Chapter 1 : A Flower
For The Dead
At one of thirty
seats in Class 2-1, sat a girl who is busy doing her assignment as a class accountant.
Almost all of her
other classmates had left to their home and she was alone in the class.
Sometimes, she rubbed
a few of her side hair because it was covering her view. It can’t be help. Her
hair is long, afterall.
The girl took a
look at her watch and realized it’s 06.00 PM already.
She wanted to go
home, but,
“I can’t leave
until these paperworks are done, huh?”
She sighed with
some feels of defeat. But, she quickly regained her spirit and back to do her
job when suddenly,
Kreeeekkk
She gasped after
hearing that sound and looked for the source by reflect.
A grateful sigh
could be heard from her after she realized that sound was caused by movement of
her class door.
“Wind. Such a
strong wind that was. Hm? Oh God!”
She became lifeless
after took a look to outside. She saw a dark sky got darker and light rain had
came down to earth.
She held her head
using her both hands and then she raged out.
“Damn! This is
getting worse! Even if I finish these damn things now, I can’t go to home
immediately! Agghhh!”
She didn’t care
about her works anymore. She just sat there with frustration in her brain.
Then, someone
called her name.
“Lilly.”
Being called, she
let go of her hands and faced the caller, a boy with straight black hair. He is
one of her classmates.
“Prabu? Why you
still here?”
The girl called
Lilly looked confused.
Prabu just chukled
seeing that and said,
“I just finished my
training on Silat Club. What about you? Another paperworks?”
“Yeah. It sucks.”
Prabu couldn’t help
but laughing at her reaction. Meanwhile, Lilly just puffed her cheeks because
of her frustration.
“You’re so mean,
Prabu.”
“Hahaha. I am sorry
for laughing. It just, you are still cute even when you angry.”
Prabu saw Lilly
went into facepalm and heard her words with some defeated tone after he said
those words.
“Ahhh. Prabu, will
you ever stop teasing me?”
“Probably won’t.”
Lilly hung up her
head and stared at the ceiling. She felt too tired because of her works and
being teased by Prabu.
“By the way, you
should go home now, Lilly. It’s already pass six right now.”
“ I can’t. There
are still some works need to be done. I have to give all of these to Miss Lisa
today.”
“I see. Then, I
will help you. What I have to do?”
Lilly felt happy as
she was stood suddenly from her seat and smiled widely at her classmate.
“Really? Thanks so
much! Then, just check half of these papers. Make sure the calculations are right. I will signed them at the end.”
“Roger that,
Ma’am.”
Lilly restart to
work with help from Prabu.
Fifteen minutes had
passed and Lilly felt relieved knowing all of her works had finished.
“Thank you for your
help, Prabu. I don’t know what will happen if you didn’t help me.”
Prabu smiled at her
and answered,
“Don’t mind it,
Lilly. It’s still raining here. If you want, I can give you a ride to home. How
about that?”
Lilly took a look
to outside and realized that Prabu said the truth. It was not like she didn’t
believe in him, but she needed to made sure.
“If you don’t mind
with it, then I will take your offer. Then, come with me to Staff Room. I need
to give these things to Miss Lisa.”
“Sure.”
After packing her
stuffs, Lilly and Prabu made their way to the Staff Room.
Lilly finally got
home after a long day. She was really happy that Prabu had drove her to home so
she didn’t need to take a bus at night.
She walked to the
front door and surprised when she found her mother after she opened the door.
“Welcome home,
Lilly.”
Lilly raised her
eyebrows. Never once in her life her mother greeted her when she came home
since her father died.
Despite her
confusion, she still answered her mother with a warm smile on her face.
“I’m home, Mom.
What happen today? It’s the first time you greet me when I come home since dad
is gone.”
She felt hurt after
she said those words. Actually, she saw her mother has gloomy eyes. Maybe she
making the same expression too, like her mother.
After a long
silence between them, her mother finally said something to her.
“Your time has
come, Lilly. You have to finish something that your father couldn’t.”
“Huh? What do you
mean, Mom?”
“Follow me. I will
explain when we get to the place.”
Lilly obeyed her mother and follow her through a room
unknown to her. She could see a white circle mixed with some words of a
language unfamiliar to her. She also saw four candles at left and right side of
the room.
The room was small and dark, only relied to the candles
as light source.
“What is this room, Mom? What are we gonna do here?”
Lilly only had those questions in her head. She was so
curious about the reason.
So, her mother began explaining to her.
“Seven years ago, your father died because of a hear
attack. That was what I told to you.”
“What
she told to me? So...”
“Just like you think. That was a lie. He didn’t die
because of a heart attack.”
Lilly grabbed her chest so tight realizing the truth. She
couldn’t believe that her mother had lied to her in this seven years.
But, another question raised.
“If dad didn’t die because of heart attack, then what was
the cause?”
Her mother took a deep breath before answering. Lilly
felt a bit of anger because her mother was so slow to answered. After two seconds,
she finally heard her mother spoke.
“Your dad was killed in a ritual called Tarung Ghaib.”
Lilly widened her eyes with her mouth opened a bit
because of surprised and confused at the same time.
She surprised because her dad was actually got killed.
She confused about a ritual called Tarung Ghaib, which she never heard until
now.
“Wait! Dad got killed in a ritual?! What is Tarung
Ghaib?! Explain to me, Mom!”
“Calm down, Lilly. I will explain it slowly. Please calm
yourself.”
Lilly relaxed herself after hearing her mother. She
sighed deeply to calm her head and then looked at her mother with a straight
face.
Looking her daughter had calmed down, she began to
explaining things.
“I will explain about Tarung Ghaib. Tarung Ghaib is a
ritual which held once every seven years. The ritual is being held to claim a
keris which has a power to grant two wishes of it’s possessor. That keris is
called Sacred Keris by us. It has the right to choose seven participants who
will fight each other to death in that ritual. That’s why your father got
killed. And you, Lilly, has being choosen by Sacred Keris to participate.”
Lilly felt her throat had dried and couldn’t give any
response except terror because of the fact that her mother had told her.
After she regained her voice back, she started to give
some words to her mother.
“To-To death? Fight to death? What? Why it choosed me? I
am nobody. It’s a nonsense, Mom. How?”
“It choose randomly, Lilly. But, if I have to guess, I
think it choose you because you carry the blood of Wismara Family. A family with
long traditions of witchcraft and supernatural activities. To say it simply,
one of four ancient shaman families in this country. But, let’s skip those
things now. We don’t have much time left. You have to perform a summon ritual
now. You can’t skip Tarung Ghaib. If you don’t summon your Khadam before 08.00
PM, you will be killed by Sacred Keris.”
Lilly made a give up laugh at that. She didn’t want to
knew anymore about the ritual. Except for one thing.
“Summon? What should I summon?”
“Supernatural beings. Like ghost or spirit from realm of
death.”
Lilly gulped. She couldn’t believe that she should
summoned being that made her scared so much.
She started to trembling and shaked her whole body
because of huge amount of fears.
“This isn’t time to be scared, Lilly. If you don’t want
to die, you have to summon your Khadam.”
They walked into a white circle that was mixed with some
words of a language unfamiliar to them.
As they reached the center, some of them felt cold at
their whole body. While some of them felt hot at their head.
Ignoring those feelings, they placed both of their hands
into their chest and closed their eyes.
After that, they began to chanted some words.
“He siro ingkang
mboten dipunemuti, Kali ingkang wonten ing watesan, Panjenengan lajengi tretek
sukma. Tulung dalem kagem ngupadi jarwi,
Kaliyan
kunci ingkang mbikak gerbang, Gerbang ingkang nunjukaken kasugengan ugi bilahi,
Rawuha! He penghuni mboten kemriksa jagad!”
Then, they saw the words within the circle started to
moving in clock direction.
They narrowed their eyes when they saw the circle with
the words which was a white-coloured changed into dark blue.
As time went on, the speed of the word’s movement went
faster and faster.
Then, they forced to close their eyes because a sudden
flash filled their view.
When they opened their eyes, they finally saw them.
Lilly back off after she saw it.
It has a long black hair that could easily reached it’s butt. It wear a dirty white dress like someone who just played at a mud. It’s face was a pale white, like someone
who used too much face powder.
She started to breathed hard with her left hand held a
place where her heart could be while saw it
looked at her with glaring eyes.
Cold sweats ran through her forehead after it showed a terrifying smile at her.
In her terror and horror, only one person who could say
some words to break the silence.
“Congratulations, Lilly. You are a master, an Empu, right
now.”
Lilly choosed to ignored her mother. Actually, she
couldn’t heard her mother because of too much horrors at her.
She kept staring at it.
It also kept staring at her with a
terrifying look.
Lilly wanted to closed her eyes so bad. But, she couldn’t
do it because she felt something dangerous would happened to her after she did
that.
Lilly knew about it.
It was a legendary ghost which said could
give people so much fears just by using it’s
laughter.
With a form of pale-skinned women and wearing a dirty
white dress, it gave terrors and
horrors to the living, especially kids and females.
It was-
“Kuntilanak”
With the Empu and the Khadam still staring at each other,
Lilly muttered the type of her Khadam.
The Kuntilanak kept smiled at her. Like the dead who
was happy to received a flower at her funeral.
Meanwhile, Lilly’s fear started to raised and she
wondered about what would happened to her in a ritual called Tarung Ghaib.
Note :
Kuntilanak has different names at each regions. Sometime it's called Pontianak or Matianak or some other names. For full explanation, click this link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontianak_(folklore)
