Rain in Depok was never romantic. For Kavian Arsatya, tonight's rain was merely a variable disturbance in the calculation of his return route—one that was already sickeningly tedious.
Carriage number six of the Commuter Line felt cold, smelling of a mixture of wet rubber, musty sweat, and the silent despair of Jakarta's overtime workers. 11:15 PM. Kavian, 23 years old, stood leaning against the carriage door, hugging his laptop bag tightly like a lifebuoy in a sea of humans.
The neon lights on the ceiling flickered wearily.
"Signal disturbance again," he muttered, staring at his phone screen which had gone completely dead. No signal. No 4G. Only grey static.
He massaged his temples. As an Informatics graduate from UI who revered structure and logic, small irregularities like this irritated him. The world was supposed to run according to code. 1 or 0. On or Off.
But tonight, there was a third variable.
Tiiiitttt...
The ringing sound came suddenly. Not from his ears, but slamming directly into his brainstem.
The train braked abruptly. Not the smooth braking when entering a station, but a rough jolt that made metal scream against metal. Passengers were thrown. Someone dropped their hot coffee. Shocked screams were heard briefly.
Only briefly.
Because a second later, absolute silence descended.
The sound of heavy rain pounding the carriage roof? Gone. The sound of passengers cursing? Vanished. Even Kavian's own heartbeat felt... distant.
Kavian raised his head, his breath hitching. The colors inside the carriage were fading. The red on the priority seats, the yellow on the handgrips, the blue on the shirt of the passenger in front of him—everything slowly washed out into a dead gradation of grey. It was as if someone had turned the color saturation of reality down to zero.
"Hello?" Kavian tried to speak.
No sound came out. The airwaves in his throat did not vibrate. The laws of physics for sound propagation had been forcibly revoked from this area.
Thud.
Kavian took a step back, bumping into the glass door. He looked out the window.
There was no UI Station out there. No streetlights of Margonda, no familiar darkness of the campus forest. Outside the window was only a dark purple void that pulsed, as if they were inside the giant intestine of a primeval creature.
Then, the text appeared. Floating on his retina, burning in a blood-red color that contrasted with the grey world around him. No technical terms, no pleasantries. Purely a verdict.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]
Earth Incubation Time: Ended.
Dimension Merge: Complete.
Old Natural Laws: Deactivated.
Welcome to the New Food Chain.
Kavian froze. His analytical brain tried to process this data. Hallucination? Mass carbon monoxide poisoning?
No. This coldness was too real. A cold that pierced not the skin, but the bone marrow.
Kavian turned to the side, towards a middle-aged man who had been standing next to him.
"Sir..." Kavian tried to whisper again, and this time his voice was audible, but hoarse and broken, as if the air was filled with shards of glass.
The man didn't turn. He stood stiffly, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Crack.
The sound of breaking bone echoed in the silence.
The man's eyes bulged, his pupils dilating until they covered the entire white part of the eye, becoming pitch black. His mouth opened wide, too wide, until his jaw unhinged. And from within that gaping maw, it wasn't a tongue that came out.
But fine, wet, pale pink tentacles writhing in search of prey.
Kavian backed away, his breath coming in fast gasps. He looked around. The other passengers. The female student in the corner of the carriage, the mother with the shopping basket—they were all shaking violently. Their skin began to blister, bubbling, as if something beneath their skin wanted to tear its way out.
A system notification appeared again. This time accompanied by the sound of a bell that sounded like the echo of a funeral toll.
[INDIVIDUAL SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
Subject: Kavian Arsatya
Rank: 9 (Blind Seeker)
Detecting fatal threat.
Mental Status: Shaken.
In the corner of his vision, a transparent barometer appeared. It was filled with blue liquid that was now starting to churn and decrease little by little.
Sanity: 92%
Warning: Staring at reality anomalies will erode your sanity.
Bang!
The creature that used to be the middle-aged man lunged forward, not at Kavian, but at the passenger in front of him. The tentacles from its mouth shot out, piercing the passenger's skull like a needle through tofu. Black fluid sprayed everywhere.
The smell of metallic copper filled the carriage. It wasn't the smell of human blood. It was the smell of ancient, rotting things.
Panic exploded. Sound returned to reality at maximum volume. Shouts. Screams. The sound of flesh being torn.
Kavian didn't scream. Kavian didn't move to help. He was Kavian Arsatya—an observer, a planner. Amidst the cacophony of screams, his brain worked at the speed of a processor about to burn out.
The world has ended. Old logic no longer applies. This monster is blind, does it attack based on sound or fast movement? No, those tentacles are seeking body heat.
A blue panel appeared again, this time offering a choice that looked like a mockery.
[MAIN QUEST #1 - SURVIVAL]
Title: The First Breath
Difficulty: F
Condition: Survive for 10 minutes inside Carriage 6512.
Reward: The right to stay alive & Access to 'Status' Feature.
Failure: Become fodder for the Larva of The Flesh.
"Larva..." whispered Kavian, his hands trembling violently as he fumbled in his pants pocket, searching for something. A cheap metal pen he usually used to jot down coding ideas.
A pathetic weapon.
But right in front of his eyes, the 'Father' creature twisted its head 180 degrees. The blood-drenched tentacles quivered in the air, pointing straight at Kavian.
The grey world seemed to grin at him.
"Alright," hissed Kavian, forcing his weak legs to take a stance, even though his knees wanted to give out. The fear was there, real, and paralyzing. But behind that fear, there was a cold rage of someone whose life had just been forcibly ruined.
One minute passed.
And hell had just opened its gates.