CHAPTER 3

Noah’s voice had gone hoarse by the time he realized no one was answering.

“Nelysha!” he shouted again, pushing through another wall of thick forest. “Stop hiding! This isn’t funny anymore!”

Only the wind replied.

His hair, usually neatly styled, now stuck in uneven strands across his forehead. Leaves clung to his sleeves. His hoodie already didn't look like a hoodie anymore. His uniform shirt—once crisp—was wrinkled, dirt-stained, and damp from the strange humidity of the forest. Every step he took felt less like walking and more like trespassing through something that didn’t belong to modern reality.

His phone was useless.

No signal.

No GPS.

Just a black screen reflecting his increasingly annoyed and slowly panicking face.

“At least my bag is still here,” he muttered bitterly, adjusting the strap on his shoulder. “Great. I get transported to nowhere, but my wallet survives. Amazing priorities, universe.”

He tried calling again. Still nothing.

A long breath left his lips as he forced himself to keep moving.

The forest itself was…wrong. That was the only word his brain kept circling back to.

Wrong, but beautiful.

The trees weren’t just tall—they were layered like living architecture, trunks twisted in elegant spirals as if sculpted by an artist rather than grown by nature. Leaves shimmered faintly with hues that didn’t belong in any plant textbook he had ever seen. Some glowed softly gold when the wind passed through them, like the forest was breathing light.

Flowers bloomed everywhere, on branches, between rocks, even along fallen logs like nature had decided that empty space was unacceptable.

The air smelled clean, but not in a “fresh mountain” way.

More like incense. Like something sacred.

Noah frowned as he walked.

“This isn’t normal,” he said quietly to himself. “This is…some kind of themed attraction? Or hallucination? Yeah. Hallucination makes more sense.”

But even as he said it, he didn’t believe it.

Because no modern park, no botanical garden, no VR installation could feel this alive.

This aware.

____________________________________

Hours passed.

The sun shifted, but strangely, it didn’t feel like time was moving the way it should. Shadows stretched too elegantly. Light lingered too long on surfaces before fading.

Noah’s legs were starting to ache. His frustration had slowly turned into exhaustion.

"Nelysha...where are you?"

And then—he heard it. Noise.

Not birds. Not wind. But...

Human voices.

Noah stopped so abruptly he almost stumbled. He turned toward the sound.

Faint at first then clearer.

Bargaining. Laughing. The clinking of metal. Wooden wheels creaking. And the distant crash of waves.

“The sea…?” he muttered.

He pushed forward carefully, branches parting until the forest finally opened and revealed a coastline.

A sprawling seaside market.

It was alive. Too alive.

Dozens—no, hundreds of people filled the shoreline. Stalls lined the sand and wooden docks, selling goods he couldn’t immediately identify. Bright fabrics fluttered overhead like flags. Lanterns swayed even though it wasn’t night. Fishermen hauled in shimmering catches that looked almost too large, too strange to be normal sea creatures.

Boats unlike anything modern floated near the shore—wooden, carved with intricate symbols, their sails stitched with patterns that looked almost ceremonial.

Noah stepped out of the forest slowly.

His breath caught.

“This…” he whispered. “No way…it can't be...”

A woman passed by carrying baskets of glowing fruit.

A child ran past barefoot, laughing, holding something that looked like a carved wooden talisman.

A man shouted prices in a language that sounded familiar but not modern.

Everything felt…old.

Not old like “historical reenactment.”

Old like the world itself had not yet learned to become modern.

Noah’s grip tightened on his bag strap. His heart started beating harder.

“No signal,” he muttered again, almost like repeating it would change something. “No roads. No electricity. No…anything I recognize.”

He looked around slowly and then he noticed it.

The architecture. The symbols carved into wooden signboards.

The clothing styles.

The weapons some of the men carried at their hips.

His mind, despite all his disbelief, began connecting the dots he didn’t want to connect.

The exhibition.

The paintings.

Indera Mayang Sari.

The Seven Pendekar Sakti.

The Four Cursed Princes.

The burned portrait.

The eclipse.

Noah swallowed. “…No,” he said quietly.

“That’s impossible.”

But even as he said it, his voice sounded weaker. Because nothing here looked like a modern world pretending to be ancient.

It looked like an ancient world that had never left.

A world still breathing.

Still living. Still existing.

He took a slow step forward, scanning the crowd again.

A merchant glanced at him and paused. Their eyes lingered on his clothes. Then his bag.

Then at his face.

A flicker of confusion passed over them, followed by something sharper.

Recognition.

Noah felt his stomach drop.

“Okay,” he muttered under his breath. “That’s not good.” He took a step back instinctively. But behind him, the forest no longer felt like an escape.

It felt like a boundary. A thin veil between him and whatever world he had just fallen into. And deep inside, one thought formed with cold clarity:

He wasn’t lost in a forest anymore. He was somewhere he was never meant to exist.

Somewhere from the stories.

Somewhere from the paintings.

Somewhere called—Indera Mayang Sari.

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