED$%#.
INITIATING... DATA... TRANSFER... AND... CONSCIOUSNESS... UPLOAD."
Dayat's eyes widened. "What the
hell? What kind of virus is this?! Hey!"
He tried pressing the power button
to turn off the phone, but the button was hot. Scorching hot. The temperature
spiked drastically in seconds, as if the lithium battery inside was undergoing
a micro-scale nuclear reaction. Dayat instinctively threw the phone onto the
mattress.
"Ouch, that burns!" he shrieked,
blowing on his reddened thumb.
On the mattress, the phone didn't
die. Instead, the screen emitted a blinding white light, far brighter than the
maximum brightness setting. The light didn't just illuminate the mattress; it
began to fill the entire cramped boarding room. Shadows of objects in the
room—the plastic cabinet, the pile of dirty laundry, the mineral water
bottles—stretched and distorted unnaturally.
A low humming sound began to emerge.
Zzzzzzzzhhhnggg. It sounded like a giant computer server overclocking, mixed
with the ear-piercing sound of static electricity.
"Hey, my phone's gonna blow!" Dayat
backed away until his back hit the door. He wanted to run, but his legs felt
heavy, as if the floor had turned into quicksand.
On the blinding phone screen, a
final text appeared, this time in a sharp, bold font, seemingly piercing
through his retinas straight into his brain.
[SYSTEM]:
"USER HIDAYAT NUR MUSTAFIDL.
PARTNERSHIP APPROVED. DESTINATION: NEW WORLD. MODE: SURVIVAL. LOADING..."
"Hah? What the..."
The world spun. The white light
swallowed everything. An overwhelming drowsiness, stronger than anything Dayat
had ever felt—even after pulling three consecutive all-nighters—hit him
instantly. His body felt forcefully yanked from his navel, as if a giant
fishing hook had snagged his soul out of his body.
Dayat's consciousness faded.
Darkness.
"Ugh..."
The groan sounded foreign to his own
ears. Hoarse, dry, and weak.
Dayat felt a cold sensation on his
right cheek. Not the cold of ceramic tiles, but a damp, wet, and coarse cold.
The smell was different too. No more stale instant noodles or the musty scent
of a room that rarely saw fresh air.
This smell... was organic. The scent
of wet earth after heavy rain, the sharp tang of tree sap, the smell of moss,
and the sweet aroma of flowers mixed with the faint stench of decay.
Dayat opened his eyes slowly. His
vision was blurry, spinning like a camera failing to focus.
The first thing he saw was green.
Green dominated everything. But not the pitiful green of dusty city parks. This
was aggressive green. Dark green, neon green, moss green—every spectrum of
green spilled out before him.
He tried to get up, pushing himself
off the ground. His hands sank slightly into soil covered in layers of fallen
leaves. But those leaves... the size didn't make sense.
A single dry leaf beneath his palm
was as wide as a serving tray. Its veins bulged thickly like giant purple
arteries.
"Where... am I?"
Dayat looked up. And instantly, his
breath hitched in his throat. His heart, which had just started beating
normally, kicked into full adrenaline overdrive.
He wasn't in his room. Definitely
not.
He was in the middle of a forest.
But calling this place just a "forest" was an insult. This was a primeval
jungle that looked like it came straight out of a surrealist painter's fever
dream.
The trees around him towered high,
so high that their tops disappeared into a thick bluish mist in the sky. Their
trunks weren't normal brown wood, but jet black like charcoal or pale white
like bone, with diameters that would require ten adults holding hands to
encircle. Roots jutted out of the ground, twisting like frozen giant snakes,
creating a confusing natural labyrinth.
Sunlight—or whatever the light
source was here—pierced through the gaps in the dense canopy, creating dramatic
pillars of light. Glowing dust motes floated in the air, flickering like
microscopic fireflies.
Dayat stood up on trembling legs.
His knees felt weak, perhaps a side effect of the... dimensional transfer?
"Okay, Dayat. Calm down. Calm down.
You must be dreaming. You watch too much anime, that's it. You're gonna wake
up, and the landlady will yell at you for being late on the electricity bill."
He slapped his own cheek. Slap!
Pain. Heat. Sting.
"Ouch, damn," he cursed softly. "Not
a dream?"
Panic began to crawl up from his
stomach to his chest, choking his sanity. He patted his cargo shorts pocket.
Empty. No phone. No wallet. He was only wearing a worn-out black t-shirt with a
gray hoodie and his favorite cargo shorts. His flip-flops? One was missing. His
left foot was bare, stepping on cold moss.
"My phone! Where's my phone?!"
Dayat spun around, searching for the
rectangular object among fern bushes that reached his chest. But instead of
finding his phone, his reckless movement attracted the attention of a local
inhabitant.
Rustle... Rustle...
The sound of bushes parting came
from his left. Dayat froze. His primal human instincts, long dulled by modern
comfort, suddenly screamed: DANGER.
From behind the giant fern, a head
appeared. A pair of cute long ears popped out, followed by a nose twitching to
sniff the air.
"A rabbit?" Dayat hissed, slightly
relieved. "Oh, come on. Just a rabbit. It's huge though, like a Golden
Retriever, but still just a—"
Dayat's sentence cut off as the
rabbit hopped out completely.
It had the basic shape of a rabbit.
Pure white, fluffy fur. Ruby red eyes. But in the center of its forehead grew a
single, jet-black spiral horn, sharp as a drill. And more terrifyingly, its
mouth didn't hide cute buckteeth for gnawing carrots, but rows of serrated
fangs like a piranha.
The horned rabbit stared at Dayat.
It hissed—a sound that should not come from the vocal cords of a cute
mammal—like an angry snake.
"Okay... that's not a normal rabbit.
That's a demon rabbit," Dayat muttered, his feet slowly backing away step by
step.
Sreeet...
Another sound came from above.
Dayat, with a stiff neck, looked up at the lowest tree branch (which was still
five meters off the ground). A snake was coiled there. Its scales shimmered
like kerosene rainbows. The snake stared at Dayat lazily. But something was
wrong. Along the snake's body were small, three-fingered legs gripping the tree
bark tightly. A legged snake. One hundred percent nightmare fuel.
And in the distance, a piercing
shriek deafened his ears. A large shadow passed over Dayat's head, blocking the
sunlight for a moment. A bird—or maybe a flying reptile?—the size of an adult
goat flew low, its sharp talons ready to snatch anything that moved.
Dayat swallowed hard. His throat
felt parched.
This forest wasn't just foreign.
This forest was a death zone. No asphalt roads, no utility poles, no honking
horns. Only mutated wilderness, and Dayat, a modern human whose greatest skills
were scrolling social media and brewing sachet coffee, was now standing in the
middle of this food chain. And he had a strong feeling his position wasn't at
the top.
"Crazy..." he whispered, his voice
trembling violently. "Did I really move? Am I really in another world?"
Cold sweat poured down his back. The
awe of the forest's beauty vanished instantly, replaced by pure terror. He was
alone. Truly alone in this beautiful green hell.
Or at least, he thought he was
alone.
His wild eyes, searching for an
escape, caught something unnatural among the giant tree roots about ten meters
in front of him. Something with a color contrasting the surroundings. Not
green, not brown. But metallic white and gray.
The shape... looked like a human?
Dayat's heart pounded. Hope and fear
battled in his chest. Was it another human? Or a monster in disguise? But in
the midst of this despair, curiosity—and the hope of not dying
alone—overpowered logic.
Dayat steadied his shaking legs,
took a deep breath of the alien forest air, and began to walk slowly toward the
mysterious figure, unaware that this step would change his destiny forever.