"Din,"
"Din,"
The sound of a car horn blared. Irwan and Brian raised their arms to shield their eyes as the car's headlights shone directly on them inside the building. When the light faded, an Isuzu Elf van, typically used for travel, was parked inside the building. "Cklak," a young man jumped down from the driver's seat. Irwan and Brian were slightly surprised to see a short, small young man; his body appeared thin in oversized clothes, and his head was somewhat large for his body. The young man's face was handsome, and his hair was neatly combed back.
"Hello, sorry I'm late. I'm Vincent. Please come in," Vincent greeted Irwan and Brian, holding his backpack.
"Y-yes, I'm Irwan," Irwan said, introducing himself.
"Ah, Irwan, alright. So the other one is Brian?" Vincent asked.
"That's right. How do you know?" Brian asked.
"I can just sense it from your aura. Let's go inside; the others are already in, right?" Vincent asked, walking towards the door.
"Cklek," Vincent opened the door and entered, followed by Irwan and Brian. Vincent smiled, seeing Nadia, Lusi, Riana, and Felix turn to look at him. Irwan and Brian returned to their seats, while Vincent sat in the middle of the row.
"Alright, welcome everyone. I'm very sorry for being late; I had a small errand," Vincent said.
"It's okay, admin, no worries," Riana said.
In the light, Irwan just realized there were faint red circles around Vincent's eyes, and Vincent's skin looked pale. Seeing Vincent's appearance, sitting right to his right and facing the center, Irwan's fine hairs stood on end. "Gyut," Irwan turned to the side; it turned out Nadia's hand, full of scratches on her wrist, was gripping his shirt.
"Alright, as we've all planned, tonight we intend to leave our lives as humans and end everything. For that, I ask all of you to tell us what happened to you until you finally decided to be here. Of course, you don't mind, do you? After all, we'll all be leaving our lives. Who wants to go first?" Vincent said.
Hearing Vincent's words, the six of them began to look at each other, waiting for someone to start telling their story. Since no one answered and they kept waiting for each other, Vincent finally stood up.
"In that case, number one, please," Vincent said to Brian next to him.
"Do I have to?" Brian asked.
"Of course. If you don't know why you're here, then you're not serious, are you? We need to make sure no one is left behind," Vincent replied.
"Why don't you start first, admin?" Brian said.
"Ah, that's right. Alright, I'll go first," Vincent said.
Vincent began to tell why he created the Salvation forum and what its true purpose was. He said that he suffered greatly because he was alone and separated from his family. Because of his small body and slightly strange physique, he was often bullied at school, even by teachers. Life was truly suffocating for him, and he just wished to go home.
"Where is your home?" Riana asked.
Vincent just smiled in response to Riana's question, but then his hand went up and pointed upwards. Only then did he say that his family had all died long ago and he was alone in an orphanage.
"Alright, I'm done. So, Brian, please," Vincent said, turning to Brian.
"Haaah, alright, I'll tell my story," Brian replied.
Brian began to tell about himself. He lived with his aunt and uncle, whose lives were in disarray. His uncle liked to gamble, and his aunt was addicted to online shopping, eventually taking out online loans. Brian's parents had died, and their inheritance went to his aunt and uncle because they adopted Brian. Even so, Brian was never taken care of by them. He became a tough, rebellious child and often got into fights, though he was smart.
Brian's reason for joining this suicide group was because one day, after school, he accidentally overheard his aunt and uncle talking about wanting to kill him and disguise it as an accident to claim his life insurance. His aunt and uncle needed money to pay their debts, and they considered Brian a useless child who bothered them. Of course, Brian initially ran away from home, but his aunt and uncle reported him to the police. As a result, all of Brian's hangout friends got into trouble, and they forced Brian to go home.
After returning home, Brian was locked in the garage and not allowed to leave the house at all, not even for school. Brian, who was starting to despair, looked for a way to escape his aunt and uncle. Then he learned what life insurance actually was: if the life insurance policyholder died by suicide, the insurance money would not be disbursed. That's why Brian started looking for ways to kill himself.
"So basically, I'm already dead. Even if I manage to escape, my gang will target me because, thanks to my aunt and uncle, they're in trouble with the police. If I go home, my aunt and uncle will kill me. Suicide by jumping from a building, throwing myself in front of passing vehicles, even hanging myself or slitting my wrists in the garage—all of it could be disguised as an accident or murder. The only way is to join you all. If we commit suicide together, they won't get the insurance money and they'll be ruined," Brian said.
"Plok... plok... plok," Vincent clapped. Irwan, Nadia, Lusi, Riana, and Felix finally also clapped, albeit slowly. Brian folded his arms across his chest again and closed his eyes.
"Alright, next, Lusi, please," Vincent said.
"Uh... alright," Lusi replied.
Lusi, who was plump and short, began to tell what had happened to her. Lusi was the eldest of three siblings, but she was her father's child from a previous relationship; in other words, her current mother was her stepmother. Initially, her stepmother loved her, but when her mother gave birth to twins, her affection leaned more towards her twin children. Lusi was not physically abused by her stepmother, but she was disregarded. In addition, her two younger siblings, who were two years younger than her, often bullied her.
They even took photos of Lusi while she was bathing and exposed them on the internet, even though her face wasn't shown. Her plump body became a joke on social media and several forums. At school, she had no friends and was often bullied by the friends of her twin siblings, who attended the same school. She once told her father and mother, but they dismissed it as mere childish jokes.
Lusi's self-esteem was shattered. She tried strict diets and exercise to lose weight, but when she was at the gymnasium, she was almost raped because her twin siblings spread her nude photos and plastered printed copies of them on the announcement board in the lobby, along with her phone number. Since then, every day she was terrorized by unknown callers, even sending her obscene messages, until she no longer dared to leave the house.
Every time Lusi changed her number, her siblings also changed the number in the ads they made, eventually causing Lusi to become severely stressed and decide to end her life.
"I-I'm sorry, I told everything I went through, I'm sorry," Lusi sobbed.
"Plok... plok... plok," Vincent clapped again and smiled widely. However, this time, no one followed Vincent's clapping because they saw Lusi shedding tears.
"Hmm, why isn't anyone clapping? Please, next, Felix," Vincent said.
"Th-this is not... m-making... s-sense. Wh-why do w-we have to... t-tell... wh-why we... w-want to k-kill ourselves?" Felix stammered, standing up and looking angry.
"I'm sorry, but it's necessary. I don't want to invite the wrong people. Your reason for being here must be precise, and it must be that you have no other way out but death," Vincent said calmly, smiling.
"B-but... I-I'm... a-a-a stutterer. I-I-it's hard... t-to tell," Felix said.
"Ah, my apologies, I didn't realize."
Vincent took his bag. He pulled out a piece of folio paper and a pen, then handed it to Brian to pass to Felix. As soon as he received the paper, Felix immediately wrote everything down.