The Midnight Shuttle

Chapter 4 : The Crossroads

The mountain road stretched endlessly beneath the darkness as Aditia guided the old angkot toward Jakarta.

It was already past two in the morning.

Hours had slipped away inside the abandoned mansion, yet somehow the night still felt unwilling to end. The scent of jasmine had long since faded from the cabin, replaced by the familiar smell of old leather, worn metal, and rain-soaked earth drifting in through the half-open window.

For the first time in many hours...

He felt exhausted.

Nona had finally found her way home.

His father's notebook rested quietly on the passenger seat beside him, closed for the first time since he had arrived at the mansion. One more promise had been fulfilled.

One more name could finally rest.

His phone vibrated.

Again.

Then again.

The screen lit up.

Dita (12 Missed Calls)

Aditia let out a weary sigh.

"I'm sorry..."

He reached for the phone at the next red light and quickly called his sister back.

The call connected almost immediately.

"KA!" Dita's voice exploded through the speaker.

"Do you know what time it is?"

"I know."

"No, you don't! I've been calling you for hours!"

"I was driving."

"You always say that."

Aditia smiled tiredly.

"I'll be home soon."

"You'd better."

Moments of silence passed before Dita spoke again, her voice noticeably softer this time.

"Mom couldn't sleep. She kept waiting."

Guilt settled quietly inside Aditia's chest.

"I'm almost there."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"Drive carefully."

"I always do."

Dita hung up.

Aditia placed the phone back beside his father's notebook and gently rubbed his tired eyes.

His body felt heavier than usual.

Every muscle ached.

Even keeping his eyes open demanded effort.

The mountain road gradually gave way to the main highway. Streetlights appeared once more, stretching into the distance like silent guardians watching over the empty road.

There were almost no vehicles left.

Only the old angkot...

And the endless night.

Aditia lowered the window a little farther, hoping the cool air would chase away the drowsiness creeping into his mind.

For a while, it worked.

Then...

Without warning...

A woman stepped into the middle of the road, barefoot, wearing a plain white dress.

Aditia's eyes widened.

His foot slammed onto the brake.

SCREEEEEECH!

The angkot lurched violently as the tires screamed against the wet asphalt. He jerked the steering wheel to the left, narrowly avoiding the woman before the vehicle spun sideways and crashed onto the shoulder of the road.

Silence.

Complete silence filled the air as Aditia's breathing came in ragged gasps, his hands still clinging tightly to the steering wheel.

"I... did I hit her?"

He fumbled with the seatbelt, but it refused to move.

Then...

A soft breath brushed against his right ear.

"So handsome... I want a ride too," the playful voice giggled.

Every muscle in Aditia's body locked as he slowly—almost against his own will—lifted his eyes toward the rear-view mirror.

The last seat was empty.

His heartbeat slowed. He looked again.

Still empty.

A long breath escaped his lips.

"...I'm imagining things," he muttered as he reached for the seatbelt once more.

Click.

It released.

Aditia pushed the driver's door open and stepped into the cold night.

The road was deserted.

No woman, no body, no blood.

Only the faint mist drifting across the crossroads beneath the pale glow of a flickering streetlamp.

His brows knitted together.

"I know I saw someone..."

Then...

A sharp pain exploded inside his head.

"Kasep... I want to come too," a woman's voice whispered beside his ear.

The world tilted.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Aditia wasn't sure how long he had been unconscious.

Seconds.

Minutes.

Or perhaps much longer.

When he finally opened his eyes, the world around him felt strangely quiet. The pain in his head had vanished, replaced by an unsettling stillness that seemed to swallow every sound.

Slowly, he sat up.

The old angkot stood exactly where it had skidded off the road, its headlights still cutting through the drifting mist. The engine had died, leaving the crossroads wrapped in complete silence.

"...What happened?"

He pushed himself to his feet, but something immediately felt wrong.

Far too light.

Far too effortless.

Frowning, Aditia looked down.

His breath caught.

A man lay motionless beside the driver's door.

One arm twisted beneath his body.

His forehead rested against the damp asphalt.

Blood trickled slowly across the road.

The face...

Was his own.

Every trace of color drained from Aditia's face.

"No..."

He stumbled backward, unable to tear his eyes away from the body lying before him.

"...No."

His hands trembled as he looked down at himself, then back at the unconscious figure on the ground.

"I'm..."

His voice faltered.

"...out?"

He reached toward his own shoulder.

His hand passed straight through it.

A chill raced down his spine.

"I've..."

"...left my body."

The realization struck harder than the crash itself.

His father had once warned him that such a thing was possible—but only under extraordinary circumstances. Even then, Pak Mulyana had spoken of it as though it were something no one should ever experience willingly.

Aditia had never imagined it would happen to him.

Not like this.

A cold wind swept across the crossroads.

Then...

Someone spoke.

"Kasep..."

The voice no longer came from behind him.

It came from directly ahead.

Aditia slowly lifted his head.

An old woman stood only a few steps away.

She wore the same faded clothes she had been wearing that morning.

The same woven basket still hung from one arm.

But half of her head was crushed beyond recognition.

Blood covered one side of her face.

Fragments of bone and gray matter clung to her hair.

Even so...

Her remaining eye looked at him with quiet kindness.

"Bude..."

Aditia whispered as she smiled gently, not frightening, not angry—simply tired.

Without saying another word, she slowly raised one weathered hand toward him.

An invitation. For a brief moment, Aditia hesitated.

Yesterday...

He had ignored her request before, but this time he couldn't. Very slowly, he reached out, and the instant his fingers touched hers—

The world shattered.

Light burst across Aditia's vision.

Not the blinding glare of the sun, but countless fragments of memories crashing into one another until he could no longer tell which belonged to him and which belonged to someone else.

Voices echoed from every direction.

Some cried.

Some prayed.

Some simply screamed.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but the memories refused to stop.

Then...

Everything fell silent.

When Aditia opened his eyes again, the crossroads had disappeared.

In its place stood a narrow village road lined with small wooden houses. Children ran barefoot through the dusty street while women chatted on their front porches, laughing as though nothing in the world could ever disturb the peace around them.

The air smelled of fried bananas, burning firewood, and freshly brewed coffee.

Life.

Everything felt painfully alive.

Aditia turned slowly.

The old woman was there again.

Only now...

She wasn't old.

She looked no older than fifty, her face still gentle despite the lines of hardship beginning to form around her eyes. The woven basket remained tucked beneath her arm as she smiled warmly at everyone she passed.

People greeted her.

"Morning, Bude!"

"Morning!"

"Off to sell pecel again?"

She laughed.

"If I don't sell, who's going to feed me?"

The villagers laughed with her before returning to their own routines.

Aditia watched in silence.

This wasn't a ghost story.

It was a memory.

He instinctively took a step forward, only to realize no one reacted to his presence. The people walked through him as though he were nothing more than a passing breeze.

Just like the vision inside Nona's mansion...

He wasn't part of this moment.

He was only there to witness it.

The old woman continued walking from house to house, offering warm smiles even to those who bought nothing. Some apologized because they had no money that day.

She simply nodded.

"It's alright."

"Maybe tomorrow."

Not once did she sound disappointed.

Not once did she complain.

Aditia quietly followed behind her.

For the first time...

He realized why everyone called her Bude.

She treated the entire village like family.

The memory drifted onward, carrying him toward a simple roadside stall where she finally stopped. She carefully arranged her baskets, straightened the banana leaves, and began serving the first customers of the morning.

Her movements were slow.

Practiced.

The movements of someone who had repeated the same routine for decades.

Watching her...

Aditia found it impossible to connect this cheerful woman with the broken body lying beside the crossroads only moments ago.

Somewhere deep inside, he already knew.

The happiest memories always came before the deepest tragedies.

...

The world shattered.

For one terrifying instant, Aditia felt as though he had been thrown through countless invisible doors. Images flashed before his eyes too quickly to understand.

Darkness.

Rain.

Headlights.

A scream.

Then...

Everything stopped.

He found himself standing at the same crossroads.

Only now...

It was alive.

The distant call to the dawn prayer drifted across the quiet neighborhood, carried by the cool morning breeze. A thin layer of mist still clung to the empty road as the eastern sky slowly began to brighten.

Aditia looked around.

"This is..."

He already knew.

It was just before dawn.

The morning Bude Pecel died.

A few steps away, the old woman stood beside the roadside exactly as she had every morning for years. Her woven basket rested neatly on the sidewalk while she faced the road, patiently waiting for the angkot she believed would arrive.

Waiting for him.

A quiet ache settled inside Aditia's chest.

If only...

He slowly lowered his head.

If only he had come.

Bude Pecel glanced toward the road on her right, completely unaware that death was already racing toward her from the opposite direction.

Her hearing had weakened with age.

She never heard the engine.

Aditia did.

At first, it was only a distant roar.

Then headlights burst around the corner.

A gray sedan shot into the intersection at terrifying speed, weaving across the wet asphalt as though the driver had already lost control.

"No..."

Aditia whispered.

His body moved on instinct.

He ran.

"BUDE!"

He shouted with everything he had.

His voice passed through the memory like the wind.

She never turned.

The sedan came closer.

Closer.

Time seemed to slow.

The old woman remained exactly where she was, still watching the road to her right, still waiting for the angkot that would never come.

Then—

CRASH!

The impact echoed through the empty intersection.

Bude Pecel's body was thrown violently into the air before crashing onto the asphalt.

The basket burst open.

Vegetables scattered across the road.

The gray sedan lurched onto the sidewalk.

For a heartbeat, it stopped.

Then...

The driver slammed the car into reverse.

The tires screamed.

The vehicle rolled backward...

Over Bude Pecel's body.

Aditia's blood turned cold.

"No..."

The sedan shifted into gear once more and sped away into the fading darkness.

As it passed through the intersection, Aditia caught a clear glimpse of the license plate.

B 411 YA.

His heart stopped.

He knew that number.

He knew it better than his own.

"...Alya."

The name escaped his lips in a whisper.

He stood frozen in the middle of the crossroads, unable to look away from the road where the sedan had disappeared.

Behind him...

Bude Pecel's gentle voice broke the silence.

"Now you know."

Aditia slowly closed his eyes.

His chest felt unbearably heavy.

He finally understood why she had asked him to witness this.

Not to punish him.

But to leave him with a choice.

Aditia remained frozen.

His eyes never left the road where the gray sedan had vanished.

"...Alya."

The name felt foreign on his tongue.

Only moments ago, she had still been the cheerful friend who could brighten even his darkest nights. The one person outside his family who had never looked down on him because he drove an old angkot to pay for college.

Now...

She had become the face behind the tragedy.

Behind him, Bude Pecel's gentle voice rose once more.

"You've been blaming yourself."

Aditia slowly turned around.

She stood exactly where she had been before the collision, her expression calm despite everything he had just witnessed.

"I thought..." his voice trembled, "...if I'd come to pick you up..."

"You would still be alive."

Bude Pecel smiled softly. "Perhaps." She glanced toward the empty roadside where her basket had once rested. "Or perhaps... someone else would have died instead."

Aditia frowned.

She lifted one weathered hand and pointed toward the intersection.

"If you had arrived at five, I would have already been sitting inside your angkot." Her voice remained gentle, almost motherly. "The road would have been empty when that gray sedan lost control."

Aditia stared at her in silence.

"The car wouldn't have struck me."

A long pause followed.

"It would have crashed into the sidewalk."

Her eyes slowly drifted toward the spot where the sedan had mounted the curb.

"And the person inside..."

"...might never have survived."

The words settled over Aditia like a crushing weight.

For the first time...

He realized he had been mourning only one possible future.

He had never stopped to imagine the other.

Bude Pecel looked at him with the same warm smile she had worn while selling pecel to children every morning.

"Allah never lets us see every path."

"If He did..."

"We'd spend our lives regretting every choice we ever made."

The words lingered in the air long after she finished speaking.

Aditia lowered his head.

His hands trembled.

"I still should've come," he said, his voice barely steady. "I promised... and I broke that promise."

"You made the best decision you could with what you knew," she replied without hesitation.

"That's all any of us can ever do."

The old woman took a slow step closer.

"There are moments when saving one life means losing another."

"No human heart is meant to carry the burden of knowing which choice was better."

Aditia felt tears sting his eyes.

"So..."

"What am I supposed to do now?"

Bude Pecel looked toward the road where the gray sedan had disappeared into the dawn.

"You already know."

She smiled one last time as her gaze drifted toward the road where the gray sedan had disappeared.

"The woman who drove away... is still carrying this morning with her."

Aditia slowly closed his eyes, the weight of her words settling deep within him. He understood now. This wasn't about revenge—it never had been. It was about the truth, and the truth was now resting in his hands.

A cold breeze swept across the crossroads, carrying with it the quiet weight of a choice that could no longer be avoided.

The memory around them began to dissolve, piece by piece, until only Bude Pecel remained standing beneath the pale light of dawn.

"There is only one choice left for you now, Dit."

She held his gaze.

"You can remain silent..."

"...or you can tell the truth."

Then, with the same gentle smile she had given countless children over the years...

She slowly disappeared into the morning light.

The morning light faded.

The crossroads dissolved into countless fragments of light until nothing remained except an endless darkness stretching in every direction.

Aditia felt the ground beneath his feet disappear as if the world itself had given way beneath him. He was falling, not through the air, but through a vast, suffocating silence that swallowed everything around him. Then a sharp pain shot through his chest, his lungs burning as a violent gasp tore from his lips and forced him upright. Air rushed into his body—cold, heavy, real—just as someone grabbed his shoulders.

"Dit!"

The familiar voice pulled him back completely.

"Dita..."

His vision slowly came into focus.

He was lying beside the old angkot, surrounded by flashing emergency lights. Several people stood nearby, their anxious voices blending into a dull murmur as rain continued to fall over the deserted crossroads.

Dita knelt beside him, tears streaming freely down her face.

"You idiot..."

She struck his shoulder weakly before pulling him into a tight embrace.

"I thought..."

Her voice broke.

"...I thought I'd lost you."

Aditia remained still for a moment before slowly returning the embrace.

"I'm alright."

"No, you're not."

She pulled back just enough to look him in the eye.

"Do you have any idea how scared we were?"

Only then did Aditia notice his mother standing a few steps away.

She looked exhausted.

Her face was pale, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

The moment their eyes met, she covered her mouth as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.

Without saying a word...

She walked over and wrapped both of them in her arms.

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

The silence said everything words couldn't.

Aditia closed his eyes.

Only hours earlier, he had watched a mother lose her child.

Now...

He realized how close his own family had come to losing him.

The thought tightened painfully around his heart.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered.

His mother gently stroked his hair.

"Just come home."

"That's all I ask." Aditia nodded, wanting to answer, wanting to tell her everything—about Bude Pecel, about the memory, about Alya—but the words refused to leave his lips, because some truths changed more than one life.

A police officer approached them with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm.

"Sir..."

"You were fortunate."

Aditia looked up.

"The impact wasn't severe."

"You must have swerved at the last second." Aditia glanced toward the empty road.

"...Did anyone see a woman?"

The officer paused, his expression tightening slightly as confusion flickered across his face.

"What woman?"

"The one who stepped into the road."

The officer exchanged a puzzled look with another policeman before shaking his head.

"When we arrived..."

"You were alone." Aditia slowly lowered his eyes. Alone. No. He knew he hadn't been alone. Not that night. Not at that crossroads. Far beyond the flashing lights, where the mist still drifted quietly across the road, he caught the faint outline of an old woman. Bude Pecel.

She stood beneath the flickering streetlamp with the same gentle smile she had always worn.

Then...

Very slowly...

She raised one hand.

Not to ask for a ride.

But to say goodbye.

The morning sun finally broke through the clouds.

And when Aditia looked again...

She was gone.

...

The ride home passed in complete silence.

Rain continued to fall against the windshield, each drop dissolving beneath the steady sweep of the wipers. Dita had fallen asleep with her head resting against the window, exhausted after hours of fear and worry, while their mother sat quietly beside her, both hands wrapped tightly around a string of prayer beads.

No one spoke.

No one needed to.

Aditia kept his eyes on the road, but his thoughts remained trapped at the crossroads.

Bude Pecel's final words refused to leave him.

"The woman who drove away... is still carrying this morning with her."

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Alya.

He had known her for years.

Kind.

Gentle.

Quick to laugh.

She was the last person he could ever imagine leaving someone to die on the side of the road.

And yet...

He had seen the truth with his own eyes.

Not heard.

Not guessed.

Seen.

As dawn slowly brightened the eastern sky, the old angkot finally turned into the narrow street leading home.

Their small house stood exactly as he had left it.

The porch light was still on.

Someone had been waiting.

After making sure his mother and Dita were safely inside, Aditia remained behind in the driver's seat.

The engine idled softly.

His father's notebook lay on the passenger seat beside him.

For a long moment, he simply stared at it.

Then he reached over and opened it.

The last page still bore the words he had written only hours earlier.

Found.

She went home with her child.

He turned to a fresh page.

His pen hovered above the paper.

For several seconds...

He couldn't write.

Finally...

The tip of the pen touched the page.

Alya.

Nothing else.

Just her name.

He quietly closed the notebook.

Outside, the first rays of sunlight spilled across the quiet neighborhood, but the warmth of morning never reached his heart.

Some promises ended with peace.

Others...

Began with the truth.

Aditia looked through the windshield one last time.

Tomorrow...

He would find Alya.

Not to judge her.

Not to condemn her.

But to learn why she had driven away.

Because somewhere beneath the weight of guilt...

He believed there was another story waiting to be told.

And this time...

He intended to hear it from the beginning.