"Thank goodness that sand truck only got stuck on a utility pole, and Mas Joko only suffered a minor ego-bruising instead of getting his soul launched into the stratosphere! If anything had actually happened to him, you would have ruined our shop’s reputation as the neighborhood harbinger of bad luck, Bagas!" Mum scolded, hurling a dirty cleaning rag straight at Bagas’s face.

Bagas caught the rag with practiced reflexes, letting out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. Thank goodness the incident at the street corner this morning wasn't as terrifying as the flashing red numbers on Mas Joko's head. Turns out, a neighbor's sand truck had suddenly stalled right in the middle of the turn just as Mas Joko passed by, forcing him to slam on the brakes so hard he nearly flipped straight into a drainage ditch. The bike was fine, and he survived—even though his dignity as a self-proclaimed "street mafia boss" was instantly shattered to pieces amid the echoing laughter of the local villagers.

However, Bagas's relief was short-lived. Mum, still deeply annoyed by the morning's chaos, immediately handed down a harsh sentence.

"Stop standing there gaping like a goldfish with oxygen deprivation! As punishment for nearly giving me a heart attack, you are going to lug these three mineral water jugs over to the Village Hall! The monthly mothers' arisan meeting is going on over there, and they're running low on drinking water logistics!" Mum ordered, leaving zero room for argument.

"What? To the village hall, Mum? Right now?!" Bagas protested, his eyes bulging wide. "Oh, come on, not there, Mum! That place is a red zone! A gathering of mothers playing arisan has the aura of a cosmic crucible—say one wrong word and you'll get pulverized with a serving tray!"

"Oh, look at you coming up with excuses! Either you start walking, or your internet data allowance for the next month is officially reallocated to buying bird feed for your old man!" Mum threatened, narrowing her eyes sharply.

Without needing a second thought, Bagas hoisted the heavy water jugs with a heavy sigh of absolute defeat. "Fine, fine, Mum! I'm walking right now! Please, mercy, don't touch my internet quota—that's this child's only window to the outside world!"

Fifteen minutes later, Bagas stood posted outside the front doors of the RT 05 Village Hall. The moment he shoved open the heavy wooden doors, a tidal wave of deafening noise slammed right into his eardrums. The sound of dozens of mothers gossiping, cackling hysterically, debating market beef prices, and violently shaking the plastic arisan lottery tumbler blended together into a thoroughly eardrum-shattering symphony.

Stepping into that gathering felt precisely like stumbling onto a nuclear battlefield without any protective gear. In the middle of the room, dozens of middle-aged women sat cross-legged in a massive circle over a large plastic mat. The most striking visual wasn't their conversation, but the grand exhibition of fake and genuine gold jewelry gleaming fiercely across everyone's wrists and necks, as though they were attending a village-edition Cannes Film Festival red carpet.

"Excuse me... coming through, ladies... bringing the ordered water jugs..." Bagas squeaked quietly, hunching his shoulders as he shuffled forward, desperately trying not to draw any eyeballs.

"Well, look who decided to show up! Isn't that Bu Haji's lazy convenience store boy?" shouted a plump woman wearing an aggressively bright purple daster dress while happily crunching on spicy cassava chips. Her name was Mrs. Minah, the reigning supreme gossip queen of the neighboring RT block. "Look at you actually delivering water for once! Usually, your only job is rotting away on a bamboo cot like a lost caterpillar!"

A few nearby mothers burst into giggling fits. Bagas could only offer a pained, horse-toothed grin, flashing the most forced smile known to humanity. "Hehe, yeah, Mrs. Minah... Just doing some 'community service' for the sake of household survival."

As Bagas crept toward the far corner of the room to drop off the heavy jugs, his eyes inadvertently swept across the air hovering above the heads of the gathered women.

The exact millisecond that happened, Bagas’s footsteps froze solid. His breath caught in his throat.

The world around him suddenly seemed to spin off its axis. Stretched out before him was an entire ocean of translucent digits floating above the heads of dozens of mothers. The colors varied wildly—shades of blue, dim green, bright orange, and blazing red. The durations were equally erratic, ranging from decades away down to a few remaining days, or even hours!

"Good grief... is this a neighborhood lottery club or a purgatory rehabilitation ward..." Bagas muttered in mounting horror, gripping the edges of the water jug tightly to keep from dropping it.

What made Bagas's skin crawl even more was watching a few socialite mothers in the front row enthusiastically devouring greasy fried tofu and fritters loaded with pure cholesterol, completely oblivious to the fact that the numbers floating above their skulls indicated an alarmingly short remaining lifespan.

Are these women running an extreme survival challenge via recycled frying oil... Bagas screamed hysterically inside his head. Terrified of getting sucked into mass panic or looking disrespectful by staring at elders' foreheads, Bagas decided to deploy an emergency survival tactic.

He dropped down into a half-squat, dipping his head as low as humanly possible while closing one eye shut to deliberately block out the horrifyingly short numbers bobbing above the ladies. His bizarre, crab-like shuffle instantly captured the attention of several people in the room.

"Hey, weird kid! Why are you walking like a constipated crab?" Mrs. Minah called out in bewilderment, raising a single eyebrow at Bagas. "Did you blow out your lower back from spending too much time sleeping on that bamboo cot?"

"N-no, ma'am... This is just... military-grade physical conditioning to tighten my thigh muscles!" Bagas blurted out absolute nonsense while continuing his awkward duck-walk toward the exit.

"Ugh, Bu Haji’s kid gets weirder by the day. He's starting to look more unhinged every week," Mrs. Minah scoffed, shaking her head before returning her undivided attention to her fried snacks.

Bagas let out a gust of pent-up air. He was literally one step away from reaching the hall doors and breathing sweet, untainted oxygen outside. His mission was moments away from succeeding without a single casualty or public spectacle.

Fate, however, clearly had a much more sadistic itinerary mapped out for Bagas today.

"Hey, hold on a second! Where do you think you're sneaking off to, handsome water-delivery boy?" a booming, authoritative voice suddenly slammed the brakes on Bagas's escape.

Bagas swallowed hard, his throat dry as bone. That voice... the single most feared sound across the entire village administrative board. It belonged to the Fake-Brand Village Head's Wife—an older woman with her hair piled into a towering, stiff bun who served as the arisan chairwoman and supreme tyrant of the neighborhood treasury.

Bagas slowly rotated around, slapping on the sweetest smile his facial muscles could manufacture. "Y-yes, Mrs. Village Head... Is there anything else I can help with? The jugs are all neatly arranged in the corner."

The woman flashed a wide smile, revealing a glint of gold teeth catching the fluorescent glare of the hall lights. In her right hand, she clutched a wireless karaoke microphone.

"It’s great that the water is settled. But don't you dare run off just yet, Bagas!" she commanded cheerfully, her tone leaving zero room for debate. "It just so happens our arisan gathering has reached the roaming karaoke segment. As luck would have it, it's my turn to belt out the mandatory opening number, but my throat's a bit raspy after eating too much spicy shrimp paste!"

Bagas's eyes bulged in pure horror. "And... what does that have to do with me, ma'am?"

"It has everything to do with you..." She stepped closer, planting a heavy hand firmly on Bagas's shoulder. "...because you are going to back me up as a duet partner on stage right now! And serve as a living witness to the majestic beauty of my vocal range!"

The entire room of mothers erupted into thunderous applause and delighted cheering, making Bagas wish he could instantly pass away right then and there.

"Oh, please not me, ma'am! My singing voice sounds like a broken, rattling bajaj engine!" Bagas begged frantically, waving both hands in defense.

"No rejections allowed! If you refuse, I'm going straight to your mother to report that you called Mrs. Minah's purple dress a greasy diner tablecloth!" she threatened with a lethal, checkmate grin.

Checkmate. Bagas had zero options left other than walking like a condemned man toward the small stage at the front of the room.

With trembling fingers, he accepted the microphone handed over by the tyrant chairwoman. A blaring, high-tempo dangdut remix kicked in through the hall speakers at maximum volume.

Before she could open her mouth to belt out the opening high note with maximum theatrical passion, Bagas—standing right beside her—accidentally glanced up at her forehead.

Bagas’s heart violently detached from its moorings.

Right above her head, translucent digits flashed with sharp, blinding intensity, spelling out a horrifyingly brief remaining lifespan:

000:00:20:00

Only twenty minutes left?! Bagas screamed internally, while the woman had already pried her mouth wide open into the microphone, preparing to launch into her opening high note with absolute, unbridled soul.