"I need your help finding someone," Kaivan said calmly. "If you help me, I'll pay you."
The air thickened. One of the long-haired men spoke up with a smirk, "Relax, man. Have a seat first. Let's talk."
Kaivan sat on a wobbly plastic chair, the evening breeze carrying the faint scent of gasoline and city dust. After taking a slow breath, he began to speak, about Raphael, about the book, about the cryptic guidance that kept leading him toward unexpected turns.
The group of bikers listened more closely now. Their expressions shifted as Kaivan's story unfolded, a mix of curiosity and slowly growing belief. The reward he offered was tempting enough to catch their attention. Ethan, once doubtful, now seemed convinced; he nodded subtly, signaling agreement.
But Kaivan's body was already strained. The long journey, the pressure of the Tome Omnicent, and this uneasy dialogue had worn him thin. When one of them handed him a glass of cold orange juice, he accepted it without suspicion.
The taste was ordinary, the effect was not. After a single sip, drowsiness hit him like a wave. His eyelids grew heavy, his mind blurred. Within minutes, he was fast asleep on the creaky chair, swallowed by the exhaustion he had ignored for too long.
The gang exchanged glances. Their laughter softened into sly grins. Opportunity opened its door, gently pushed by the night wind.
"Ethan, look at this!" one of them shouted, a messy-haired youth already digging through Kaivan's bag. His hands moved quick, searching for something more than spare change. When his fingers brushed against two thick envelopes, his eyes widened.
"Two envelopes, bro! It's loaded, nine million total! Hahaha!" he cried, waving the money in the air. Laughter erupted like fireworks bursting in the quiet night, echoing wild and victorious.
Their cheers filled the air. Eyes gleamed, drunk on luck that came as sudden as a storm. Ethan stood with a crooked grin, his thoughts drifting beyond the money. To them, Kaivan wasn't a friend, he was prey, lost in a den of wolves.
"Jackpot!" a tall man shouted, swinging one of the envelopes gleefully. Laughter drowned the night, bursting with dreams of quick riches and fleeting pleasure.
Yet amid the noise, a bespectacled boy noticed something unusual in Kaivan's bag. "Hey, check this out," he murmured, pulling out an old book bound in wood, its pages yellowed with age. Strange carvings ran along its cover, letters from a forgotten tongue.
"What the hell is this? Looks ancient!" he said, puzzled, holding it like something both precious and cursed. The others gathered around, their curiosity feeding the quiet shadow that lingered around the tome.
Ethan stepped closer, his gaze sharp but dismissive. He glanced once, then scoffed. "Take it. Might sell for something at an antique market," he said flatly, turning back to his gang, his laughter returning.
None of them realized they were holding the Tome Omnicent, the book that answered the world's questions and held their fate in its silent pages. Under the moonlight, it glimmered faintly, hiding its power from those too blind to see.
They rode off proud, their pockets heavy with cash and destiny they could not fathom. Behind them, Kaivan still slept, unaware that the night had just rewritten his life. That evening, the world quietly marked its note: what had been stolen was not merely wealth, but a man's very fate.
Hours later, Kaivan stirred. Midnight cloaked the small town in stillness. His body felt heavy, as if caught in thick mist. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the faint streetlight glow at the edge of his vision.
Something was wrong. An emptiness gripped his chest, not just loss, but something deeper, gnawing into his bones. His bag was gone. His money, his motorcycle, and worst of all, the Tome Omnicent.
Panic spread fast. He searched his pockets, praying for a small miracle, but the world answered with silence. He froze, standing in the quiet street like a child lost in a dark forest.
His thoughts spun, seeking a thread to grasp. "They... they robbed me," he whispered, his voice trembling as if afraid to confirm the truth. Without the Tome Omnicent, he felt like a compass whose needle had stopped.
From the haze of his thoughts, a flicker of memory returned, a faint whisper from the Tome: Hide something between your socks. It had once seemed trivial, but now, it was the only light within the fog.
With trembling hands, he pulled off his shoes and reached inside his worn socks. His fingers brushed against something small and solid. Slowly, a faint smile found its way onto his lips.
A few grams of gold. Not much, but enough to keep hope alive. Amid his ruin, he found the one thing that hadn't been stolen: his will to keep moving.
In a small, spotless pawnshop, Kaivan stood before a middle-aged man behind a glass counter. The gold, once hidden beneath layers of cloth, now lay gleaming under the pale light.
"I'd like to sell this," Kaivan said softly, yet with quiet resolve. A decision born from desperation, carried out without fear.
The man lifted the gold toward the lamp, turning it between his fingers before placing it on the scale. The faint ticking of the device rang like a delicate bell of fate.
Moments later, the man nodded. "It's not much, but I can offer you this." He named a modest amount, small, yet enough to spark a glimmer of hope.
Kaivan accepted it, realizing it was his only foothold to continue onward, to Bandung, perhaps, or wherever the Tome had intended him to go. The money wouldn't grant him comfort, but it would grant him motion.
As he stepped out of the shop, the night air wrapped around him. The sky above was dark, not merely a measure of time, but a mirror of his soul, lost, yet still walking toward the faintest trace of dawn.
Meanwhile, far away from there, a different atmosphere echoed.
Inside a cramped, smoky room, laughter erupted among bottles and drifting haze. Ethan's crew drowned themselves in the chaos of their spoils.
Ethan sat at the center, relaxed and arrogant, a glass in hand, his eyes sweeping across the crowd. He raised his drink. "So... I can keep the rest of the money, right?" His voice was cheerful, but the confidence behind it pressed down on the others.
Laughter followed, though not all of it was genuine. A thin man in a hat shot him a sharp look. "Yeah, sure. We'll talk about it later," he replied flatly. His tone carried something unsaid, a calm before the storm.