"Right at six in the morning! It matches the system terror prompt on my phone from last night down to the exact second!" Bagas muttered with eyes blown wide open, violently jolted awake from his bamboo cot without even needing an alarm to ring.

That morning—October 7, 2026—Suka Maju Village greeted the dawn under a heavy, brooding gray sky, as though the universe itself had dressed up in gloomy attire just to support the final act of the cosmic crisis plaguing Bagas’s household. Before he could even gather his scattered morning wits, the interior of Barokah Jaya Convenience Store had already transformed into a neighborhood-tier economic war zone.

Bam! The sound of a ledger book slamming down onto the wooden cash register desk rang out sharply.

Rara, the family's Minister of Finance, stood tall with her hair tied back in a messy ponytail. Her face was deathly pale, and her eyes were welling up as she stared down at the open, coffee-stained pages of the financial record book before her.

"Ruined! My accounting reputation has been instantly obliterated!" Rara shrieked hysterically, gripping her head with both hands. "Big Bro Bagas! Mum! National emergency! Our financial balance sheet this month has completely bypassed standard deficit and entered the red zone of absolute, unmitigated bankruptcy!"

Mum, standing near the shop's display rack wearing her favorite batik house dress, instantly let out an annoyed huff and crossed her arms over her chest. "Stop whining and screaming at the crack of dawn, Rara! Just how much cash balance do we have left anyway? At worst, it's just pocket change meant for buying bubble gum!"

"It's way worse than pocket change, Mum!" Rara cried out with a trembling voice, shoving the ledger toward Mum. "Our balance is a big fat zero! Empty! Nil! And to make matters worse, our main grocery stock—ranging from five-kilo sacks of rice and jerrycans of cooking oil down to dozens of cartons of instant noodles—was completely cleaned out last night by a mysterious buyer, leaving zero stock behind!"

Mum jolted violently, her eyes bulging wide. "What?! Cleaned out?! Bought by who? Don't tell me some lost billionaire dropped by at midnight?!"

"Not a billionaire, Mum!" Rara whimpered in despair. "The guy wore a scruffy black jacket, paid with dented coins, and immediately bolted away with every single grain of our rice! Our shop is completely wiped clean right now, and we don't have a single penny left for restock capital!"

Bagas, who had just dragged himself up from his cot, staggered toward the cash register, trying to digest his family's economic situation as it underwent a grocery-store-edition stock market crash. "Well... fix it, it looks like universal destiny is intentionally trying to force us into a career pivot as elite neighborhood scavengers."

"Hey, don't joke around in the middle of a family financial catastrophe!" Mum snapped harshly, hurling an empty instant-coffee sachet straight at Bagas’s face. "This is all because you sleep your life away instead of helping Mum guard the shop from phantom loan shark thieves last night!"

"Wait, why is this my fault, Mum? Last night you were the one who told me to sleep early so I wouldn't see ghost numbers!" Bagas dodged defensively while wiping his face.

"Enough, enough! Bickering isn't going to put breakfast on the table!" Rara cut in out of frustration, dropping her head directly onto the cash register counter as she mourned the future fate of her vocational school tuition fees going unpaid. "What on earth are we going to sell today if the shop is hollowed out like this? Are we supposed to sell fresh air?!"

Amidst the fierce finger-pointing between the three household heads, a low, rumbling vibration suddenly echoed from the main street just outside the alley.

Bzzzt... creak... boom!

The sharp crackle of a high-voltage electrical short circuit flared up, accompanied by minor sparks spitting from the top of the old utility pole right outside the porch of Barokah Jaya. The primary transmission cables stretching overhead suddenly whipped violently against the strong wind mixed with morning drizzle.

Mum stepped out to the shop threshold, glaring upward with an annoyed expression. "What is it now? When PLN wants to collect electric bills they're lightning fast, but the moment an aging wire is about to snap, they leave it hanging like a lonely bachelor!"

"Mum! Get back, Mum!" Bagas screamed hysterically the second his eyes caught the horrifying sight overhead.

Directly above Mum’s head, the sparking, high-voltage cable had stripped open its insulation and begun sagging downward at full velocity, ready to strike right where Mum was standing.

"Huh? What is it, Bagas? Mum wants to watch the cable guy fix—" Mum mumbled in confusion.

"Watch out, Mum!" Bagas roared with every ounce of strength in his lungs.

Without pausing to calculate the risk, Bagas lunged forward at lightning speed, slamming his body hard into Mum’s to send them both tumbling backward off the porch and rolling onto the shop floor.

Crash!

The exact microsecond they cleared the space, a ferocious blast of high-voltage electrical sparks slammed violently into the concrete floor where Mum had been standing a second prior, scorching the cement and billowing thick black smoke.

Total silence descended upon the convenience store, broken only by the ragged breathing of Bagas and Mum sprawled out across the messy floor.

"Astagfirullahaladzim... Oh Lord Almighty..." Mum whispered in shock, her eyes blown wide as she stared at the scorched patch of concrete inches away. She turned her head toward Bagas, who was sprawled protectively over her body. "Bagas... you... you just saved Mum's life..."

Rara sprinted over in a panic. "Mum! Big Bro Bagas! Are you guys okay?! Oh god, my heart almost gave out!"

Bagas scrambled to his feet in a hurry, helping Mum and Rara up safely into plastic chairs. His chest heaved violently, lungs burning from a massive adrenaline spike.

Yet, it wasn't a wave of relief that flooded Bagas's mind. Right in the middle of that crisis, his "eye curse" instinct automatically triggered without his permission. The translucent vision system in his eyes flared wide open, exposing everything directly before his own family.

Bagas stared hard at Mum’s forehead. Right there, a string of bright red numbers blazed fiercely, ticking down rapidly without pause. He whipped his gaze toward Rara seated beside her. The exact same blazing red numbers glowed sharply across his sister's brow.

Even when Bagas glanced over at the small wall mirror in the shop and caught his own reflection, the digits stamped across his forehead were glowing in that identical, blinding shade of red!

All three family members—Bagas, Mum, and Rara—were marked with blazing red countdown timers ticking down in synchronized seconds.

Mum, noticing the vacant, pale terror frozen across Bagas's face, followed his line of sight. She fell silent for a beat, then narrowed her eyes at her middle child with deep furrows lining her brow.

"Bagas..." Mum whispered softly, her voice dropping all its usual abrasive sharpness. "Your eyes... why have you been staring at Mum and Rara's foreheads like that this whole time? What are those glowing red numbers you're looking at on our heads?"

Rara turned to Bagas with a mix of creeping dread and intense curiosity. "Yeah, Big Bro. Why is your face as pale as a ghost in broad daylight? What's on our heads?"

Bagas swallowed hard against a throat gone bone-dry. He knew he couldn't lie or dodge with ridiculous excuses about hallucinations or sci-fi dramas anymore.

With trembling hands, Bagas stared at the two most precious women in his life through tear-filled eyes.

Mum and Rara sat frozen in place, staring back at Bagas with wide, startled expressions, waiting to hear what would slip past the lips of the ultimate slacker they had always regarded as Suka Maju Village's number one loafer.