"I swear, Jef, my head feels like it's about to pop off my shoulders just from thinking about the creepy hourglass ticking sound at yesterday's bazaar! This is definitely not a side effect of eating level-ten spicy seblak!" Bagas complained with mounting frustration, waving a hand to swat away a persistent mosquito buzzing in his ear.

Night had settled deep over Suka Maju Village. The security post beneath the mango tree looked dim, illuminated only by a weak, five-watt yellow incandescent bulb surrounded by a cloud of tiny flying termites. Sitting cross-legged on the battered bamboo cot, Bagas sipped on a plastic cup of lukewarm, bland instant coffee.

Sitting across from him was Jefri—Bagas’s ride-or-die best friend since high school, a certified professional unemployed slacker whose permanent hobbies included grinding mobile games until dawn and possessing a level of brain rot that far exceeded acceptable limits. Jefri was deeply engrossed in his phone, his thumbs tapping furiously across the screen while occasionally chuckling to himself.

"Aw, you're watching way too many B-grade sci-fi movies, Gas!" Jefri replied casually without tearing his eyes away from the display. "That's why you need to cut back on rotting away near the cracker jar and drink more coffee while gaming. Keeps your brain from hallucinating on a god-tier level."

Bagas grunted in annoyance, forcibly snatching the phone right out of Jefri's hands and dumping it flat across his lap. "Hey! Listen to me first, you absolute moron! This isn't a hallucination! I'm genuinely seeing those damn numbers floating over people's heads! Starting with Mum, Mr. RT, and ending with that loan shark boss yesterday!"

Jefri clicked his tongue in irritation at the game interruption, but he finally set his phone down and fixed Bagas with a single raised eyebrow. "Geez, why so serious, Boss? What do the numbers even look like anyway? Like your monthly mobile data quota running on its last legs?"

"No! They're remaining lifespan numbers!" Bagas hissed, leaning in close to Jefri's face. "A death countdown clock! And the craziest part? Yesterday when the grease-pole collapsed at the bazaar, I heard the sound of a phantom hourglass saying that the curse selection round has officially begun!"

Jefri fell silent for a moment. Instead of cowering in fear or laughing at Bagas like a normal person, the panda-eyed youth's eyes suddenly lit up with intense enthusiasm. He slapped Bagas’s thigh hard. "Damn! That's awesome! Are you playing a real-life server survival game right now?!"

Bagas glared daintily. "Survival game your left foot! This is human lives we're talking about, Jefri! Human lives!"

"Relax, bro! That's why, as the independent expert team you dragged out to this security post in the middle of the night, I need to formulate a valid scientific theory to crack this mystery," Jefri declared with the flair of a fake-degree professor, straightening the collar of his oversized jacket. "According to pro-player analysis, this phenomenon definitely has a logical explanation."

"Alright, go ahead, master graduate of the local internet cafe, what's your brilliant theory?" Bagas challenged, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jefri cleared his throat, striking a pose as though defending a thesis before a board of professors. "Theory number one: this is definitely because of radiation from the new cellular BTS tower built near the public cemetery yesterday! Its frequency waves accidentally activated a secret microchip inside your eyeballs, which is why you can suddenly scan the barcode of your fellow villagers' remaining lifespans!"

Bagas smacked his own forehead at the absurdity. "Cellular tower radiation just makes mobile signals stable, it doesn't give people x-ray vision to check their neighbors' expiration dates! Your brain is completely rusted out from battle royale games!"

"Fine, if theory number one gets rejected for a lack of RNG luck, we move to theory number two!" Jefri pressed on with an unbothered, wide grin. "Theory number two: this is a high-level conspiracy directly sponsored by your own old man! Didn't your dad spend the other day lecturing everyone about aliens right here at this post? For all we know, your dad is actually an undercover Andromeda galaxy operative spreading alien viruses across Suka Maju!"

"Watch your mouth when you talk about my dad!" Bagas snapped defensively, though a lingering part of him hesitated, remembering the mysterious hourglass symbol on his father's forehead a few days ago. "My dad is a retired master of complaining, not a UFO captain!"

"Hey, it's called a conspiracy theory for a reason, Gas! It's supposed to be wild, so you've got to get creative," Jefri defended himself with a massive grin. "Or... the ultimate, most logical theory of all: the residents of Suka Maju are actually playing an unconscious battle royale survival mode! God is running a universal patch update, and you got stuck with the referee role where you can check other players' remaining HP bars!"

Bagas let out a long, heavy sigh, feeling his brain cells dying one by one trying to debate the wrong person. "A universal patch update... do you think this world is an online video game that gets hotfixed every Tuesday night?!"

"Could be, bro! Think about it—why do chili prices spike right at the end of the month? That's just a food item nerf introduced by the developer to make survival harder for the players!" Jefri fired back with a completely straight, deadpan face.

"Seriously, talking to you is driving me into an acute mental breakdown," Bagas groaned, flopping his spine flat against the bamboo slats of the security post as he stared up at the starless night sky. "I'm genuinely looking for solutions, Jef. The other night, right after visiting Ki Jangkung the shaman, I got mind-griefed. And worst of all... I'm terrified those numbers are going to suddenly pop up on my own head."

Jefri, previously all grins, suddenly fell dead silent. He studied his best friend closely, sensing the genuine terror hiding behind Bagas's eyes. Jefri let out a soft breath, setting his coffee cup down onto the concrete floor of the post.

"Are you actually scared, Gas?" Jefri asked, his tone shifting entirely into serious territory, devoid of any joking undertones.

Bagas slowly turned his head, gazing up at the bamboo rafters above. "Scared? Absolutely, Jef. I might be the laziest slacker on earth who spends all day horizontal, but that doesn't mean I want an expiration date stamped on my forehead. It feels like playing a video game where someone just yanked out your respawn button."

Jefri paused for a moment, then reached deep into his jacket pocket to pull out a small LED phone flashlight with a flickering battery. "Hmm... If you're genuinely curious whether that curse has latched onto your head or not, let's prove it right now using the scientific method."

Bagas furrowed his brow, eyeing the flashlight in his friend's hand with deep suspicion. "What are you planning to do with a flashlight?"

"Come here, hold still," Jefri commanded, clicking on the LED beam. "I'm going to scan your forehead for curse signals. Who knows, with a direct light-reflection method, those translucent digits will pop up clear as day like a ghost in a dark hallway."

"Hey, don't try any weird experiments! What if my head explodes?!" Bagas panicked, trying to shimmy his seat backward.

"Just trust the pro player! Stop wriggling around!" Jefri barked, forcefully grabbing Bagas by the shoulders before aiming the beam of light straight at the bridge of Bagas's nose.

Bagas squeezed his eyes shut tight, bracing himself for whatever ridiculous stunt his best friend was about to pull.

Yet, the exact second that flashlight beam illuminated Bagas's forehead, a bizarre anomaly of physics instantly took over.

Chirp... chirp...

The ambient chirping of the night crickets around the security post abruptly died out completely. The five-watt yellow bulb hanging above their heads flickered wildly three times, and then—

Pop!

The bulb blew out with a soft snap, plunging the security post straight into absolute, pitch-black darkness. Jefri's phone flashlight died out instantly as well, as if its entire power charge had been sucked dry in a fraction of a second.

"What the hell! Why did everything just die?!" Jefri shrieked in a tiny voice of pure panic, dropping his flashlight onto the dirt.

Bagas slowly cracked his eyes open in the pitch black. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs.

Amidst the darkness of the night post, right in front of them both, reflecting brightly against the side mirror of Jefri’s scooter parked near the post pillar—was a glowing, bright-blue reflection shaping a string of translucent digits.

Those numbers hovered directly above Bagas's own head within the mirror's reflection.

The digits flickered at a blinding speed, no longer counting down in hours or days, but displaying an impossibly brief duration: ticking down strictly in remaining minutes.

Bagas sat frozen stiff, while Jefri—fumbling frantically through the dark beside him—blurted out in sheer terror, "Gas... why does my flashlight smell like burnt plastic? And... what the hell is that glowing number flashing on my bike mirror?!"