Tarung Ghaib - Chapter 1

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)