Inside the cramped ambulance, the wail of the siren no longer felt distant. The sound rebounded off the steel walls of the vehicle as it tore down the street, establishing a monotonous, brain-splitting rhythm.

The medic beside Wildan busied himself checking the IV drip and monitoring the heart rate monitor, which beeped—beep... beep... beep...—with a still-feeble rhythm. The oxygen mask over Wildan's face grew thick with condensation as his breathing began to steady, even though every exhale felt like channeling hot coals across his throat.

Yet, amid the violent swaying of the speeding vehicle, Wildan’s consciousness was hurled far backward.

Not into the illusionary house of the third day. Nor down into the sub-floor where he had been trapped. His soul was dragged back across time, piercing the heavy fog that had locked away his real memories before the catastrophe struck. Something inside his head spun abruptly—like an old cassette tape forced into fast-forward, projecting fragments of memory long buried by post-traumatic shock.

Those memory fragments felt freezing cold, then instantly morphed into a searing heat that burned his soul with a crushing wave of massive guilt.

That night. The first night before hell arrived.

Wildan staggered through the narrow alley of his shop house complex. The stench of cheap alcohol radiated strongly from his breath and clothes. His head felt as heavy as a stone, spinning from months of pent-up frustration. That day, he had just received yet another job rejection letter. At twenty-four years old, he felt like a failed product, a family burden, and a loser with zero future.

BANG!

Wildan kicked the front door of their shop house wide open, caring little that the clock already pointed to two in the morning.

In the dim living room, his father and mother were still awake. They sat side by side on the sagging leather sofa. On the table lay several unpaid store bills and Rian's school fees. His father's face looked utterly exhausted, sun-baked with sweat after a full day of labor as a market cargo porter.

"Where have you been, Wildan? What time is it? Just what do you plan to become, running around and getting drunk all the time?!" his father's voice boomed, shattering the silence of the night with anger long kept in check.

Wildan laughed cynically, his footing unsteady as he gripped the back of a wooden chair. "Become what? Whatever I want! You don't need to act like you care! All you ever do is make demands, ask for shop money, ask for this and that, but you never know how hard I've been looking for work!"

"Wildan! Watch your tone, Le! Don't talk to your father like that!" His mother stood up, stepping toward Wildan with tear-filled eyes, trying to grab her eldest son's arm.

"Let go, Mom!" Wildan violently batted his mother's hand away, sending her stumbling backward. "You and Dad are the exact same! You only know how to squeeze the life out of me! This house is like a prison! I hate living here!"

Seeing his wife shoved to the point of nearly falling, his father's remaining patience shattered completely. His pride as a father who had bled himself dry to feed his family was trampled by his own flesh and blood. His father rose from the sofa, his steps wide and heavy, his eyes flashing with terrifying fury.

"Ungrateful brat! Good-for-nothing!" his father roared.

His father gripped the collar of Wildan's white undershot singlet, dragging the drunken youth toward the central corridor, right in front of the master bedroom where his mother routinely stored valuables beneath the floorboards. Wildan tried to fight back, throwing a wild punch that his father easily dodged.

"Just hit me, Dad! Hit me! Isn't that all you ever do?!" Wildan challenged, screaming right in his father's face.

WHAM!

A direct, brutal blow from his father's heavy hand landed squarely on Wildan's left jaw. The sheer strength of a cargo porter's punch was devastating, plunging Wildan's vision into sudden darkness. His body collapsed, crashing hard against the cement floor right over the old teak wood hatch sealing his mother's sub-floor cavity. Wildan passed out cold, knocked unconscious by a mix of alcohol and the savage blow to his head.

That was the last thing he remembered before total darkness claimed him.

Yet, those memories didn't stop there. Inside the ambulance, as though serving as a mute witness from a different dimension, Wildan "watched" what transpired mere minutes after he blacked out.

His father, breathing heavily, stared down at his eldest son's unconscious body with profound regret. His father's anger vanished, replaced by the shattered gaze of a heartbroken parent. His mother wept softly, kneeling beside Wildan, while Rian emerged from his bedroom with frightened eyes.

His father and mother then lifted Wildan's limp body, sliding him down into the narrow sub-floor cavity of the bedroom—a secure area purposely built to hide valuables from thieves. His father wanted Wildan to rest down there so he wouldn't cause any more trouble that night. They sealed the cavity with the old teak planks, then shoved the heavy iron bed frame over the top.

And at that exact second... the true catastrophe struck without warning.

BOOM!!!

A monstrous gas explosion tore outward from the traditional market located directly behind their shop house. A giant wave of fire rushed forward in mere seconds, leaping over the walls and instantly devouring the rear of the shop house. Leaking gas triggered a massive electrical short circuit in the ceiling. The fire raged wildly, collapsing the wooden roof and trapping his father, mother, and Rian in the family room amid a deadly cage of black smoke.

Inside the sub-floor cavity, Wildan's body was shielded by the thick teak structure and the iron bed frame holding up the collapsing upper beams. Above him, his family fought for their lives amidst the inferno, lacking the time to save themselves because the minutes vanished too quickly, yet ensuring their eldest son rested in the safest place possible before death claimed them.

Beep... Beep... Beep... Beeeep...

The trace on the ambulance heart rate monitor suddenly spiked upward. Wildan's body on the stretcher spasmed violently. Tears streamed down from his closed eyes, wetting the stretcher pillow, mingling with the cold sweat pouring down his temples.

That guilt... that guilt now truly burned his soul from within.

He remembered now.

He remembered his last words to them had been curses and screams. He remembered he had shoved his mother. Yet in their final moments alive, amid flames ready to scorch their skin, the very first thing on his father and mother's minds was protecting him. The illusionary house on the third day... had been their way of accepting the apology Wildan never managed to voice in the real world. They provided the affection, gentleness, and guidance he desperately needed so he could carry the tools to keep living without harboring resentment toward his father.

"I'm sorry... Mom... Dad... Rian..." Wildan whispered behind his oxygen mask, his voice muffled, shattered by silent weeping.

The medic, seeing his patient weeping in critical condition, swiftly checked Wildan's responsiveness. "Kid, stay calm. Don't move around yet, we're almost at the hospital."

Wildan gripped his own chest, which ached with an excruciating tightness. Not from a lack of oxygen, but from the crushing reality that he would have to bear this longing and regret entirely alone for the rest of his life. Yet behind that burning pain, a single promise now locked his soul in place. He would honor his father's final advice. He would no longer run away. He would face this gray world, carrying all their memories as a protective shield right inside his deepest heart.

Wildan's stretcher finally cleared the hospital doors, whisked away toward a new dawn of life, bearing eternal inner scars alongside an unyielding will to survive.