Clean hands, so clean that all you could feel are wrinkles from all those minutes you spend washing your hands under the sink. Despite the deformation, all I see is blood covering everything. The tap water flows, filling up the sink and diluting the soap. I guess it’s just the way I could ever cope with homicide. The rag wet in an instant as my hands made contact with the fabric, red and white chequered pattern turned into a slightly darker shade than usual. The water stopped as the faucet blocked the only way out towards gravity, preventing them from flowing into the lower surface. ‘Murderer’ I muttered to myself, not allowing any justification for my action. Inner peace I could not find, similar to how that fire bender managed to truce with his trauma. You might think it's similar but juxtapose two events next to each other in a parallel way, you will find a lot of differences. Sore loser I am, thinking that I carry the whole world on my back but my worldly scar is nothing compared to him.

  Knock! Knock!

  “Talk to me will you?” a demanding voice of the First Sergeant.

  “I’ll be fine. Just need some time alone,” I replied while changing clothes. A plain white T-shirt and a pair of pants.

  “I’ll get going soon to give your family some space”

  I opened the bathroom door. Herjuna stands with something in his hand, a box of something, prescriptions? Probably that, I mean what else, it’s only convenient for him to get some medical treatment from our house. On top of that, he just got a new prosthetic, so Father might want to check for any unreasonable reaction.

  “You got time tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Not sure, need to check the agenda. Even if there’s something, tomorrow might just be the preparation”

  “I’ll give you an address, hold on…”

  The house is quiet, even I could hear my own barefoot steps when I rushed for a piece of paper and a pencil. I grabbed a school notebook and tore a small piece to write down the address of the property Father had just given me. Big chance that he will sell this house in a week to one of his colleagues, if not to the Kraton itself.

  “Ndalem (House) Kertonegoro? That's a royal residence”

  “I did not write any details. How did you know?”

  “I memorised every Ndalem outside the palace”

  Tch, show off. But considering how young he was when he joined the army, I suppose it’s no longer a new thing for his brain. On top of that, being in the Secret Service is nothing a doofus with a tinfoil hat could do. Surely it’s not something he picked up at school, this is more out of convenience. The man patted me on the shoulder before leaving, his hands were cold as dew in a drizzling dawn. His eyes are violet with a darker yellow shade dominating the lighter one, masking the purple into a brown colour, yet still, looking like a combination of blue and red. He’s tired; anyone can see it from his face. Herjuna and all of his problems, a blank canvas his heart is, but how did he even develop empathy when he could not feel simple feelings such as love?

  “See you tomorrow, thanks for saving my sister,” I said, bidding farewell.

  “Take care. Don’t think about it too much. Know that if that guy’s alive, Trinil could’ve been gone,” Herjuna left a pat on my arm before leaving.

  That man might be right, but it might be easier for him to say so, or not. Actually fucking forget it, I have left the woman with my gun to make things as if Jayatri had killed her own son. Drowning in thoughts, I declare the public hour of my bedroom has come to an end. I lay down on my bed, eyes heavy but mind wondering, would the nightmare come back? I have been sleeping in for a couple of nights due to injuries, yet dream weaving is such an exhausting act. Consent or not, knowing when to stop requires tenacity. I guess when I found out the answer to the prophecy, the nightmare would eventually stop. In darkness there is light and vice versa, the Chinese traders say the same thing, no such thing as pure Yin or pure Yang. All bad things stem from something, and they occur perhaps for a good reason.

  Or not.

  ——————-

  Nothing, nothing happened.

  Perhaps a new routine awaits, and by routine, I mean another set of nightmares. Might be the fact that one of the suspected traitors has been giving me some knowledge about dream weaving. Dusk arrives, birds chirping and nothing can stop them from expressing the language of their kind. Everything is cyclical, every morning is the same. Same birds, same clouds, same sky, same routine my neighbours have, and same praying each dawn. I get up from the bed, forcing my soul to merge with my consciousness. First thing I remember is to check on the prisoners. I put on warm clothing because the air is cold from last night’s rain, nothing in particular, I just put on whatever coat that appears in front of my eyes. The hallway is a bit busy, mother packs some important things and some clothes. Father brings up piles of medical books that he needs for work from his study.

  “Leaving so soon?” I asked.

  “In five days or so,” he replied shortly.

  “The sooner the better. Are you selling the house then?”

  “I could never sell Tineke to anyone”

  “History, I see…”

  “Go check on the prisoners. Give them some water,” Father went back to the study to pick up some more documents.

  I suppose Father is still in the blue that I killed the son yesterday. Sooner or later he would know, but I better not ruin the script before the police arrive. Jayatri is still alive, it is only correct if I treat her as humanely as possible to ease the guilt that I carry. I walk to the kitchen for some water, Trinil sits on the dining chair with her breakfast, looking uninterested in the scrambled egg Mother made for her. As I reached for a glass cup, a piece of silverware fell onto the floor.

  “What’s wrong, Trinil?”

  “I do not want to go to Batavia”

  “Don’t you want to grow up?”

  “What for? I can't even go to school”

  “That's why you make friends with the good Dutch Ladies in Batavia, Trinil. If you’re lucky, they will send you to Leiden,” I said while getting her a new pair of silverware.

  “Father is too old to protect anybody.”

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  “Bad things won’t happen twice in a row, I promise”

  “How can you be so sure?? You were not the one who saved me either!”

  “Trinil!”

  She grew up in an instant. The fear and trauma that happened yesterday turned her into a sceptical young woman. Should I be proud of those questions myself, or pity her for everything that happened. I did not mean to raise my voice towards her, but maybe leaving a bad impression would essentially ease the pain inflicted by parting. She is just a child, in a couple of years she would graduate from Leiden with the highest degree without turning her back towards her pathetic brother. But if she wants to grow up badly, I might as well give her the truth about the world.

  “Do you think I’m a liar?” I asked her a rhetorical question.

  “No-“

  “When I say that people want me dead, Trinil, do you think your brother is lying?”

  The girl went silent.

  “Be a good girl and pack your belongings.” If the girl does not want to answer, then she knows what is wrong with her.

  I could not do it, just simply couldn’t. Father would scold me, and Trinil herself would condemn me for life. I try to forget about portraying myself as the villain in this family as I go down to the backyard. The sun is rising, and so does everything else. The more I get close to the hut, the more I smell something unpleasant. Decomposition has started, it’s all that I know from the knowledge my Father passed down during my school era. I tried to push the shack’s door, yet I do not recall this wooden junk being heavy. The ground is wet from the rain, but nothing is more suspicious than a red concrete slab that supports the whole shack. For a moment, I tried to find the red thread of the whole event, the rain might have toned down any gunshot noises at that point. I thought Jayatri would mourn heavily, but for the entire night, I don’t think anyone had a noise complaint.

  “Airlangga, the policemen are here!!” Mother shouted from the kitchen before letting two police officers enter her garden.

  Two men, one thin and the other a bit on the heavy side of the scale approached me with two pairs of handcuffs. A low officer, they sometimes work in traffic but I believe that no matter what they do, the office will always dispatch anyone on the streets.

  “Greetings, Private. We received a distress call from your Father,” thin officer greeted me. How did he know that I was in the military? I’m not even wearing my uniform.

  “Yeah, an attempted murder and a kidnapping. I hold them at the shack but it seems like they make a barricade out of whatever gardening tools are inside. I can't seem to open the door,” I explained.

  “Locking themselves to avoid being detained? That's new. Dul, you go give it a try,” thin officer said to the fat one.

  The heavy officer did not mutter a single word, he just straight proceeded to pry the shaft door open with the force of his body. The door moved just by the first push, clearly it was not barred, more like something was in the way. Garden tools could not be that heavy, in fact I believe it is fertiliser sacks. The second and third push completely broke the hut’s thin door, revealing even more blood splatter than yesterday’s crime scene. Flies flying in circles near the bodies and the stench would send anyone into a gag, a full vomit if you will. It's less than twenty four yet how could someone decay in such time? Jayatri had killed herself, her head blown to pieces alongside whatever was inside her cranium. Such a view, yet nobody heard anything last night.

  “FATHER…! FATHER… GEAR UP AND COME TAKE A LOOK !” In between shouts, I try my best not to choke on myself.

  “Holy crap… Dul, get back to the office and request forensics! How long have they been here?”

  “Just a night. They did the crime yesterday, so I put them in this shack alongside the evidence.”

  “Goodness gracious… They should have been dead for at least 5 days!”

  I looked around, I saw Father with his leather gloves coming from the kitchen. He puts on a plague mask before jumping into the crime scene. Both corpses are disfigured, faces unrecognisable to people who pass by. A gun would not be able to blow off a cranium into pieces, yet now both are faceless and headless. Father turned their limbs around, trying to find certain symptoms and indications of the plague surrounding the kingdom or at least similarities to it. Some black spots on Jayatri’s back and gangrene on her son’s shoulder, the symptoms were hidden behind the clothing they wore. This would make sense since we don't know much about the plague itself, all I know is that it could be some kind of devotion mark to the cult. They need money, and the propaganda spread by that cult would be a sweet, sweet way out for people with unstable incomes.

  “My hypothesis is that the plague accelerates the decay. Both corpses show clear symptoms of it. As for the killing factor, I still do not know. What did you boys do?” Father asked after he was pretty much sure about what the corpses had to say.

  “I put the gun with them after the interrogation, that’s it,” I double-spoke. I hid something, but I did not lie at all.

  “Interrogation?” The police officer grew suspicious while taking out his pencil and a small notebook.

  “I’m with the Secret Service. The Netherlands put a bounty on my head, so I speculated that they’re in connection with the bad guy I was chasing. The son broke out, and we left them alone after,” the officer wrote down every single word I said.

  “What about you, Doctor Wahidin?”

  “My wife, the girl, and I were in my study room. The First Sergeant suggested we leave during the interrogation, but for safety reasons, we decided to stay. Besides, the study is quite soundproof.” Father played along without any briefing.

  “Hmm… for now, we will clean this thing up when forensics comes. But for now, I will talk to your wife and daughter about it, if you do not mind, of course.”

  “Please, be our guest”

  My knees go weak, I don't have the iron stomach to face this kind of mortal abomination. I threw up, but I just woke up and had nothing inside my stomach. My throat closed up as my empty bowels kept on pushing ‘nothing’ out of my mouth. I gasped for air as the sickness toned down, but whenever the stench entered my nose, it kept on repeating. Father hands me his handkerchief to filter the overpowering stench of death. I ran to my room, while mother tried to calm me down when she saw me struggling with keeping my own posture

  —————

  “You look pale. You see ghosts every day, why make such a face?” Herjuna asked as he climbed the steps to the veranda.

  “Jayatri killed herself. Their bodies decay rapidly”

  “Rings a bell?”

  “No, the bastard could be anyone stationed at Rustenfort. Dragon or J?ger, descriptions are too vague. But it narrows down to a Ritmasteer or higher. Facial scar as well”

  “More likely from a duel, yes?”

  “Yes, Diponegoro does not do open-arms hugs to the Dutch, so I suggest it's more like a retired spy or something. I’ll burn incense to let Sasmita know about this guy at the fort”

  “Alright. So, mind showing the inside? I’ve never been here before”

  I stood up, opened the front door and let the sergeant in. The lights are dimmed down for whatever reason of secrecy. Honestly, no one could peek a thing from the main road since the front yard is massive, unless they possess a lens such as a pair of binoculars. We went a bit inside to the recreation room. Before Herjuna arrived, I hung a map of the Kingdom alongside some pictures of the person of interest in this chase. Pujokusumo, Diponegoro, Haryono, Srikandi the Wife, and a manly figure silhouette with a question mark in the middle of the shadowy portrayal. I grabbed a pin and tied a red string to it.

  “The Kings have been young, weak, and foolish. There is a conspiracy that he would die young again, considering what Chinese traders said about Young Emperors. That's why the real power in this era lies in the Princes, the royals, and the Company’s Generals”

  “Crown Prince has not been decided yet, it’s peak time for royal families to ally up and scheme against each other. Most royals could afford education, but not all of them were smarter than Dutch strategists, hence now the politics is divided into two factions…”

  “Sleep with the whites,”

  “Or join the Guerrilla”

  Herjuna unsheathes his bayonet, stabbing the portrait of his nephew. I sense more than just vengeance coming from his intentions. The man does know what he wants, yet he feels somewhat hesitant about the monstrosity that he’s embracing. The guilt he’ll carry would cost more than Mount Merapi and his wife combined. Nothing is free, yet would anyone take the weight of Justice, prized with nought but inflictions of naught into your mind.

  “The truth hurts, they always do…” He muttered loud enough for me to hear his inner cry.

  “Do you have other things to say?”

  “If my logic is right, this would send the whole government into shambles…”

  “How so?”

  “Pakualaman’s separatism was aided by the British. But the thirst for power drove the Pakualaman King mad, so he wanted to take over Yogyakarta as the ‘Vice’ King of Kraton. Jarot was ten when he ascended, so Minister Danureja the Fourth released a law saying that Pakualaman is the second Crown of Yogyakarta. Making the First Pakualaman King govern the Throne”

  “It’s all-”

  “It's all starting to make sense. My family is spitting on the Crown. Haryono is there to keep an eye on Diponegoro, because all in all… he’s the main threat towards Danureja and the Netherlands. All things thread back to this damned Minister”

  Does that mean Herjuna comes from the first lineage of that treacherous family? I thought he was only somewhat the son of other relatives from the Pakualaman Crown. If he knows stuff like this it means that he either knows someone or he’s related to the separatists by blood. Why? If he’s one of the threats that would put Pakualaman and Danureja in danger, why wouldn’t they kill him before he became as powerful as he is today? For fuck’s sake, does that mean he’s in line to be a Crown Prince?

  “Does the King know?”

  “FUCK DOES HE KNOW? HE’S A FUCKING TEENAGER HITTING PUBERTY!”

  If he is being true, then it means that it's just us against the puppeteer who controls the whole government. One miscalculation would lead us to the gallows as if being a Prince is not problematic enough. Somehow, I have a feeling that Herjuna is not being completely honest with me. His lineage is dimly lit. What if he is actually the very brother of the Pakualaman Crown?

  “It's us against the whole world…” I muttered to myself.

  “A war is coming, a huge one that is. Diponegoro would not take the talk lightly, whatever the final decision is”

  All of a sudden, our job desk turned into a bigger one. Unveil the traitors, bring Danureja to Justice, and don't let the Dutch whiff a single scent of the apple. Is this guy a full percent sure that everyone else in the Secret Service is not worthy of his trust? There should be one or two out of thirteen people at the round table. In another way, dirt on every hand that partakes in digging out the path of Godhood ascension. When the war breaks out and the guerrilla’s existence is known, it’s going to be chaos, but there’s also a chance that their focus on us will get dispersed.

  “The war is a good aversion. We can manoeuvre more since Diponegoro will steal the spotlight from us”

  “I’ll dig up some intel from Bejo. You do whatever task the Wife gives you. Stall then and be a good dog for them”