"This shop is going to land me in a psychiatric ward before my brain even finishes maturing," Bagas grumbled as he walked at a half-jog away from Barokah Jaya Convenience Store.

His mind was still ringing with the translucent numbers floating above Mrs. Darmi’s head, which had vanished into thin air the exact second the middle-aged woman stepped outside. Bagas didn't know the exact meaning of their disappearance, but his instincts as a sci-fi dystopian film marathon veteran told him it was a bad sign. A very bad sign.

To rescue his sanity from a mounting wave of panic, Bagas decided to flee as far away from home as possible. Or at least, about fifty meters down to the end of the alley.

His destination was none other than the old security post nestled beneath the neighbor's mango tree. That spot served as the supreme headquarters of the RT-level parliament, populated exclusively by retirees and underemployed middle-aged men who loved hanging out from dawn until dusk.

As Bagas approached the post, a deeply familiar cocktail of aromas assaulted his senses: a heavy blend of clove-scented kretek cigarette smoke, the dregs of thick black coffee drying at the bottom of plastic cups, and the scent of the afternoon wind carrying village street dust.

There, perched atop the battered bamboo bench with its flaking paint, Dad was presiding over a matter-of-life-and-death emergency council meeting. Flanking him were three middle-aged men acting as loyal listeners and top-tier instigators.

"Listen to me, Cak Edi, Pak Slamet. The spike in bird’s-eye chili prices right before the end of the month isn't just basic supply-and-demand market economics. We’ve crossed into the realm of international food geopolitics!" Dad declared with fiery passion, jabbing a finger into the air as though delivering a keynote address at a UN General Assembly.

Cak Edi, a retired minibus driver with a penchant for wearing his baseball cap sideways, took a deep drag from his kretek cigarette before blowing a ring of smoke into the air. "Oh, you're talking nonsense, Mat! What international geopolitics are messing with chili peppers in Suka Maju Village? That's just because the farmers in the next village over got flooded out last week!"

"Flooded out your bald head!" Dad shot back, his eyes bulging in outrage. "You're severely behind on outer space intelligence! Think about it with your smooth knee caps! Why is it that whenever rice prices go up, chili prices skyrocket, and then electricity tokens suddenly run out twice as fast? That is a deliberate pattern!"

Pak Slamet, an elderly white-haired man sitting in the corner while sipping hot coffee, chimed in with an easygoing tone. "Deliberate how, Mat? Don't tell me you're about to accuse our local vegetable vendor of being an undercover CIA agent?"

"Not the CIA, Slamet! Aliens!" Dad announced with a level of absolute, god-tier conviction.

At the word aliens, Bagas—who had just arrived and was lingering behind a post pillar—smacked his own forehead. Good grief, my own old man is a hardline conspiracy theorist, Bagas thought with a long, suffering sigh.

"What do aliens even have to do with rice and chili peppers?!" Cak Edi protested, bursting into laughter that dissolved into a slight cough. "The closest thing we have to an alien in this village is the flying gecko in Mr. RT's attic!"

"Don't laugh, Edi!" Dad defended himself, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. "Just think about it. Why do extraterrestrials love abducting cows in the United States? Because they're doing research on wagyu beef! Well, in Indonesia, they don't need to abduct cows because our cattle aren't nutritious enough. That's why they're attacking our logistics supply through... uh, through what was it again?"

Dad suddenly ran out of steam, prompting Cak Edi and Pak Slamet to erupt in simultaneous, mocking jeers. "Hahaha! There you go, walking right into your own trap! That's what happens when you binge-watch late-night Hollywood movies—your brain short-circuits like a broken electric fan!"

Bagas trudged up to the post, trying to find an opening to slip into the absurd conversation without looking completely insane.

"Afternoon, Dad... Afternoon, Cak Edi, Pak Slamet," Bagas greeted quietly, sliding onto the edge of the bamboo bench.

Dad turned, looking at his middle child with a single arched eyebrow. "Well, look who finally decided to crawl out of his cave, the reigning champion of horizontal resting. Your mum was looking for you to move a water jug, but you sneak off here instead. What wind blew you over to suddenly enjoy an afternoon walk?"

"Just stressed, Dad. The vibe at home is a bit... you know," Bagas replied with a sheepish grin, trying to mask his mounting nerves. He cast a quick, sideways glance toward the top of Dad's head. A potent mix of curiosity and dread crawled up his chest.

Could that expiration-date number be lurking on his own father's head too?

Cak Edi gave Bagas a head-to-toe evaluation with a mischievous smirk. "Stressed about what, Gas? Stressed over a smartphone installment plan you can't pay off, or stressed because the mini-market cashier rejected your pickup line?"

"Nothing to do with romance, Cak. This is about... the survival of the human race," Bagas whispered conspiratorially, earning a moment of silence from the three older men before they dissolved into amused snickers.

"Ha! The kid's catching his old man's disease! Barely a quarter-century old and already worrying about the survival of mankind, when half the time he still dumps his dirty underwear into his mum's washing machine!" Pak Slamet teased with a hearty chuckle.

Dad laughed the loudest, giving Bagas’s thigh a hearty, familiar smack. "Hear that, Bagas! If you're going to worry about the world, at least model yourself after your old man. Freaking out over chili prices spawned an entire alien theory—imagine what you could do for the future of the nation!"

Amidst the roaring laughter of the coffee-shop elders, Bagas swallowed hard. He knew it was time for the moment of truth. With slightly trembling hands, he mustered his courage and forced his gaze upward, right toward Dad's forehead.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a fraction of a second, then blinked them open.

Thump!

Bagas’s vision locked onto the empty air hovering above Dad's head.

Sure enough.

A string of translucent numbers materialized right there. But this time, the sight was entirely different from what Bagas had witnessed on Mum's or Mr. Mul's head.

Instead of a terrifyingly short countdown or a critical ticker, the numbers stretching across Dad's forehead were impossibly long. Absurdly long, as if stretching decades into the future—far beyond the normal lifespan of an ordinary human being:

125:08:19:44:10

One hundred and twenty-five years?!

Bagas shrieked internally. Does Dad plan on living long enough to turn into a walking fossil?!

Yet, it wasn't just the sheer length of the numbers that sent Bagas's heart crashing into his stomach. Right beside the tail end of that endless digit string was something entirely absent from both Mum's and Mr. Mul's foreheads.

A tiny, coin-sized emblem shaped like an inverted hourglass, framed by a faint, glowing blue ring, pulsed gently. It rotated at a sluggish, agonizingly slow pace, casting tiny electrical sparks every time Dad spoke about his alien conspiracy theories.

Bagas sat frozen stiff on the wooden bench. His eyes bulged as he stared at the mysterious symbol hovering above his father's brow, while the chuckling of Cak Edi and Pak Slamet hummed distantly in his ears, sounding like echoes from another dimension.

"Hey, Bagas! Stop staring holes into your old man's forehead! What is it this time? Don't tell me my brow is flashing a neon sign for an alien base too?!" Dad teased, in amusement, reaching up to scratch his own hairline.

Bagas couldn't utter a single word. He simply stared at Dad with a look of pure, frozen horror and a mountain of unanswered questions: Just who—and what—was the real nature of the family he'd been living with all this time?