# Chapter 1 Moving Day
The moving truck had just left, leaving behind a cloud of road dust and a back that felt ready to snap in half. I stood in the front yard, craning my neck to stare up at the two-story, semi-classical house that was now officially our new home. Big? Very. Luxurious? Not bad, if you liked the aesthetic of an old house with peeling white paint and a stunted banyan tree growing way too large in the corner of the fence.
Located at the end of a quiet street in the residential development, the house looked like the perfect setting for a horror movie. But to Dad, this house was the jackpot.
"What did I tell you?" Dad said, patting the belly that grew farther ahead of him with every passing day. "These days, finding a house this spacious for the price of a used automatic car? Only I could pull that off!"
Mom rolled her eyes. Both her hands were full of cardboard boxes packed with kitchenware. "It's cheap because the previous owner needed money fast, Babe. Maybe a loan shark was chasing them."
"Oh, you're always so suspicious. The important thing is that Yuna and Zayn each get their own room, right?" Dad replied casually.
I pushed out my lower lip. Honestly, the first time I stepped inside, I'd already braced myself. Usually, a house this old with a cashback bargain price came with a ghostly resident who liked to cause trouble. Luckily, by sunset, after we'd finished unpacking the boxes of clothes, nothing had happened. No scent of jasmine, no sudden chilling air, no whispering voices.
My new room was on the second floor. It was pretty spacious, with a large window facing straight out onto the side yard. Zayn's room, my youngest little brother's, was right next to mine. He was already sixteen, but his behavior still made us clutch our chests more often than not.
"Sis, you're really sleeping alone?" Zayn suddenly appeared behind me while I was inspecting the room.
"Of course I am. What's there to be scared of in a room this nice?" I scoffed.
"Oh, listen to you. Don't come crying for Mom tonight," Zayn teased.
I was about to fire back, but he hurried off to his own room first. Seriously, that kid! He'd probably be the one running to Mom and Dad's room. There had been one time when he was home alone. My youngest brother had been perfectly calm until a sudden thunderstorm rolled in and the power went out. Instead of looking for a candle or flashlight, he ran straight to the neighborhood watch post and waited there until we got home.
Around nine that night, exhaustion knocked out the whole family. Dad and Mom were already snoring audibly from the downstairs bedroom. I had just been about to lie down on the foam mattress that still didn't have a bedsheet on it when I heard a soft knock at my bedroom door.
Knock knock.
"Yuna! Yuna, open up!" Zayn's panicked voice came from outside.
I opened the door and saw Zayn standing there, his face ghostly pale. He was wearing cactus-print pajamas and hugging a bolster pillow tightly like it was Captain America's shield.
"What's wrong with you? Possessed?" I asked lazily.
Without asking permission, Zayn barged in and immediately jumped onto my bed, pulling the blanket up to his neck.
"There's something weird in my room, Sis! Seriously!" Zayn rattled off in a whisper, his eyes darting around my room.
"Just when I was about to close my eyes, I heard a 'chirp-chirp-chirp' on top of the wardrobe. Then it sounded like wind blowing out of the refrigerator." Zayn shuddered.
I folded my arms across my chest and rolled my eyes. "That's the sound of a gecko eating mosquitoes, Zayn. And the refrigerator outside our rooms is already broken, which is why it sounds like a typewriter."
"No, no. This is different, Sis! I feel like something's watching me." Zayn tightened his grip on the bolster pillow, trembling. "Can I sleep here tonight? Pleeease... I'll do the dishes for a whole week."
Looking at my little brother, who was already 170 centimeters tall but scared out of his mind, my bullying instincts immediately kicked in.
"The guy who claims he's already in high school, who says he's the coolest School Discipline Enforcer in his entire grade... is scared of a gecko?" I taunted with a mocking laugh.
I walked over to the bed and gently tugged his ear. "Aren't you embarrassed to be wearing those cactus pajamas? You say you can watch horror movies without even blinking, but you've only been in the new house for one day and you're already about to wet yourself."
"I'm serious, Yuna! Don't you feel the air getting colder?" Zayn protested, his face red with a mixture of embarrassment and fear. Maybe he was so annoyed that he called me by my name without the usual 'Sis' attached.
"Obviously it's cold because you're sitting next to the fan!" I laughed even harder. "All right, go back to your own room! Don't embarrass the descendants of Bagas and Cahaya—"
My sentence was cut short as the bedroom light began flickering rapidly.
Click. Click. Click.