The Midnight Shuttle

Chapter 2 : Father & I

Year 2005

“Adit, want to come with Dad?” Pak Mulyana asked his eight-year-old son.

“I want to… but buy me some snacks, okay, Dad?” Aditia replied eagerly. He loved going along whenever his father drove the angkot. For him, it felt like a nighttime adventure he never wanted to miss.

Pak Mulyana, however, was never fully at ease bringing him along. The shifts always ended deep in the night. But something always forced his hand. A dream. Clear. Repeated. Like an unbreakable command passed down through generations, just like it had been passed to him by his father, and to his father before that. The reopening of the inner sight.

“Ayah… he wants to get in.”

Adit pointed outside the moving angkot as it passed the edge of a forest road, a place where dreams seemed to arrive before reality did.

Pak Mulyana slowed down and eventually stopped the vehicle, allowing the figure to enter.

“Where are you going, Grandma?” he asked.

A strong scent of jasmine filled the car instantly.

An old woman in a green kebaya and wrapped sarong chuckled softly. The air around them turned colder. Not just because of her—but because it was already past one in the morning.

“There’s another one, Dad.” Adit pointed again.

A small child stood alone by the rice fields. After the forest, endless paddies stretched out, even though this route wasn’t part of their usual angkot line. But tonight, this was “the duty.”

Pak Mulyana did not stop.

“Why didn’t you stop, Dad?” Adit asked.

“He’s a disguised jin, son. Ignore him. He only appears because he saw you.”

“Is the grandma also a jin?” Adit asked again.

“She’s a lost soul,” Pak Mulyana replied calmly. “We help her go home.”

He had done this many times before. Guiding the lost back where they belonged.

“Grandma… where is your home?”

The woman sitting at the very back slowly turned.

But only her head moved.

Her body stayed still.

Her smile stretched unnaturally wide, beyond the limits of a human face. Then blood began to seep from the corners of her lips.

“She won’t scare him,” Pak Mulyana said firmly. “He’s used to things like this.”

“Go home, Ni. Your grandchildren are waiting.”

Silence.

“Teu hoyong uih.”

(I don’t want to go home.)

Her eyes never left Adit.

“Kunaon?”

(Why?)

Pak Mulyana asked gently.

Then she began to sing.

“Cing cangkeling manuk cingkleng cindeten…

plos ka kolong bapa satar buleneng…

kleung dengdek buah kopi raranggeuyan…”

The children’s song, usually playful and light, now sounded like a funeral hymn.

“If you don’t want to go home, where do you want to go?” Pak Mulyana asked.

“To follow you… to follow your son.”

(Nuturkeun anjeun, nuturkeun kasep.)

He immediately stopped the angkot.

“I cannot take you. Your grandchildren are waiting at home. Please go back.”

“Maneh teu nyaho saha aing!”

(You don’t know who I am!)

Her voice changed.

Her body expanded violently.

Her hair broke free from its neat bun.

Her clothes tore apart.

“Adit, don’t look back. I need to talk to her.”

Pak Mulyana moved to the back of the vehicle, closing the partition so Adit could not see what was happening.

Adit obeyed.

He stayed still.

Inside the back section, Pak Mulyana sat cross-legged, facing the now-transformed woman.

She was no longer fully human.

“Come home with me,” he said firmly. “If you refuse, do you want to become something the earth itself rejects?”

In his hand, a small keris appeared.

It did not need to be held tightly.

It simply obeyed his presence.

The creature lunged.

Its hands reached for his neck.

But Pak Mulyana pressed the keris against its forehead.

Instantly, it recoiled as if burned by invisible fire.

It retreated to the corner, shrinking back into its original form.

“Hampura…”

(Sorry…)

Pak Mulyana’s tone softened.

He knelt down.

“Go home, Ni. Your grandchildren are already suffering.”

“Anterkeun abdi…”

(Please take me…)

The woman trembled.

“I want to go home… with you and your son…”

Her name was Nini Karti.

She once had two successful sons and seven grandchildren.

She lived in rural Bandung while her children built their lives in the city.

And over time… she was left behind.

Forgotten.

In desperation, she once chose a f*******n path. A wealth ritual. A sacrifice involving her own husband.

Her sons became successful.

But success came at a cost.

And when they no longer needed her, they abandoned her.

That abandonment turned into hatred.

And hatred turned into a curse.

But the curse did not only target her family.

It bound her as well.

Between life and death.

“Go home, Ni,” Pak Mulyana said softly. “Your grandchildren have already suffered enough.”

Something changed.

The rage faded.

The resistance broke.

And the soul finally surrendered.

Nini Karti returned.

Not to the angkot.

But to her own body.

And in that moment, the end began.

A slow release of everything she once held onto.

Surrender.

Peace.

Return.

Her children wept when they learned the truth.

They begged forgiveness.

And slowly… they rebuilt their lives.

How did Pak Mulyana find her?

It began in a dream.

The spirit of her late husband came to him, pleading for help.

Begging him to save what remained of the family.

In the human world, Pak Mulyana was just an angkot driver.

But in the unseen world…

he was known as the one who brought lost souls home.

And when Pak Mulyana eventually died…

the name did not disappear.

It was passed on.

...

Aditia.

The young man who would unknowingly continue the journey.

A student by day.

A driver by night.

And a guide for those who no longer belonged to the living world.

Because some passengers…

are never really alive.

And some journeys…

are not meant for the road alone.

...

“Are you not afraid, Adit?”

One day, when Aditia was still not even ten years old, Pak Mulyana asked him that question.

“Afraid of what, Dad?” Aditia asked casually while eating the ice cream his father had bought him. They were about to start their night shift, but not on their usual route. Tonight, they were going somewhere else—somewhere beyond the regular path. A place where “assignments” had to be carried out.

“They.”

Pak Mulyana pointed outside.

A figure stood there, drenched in blood from head to toe, pretending to be a victim of a traffic accident. But it was not human.

It was a jin in disguise.

“I’m not afraid. I’ve seen them before,” Aditia replied calmly.

He had always been able to see things others couldn’t. Since birth, the unseen world had never been hidden from him.

“But you still remember the promise, right?” Pak Mulyana asked to confirm.

“Yes. I must never tell Mom or my sister. I’m different… that’s why I’m not afraid. But they would be.”

“You’re a good boy,” his father said softly, patting his head and kissing him gently.

“This is our secret.”

“Adit… I know it will be heavy for you after this. When you take my place.”

His father’s voice grew serious.

“I will teach you everything. How to face them. How to distinguish them. And how to deliver them to where they belong.”

“Not only your mind… but your body too must be strong. Learn martial arts. Some of them can touch the physical world through the bodies they possess.”

“Protect yourself with faith… and with strength. And never forget to ask God for protection.”

At that time, Aditia did not fully understand those words.

But years later, he did.

Only then did he realize why his father was so strict ... about faith, discipline, and fighting skills.

The child grew differently from others. More aware. More composed. And strangely fearless of things no one else could see.

Even after his father passed away… the inheritance remained.

A responsibility beyond logic.

And for a moment, it broke him.

He almost forgot everything he had been taught.

But slowly… Aditia became like him.

Even better.

Among those who could not be seen, he was known by a name.

...

KASEP.

✦ 2019 ✦

“Hei… hei… hei…”

A voice whispered behind his neck.

Cold breath touched his skin.

Aditia rubbed the back of his neck.

Unbothered.

But annoyed.

The man was already inside the angkot.

He sat directly behind the driver’s seat, leaning in too close, blowing cold air onto Aditia’s neck with his bluish lips.

Aditia ignored him.

Because this one was always like that.

The most annoying of them all.

A jin known as Al-Amir.

A mischievous spirit. A troublemaker.

And worst of all… he enjoyed fear.

Especially from people like Aditia.

“Are you not afraid to come to a place like this?” the jin whispered right into his ear. “An abandoned house… so dark… so lonely. You should go home.”

The cold was unnatural.

But Aditia did not respond.

Instead, he stepped out of the angkot.

The vehicle was parked in front of a massive abandoned house.

The land stretched nearly a hectare wide.

From the gate to the building, it was about a hundred meters of walking through darkness.

The road was lined with tall trees that nearly swallowed the path entirely.

The house had been abandoned for fifteen years.

It was pitch black.

Good thing he brought the angkot.

Walking here alone would have been far worse.

“You’re really going in?”

The jin suddenly appeared beside him.

Then ...

He climbed onto Aditia’s back.

Wrapped his arms around his shoulders.

Locked his legs around his waist.

And laughed.

Aditia staggered.

“What are you doing? Get off!”

But the jin only laughed harder, tightening his grip.

“Can you leave me alone for once?” Aditia snapped. “Why do you always follow me?”

The jin stuck out his tongue.

And licked his cheek.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Aditia flinched.

It burned.

Cold and hot at the same time.

“Get off… or I’ll use my keris.”

His patience was gone.

“If you use it,” the jin whispered, “my kind will hunt you. I am not alone. I will follow you until your last breath.”

A pause.

“And if I capture you… I will become a commander among demons.”

“Go home, Aditia. Your mother is waiting. Your sister too.”

The voice softened.

Almost… human.

But still not.

Aditia exhaled.

“If you want to ride along that badly…”

He stepped forward.

“…then come with me inside.”

And he walked.

Slowly.

Carrying the weight on his back.

But never stopping.

Because tonight… he had a guest to collect.

The same mission his father once failed.

Five attempts.

Five failures.

And his father never returned the soul from this house.

Now it was his turn.

After two years of carrying the duty…

Aditia was finally ready.

“Good evening, Miss…”

He stopped at the entrance.

Then spoke calmly into the darkness.

“Let’s go home.”