WORLD OF BEASTS: The World That Split The Earth

Chapter 001: The Fog Inside the Tour Bus That day, a group of 320 eleventh-grade students from SMKN Teknik in Tangerang City was traveling to Indonesia's new capital (IKN) after landing at Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport in Balikpapan. Ten tour buses drove in convoy along the highway, each carrying one class along with its supervising teacher. At first, everything felt perfectly ordinary. The bus engine hummed steadily. The students' conversations blended with laughter and music playing from their phones, though the screens had begun to dim as the signal gradually faded away. Then everything changed. Without warning, the bus engine suddenly died. A dense white fog erupted from every direction—not like ordinary fog that slowly rolled in, but like a silent explosion that engulfed every vehicle at once. In a single second, the highway vanished. HEUK!!! Darkness swallowed them so quickly that the entire bus seemed to disappear into a space without light. The passengers' bodies suddenly felt heavy. Their chests tightened, as though the air around them had suddenly grown thin. Every breath became difficult to draw, while an invisible pressure squeezed their bodies from every direction. Some students instinctively grabbed their seats. Others clutched their chests as they struggled to breathe. Their instincts told them that something was terribly wrong. It wasn't just darkness. It wasn't just a dead engine. There was an unfamiliar sensation that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up for no clear reason. Pale faces slowly emerged in the darkness. Cold sweat dampened their foreheads, while some tried to hide their fear with nervous jokes or irritated complaints. CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! The repeated pressing of the control panel buttons shattered the silence. Pak Marta, the bus driver, looked panicked. His hands moved frantically as he tried to restart the engine, which had suddenly gone completely dead. "What the heck is this?!" "Where are we?!" "Pak Driver, where did you take us?!" Complaints began pouring from the students. Fear was slowly turning into anger—the easiest reaction when people couldn't understand the situation they were facing. "I-I-I'm sorry... I-I don't know why this happened either..." The driver answered in a trembling voice, clearly bewildered. He himself was beginning to feel frustrated at becoming the target of everyone's anger over something he didn't understand. "Seriously... do they think I want to be stuck here too?" he grumbled inwardly. "Come on, Pak! How could you still use a bus that's falling apart?!" "Yeah. We paid good money for this, and now we're sitting in the dark!" "Pak, turn on the lights! It's pitch black!" "Yeah! Hurry up!" The students' voices grew louder. The bus quickly descended into chaos. "Everyone, calm down!" A firm voice cut through the commotion. Rezvan. The Indonesian language teacher who also taught Civics. He was the supervising teacher for the thirty-six students riding on this bus. "You've all been taught how to behave with respect," Rezvan said firmly. "Pak Driver is older than all of you. Show some manners. Complaining and getting angry won't solve anything." The bus immediately quieted down. Several students lowered their heads in embarrassment. Others pretended to busy themselves so they wouldn't have to meet their teacher's eyes. "Thank you, Pak Guru..." Pak Marta smiled as he said it. In a situation like this, even that small gesture of support meant a great deal to him. "It's alright, Pak," Rezvan replied calmly. "Please keep trying to get the engine running again." Pak Marta nodded before trying once more to start the engine. "Pak Guru, is your phone dead too?" The bus conductor, a tall, broad-shouldered man, spoke up. His voice sounded different. Not panicked— Almost too calm. "Hm?" Rezvan looked puzzled before pulling his phone from his pocket. "Huh... yeah..." His voice dropped into a quiet exclamation. "Why is my phone dead...?" "Pak Marta's phone... dead too?" the conductor asked again. "Y-Yeah..." Pak Marta answered quickly. "Do you know what's going on, Ndra?!" "If your phone was still working," the conductor replied flatly, "I don't think you'd be using a cigarette lighter to check the bus's control panel." "R-Right..." Pak Marta fell silent. Only then did he realize that he had been using the tiny flame of his lighter all this time to illuminate the dashboard. The little flame danced in the breeze drifting through the slightly open window, casting a reddish glow over the buttons that had become nothing more than lifeless pieces of plastic. "Strange..." Rezvan frowned. "How could all of our phones die at the same time?" RUSTLE... SHUFFLE... CRINKLE... The air inside the bus seemed to grow even heavier. In the darkness came the sounds of zippers being hurriedly opened, bags being searched, hands patting pockets, and small objects clinking together as the students checked their belongings. "My phone's dead..." "Mine too..." "What are we supposed to do?! Mine won't turn on either..." Panic spread from one seat to another like an invisible disease. Rezvan slowly tilted his head. "If it were just the signal, I could understand that," he murmured. "But... completely dead... all of them... how?" "The bus is completely dead... the phones are completely dead... and everything else..." The conductor's deep voice remained steady. "This isn't normal." "Please be careful with your words, Bang," Rezvan said firmly. "The students will only become more anxious... and that won't help." The conductor fell silent for a moment before giving a slow nod. He understood what Rezvan meant. Yet beneath his calm expression, something had been turning over in his mind from the very beginning. Something he was starting to believe. "Is anyone wearing a watch?" the conductor asked, raising the lighter higher. The small orange flame instantly became the only source of light inside the bus, illuminating tense faces filled with confusion. One after another, the students shook their heads. "I am," Rezvan answered, rolling up his shirt sleeve. "But why, Bang?" The conductor stepped closer. He held the lighter beneath Rezvan's wrist and stared at the watch for several seconds longer than necessary. "So I was right..." he muttered quietly. "What is it, Bang?" Rezvan asked. "Pak Guru's watch has stopped." Rezvan's eyes widened. He quickly moved his wrist closer to the light, almost following the dancing flame in the conductor's hand just to get a clearer look at the watch. "I'm sure it was working earlier," Rezvan said. "So why did my watch stop too?!" Slowly, Rezvan turned toward the conductor. For some reason, his instincts told him there was something unusual about the man standing before him. He was too calm. He had accepted the situation far too quickly. And what disturbed Rezvan most... ...was that the man looked as though he knew something no one else on the bus did. "Pak Marta, stop trying," the conductor said to the driver without taking his eyes off the darkness ahead. "This bus isn't going to start again. It's dead." "What do you mean, Ndra?!" Pak Marta shot back, sounding slightly offended. His hands froze above the dashboard he had been desperately tinkering with. "Why?" "Most likely..." The conductor briefly glanced at Rezvan. "This was caused by an EMP." "EMP?!" Rezvan and Pak Marta repeated the word in unison. "EMP... Pak Guru, you don't know what that is?" the conductor asked flatly. "I do," Rezvan answered immediately. "I teach at a technical vocational school." "Of course." The conductor's reply was as flat as ever, as though he had never doubted that for a second. "I don't know," Pak Marta interrupted, turning toward them in confusion. "What is it, Ndra?" "Think of it as a bomb for electronics," the conductor explained. "It doesn't destroy buildings. It shuts down anything that relies on electronic circuits." "But what caused it?" Rezvan asked. "Was it something natural, or..." His sentence stopped halfway. He realized the next words might trigger an even greater wave of panic among the students, who had been listening silently to their conversation. The conductor noticed his hesitation. "We don't know yet," he answered carefully. "Whether it was caused by a natural phenomenon... or something else..." Whispers immediately spread among the students. "Pak Guru, what's happening?" "Why is it dark? Isn't it still daytime?" "Did we enter a tunnel?" "Why did we stop here?" "Why does this feel so creepy?" Unease spread through the bus like a virus. "Everyone, stay calm!" Rezvan called out once again. Translator's Note This novel preserves Indonesian forms of address such as Pak, Bu, Bang, Kak, Mas, Mbak, and Om instead of replacing them with English equivalents. These are more than names or titles—they express age, respect, profession, social hierarchy, familiarity, and the relationship between the speakers. For example: Pak: a respectful way to address an older man or a man in a respected position. Pak Guru: literally "Mr. Teacher," a respectful way to address a male teacher. Bang: a respectful yet friendly form of address for an older male, depending on the region and context. Om: used for an older man, whether or not he is a relative, similar to calling someone "uncle" in Indonesian culture. Throughout the novel, these forms of address are intentionally preserved to maintain the characters' relationships and the Indonesian cultural setting.