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What? My "Information Club" is Actually an All-Knowing Secret Society?
Genre : Apocalypse, Fantasy, Superpower, Action
Tag : Misunderstanding, Secret Organization, Wolrd-Freezing, Super power
Chapter 6 : Chaos
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[Time remaining until the Great Freeze: 22 Days]
[Location: Jakarta Street Side]
[Time: 04:00 PM]
[Temperature: 36°C]
It was four in the afternoon. By now, the sun should have started to soften.
But today in Jakarta, the sun felt like a steam iron pressed directly against the back of the neck. The asphalt radiated waves of heat so intense that the buildings in the distance looked like they were melting into liquid.
Arlen had just finished his shift at the car wash. His uniform shirt was soaked through with sweat.
"Insane," Arlen muttered, flapping his collar to let some air in.
"Thirty-six degrees in the late afternoon? Did hell spring a leak or something?"
He stood on the curb, holding a vanilla ice cream cone he had just bought from the convenience store. He had intended to cool his throat, but he had taken only three steps out of the door before the ice cream began to weep, dripping sticky white rivulets onto his hand.
Arlen licked the melting mess in annoyance, walking down the crowded sidewalk. Motorcycle horns blared, dust swirled in the heavy air, and the smell of the open sewers was sharper than usual.
The smell... was wrong. It was metallic. Like rotten blood left out in the sun.
*Skree*. *Skree.* *Skree.*
The sound started low. Arlen thought it was just the usual sewer rats fighting over trash. But the volume rose quickly. It wasn't one or two squeaks. It was hundreds.
People in front of Arlen stopped walking.
"Hey, what is that?" a woman shouted, pointing at the drainage grate on the sidewalk.
The heavy iron cover rattled.
Then, it exploded open.
A black tide vomited onto the street. Rats. Hundreds of sewer rats scrambled out of the darkness as if they were running from a fire deep underground.
"Whoa! Watch out!"
Arlen jumped back, dropping his ice cream onto the asphalt.
The rats weren't running away from humans. They were running into them.
An old man selling tissue packs sitting on the curb didn't have time to stand up. The swarm crashed into his legs.
And they bit.
"ARGHHH! HELP!"
The man screamed as dozens of sharp teeth tore into his fabric trousers. Fresh blood splattered onto the sidewalk. The rats weren't looking for food. They were rabid. Their eyes were bloodshot, their fur standing on end, and they attacked anything in their path with blind, suicidal fury.
"Run!" Arlen shouted.
His instinct took over. Arlen vaulted over the roadside railing, narrowly missing a speeding motorbike, and sprinted to the other side of the street.
He looked back. People were running in panic, beating the rats away with handbags and helmets.
Arlen's heart hammered against his ribs.
"Those weren't normal rats," he thought, his breath hitching. "Sewer rats are afraid of people. They don't attack in swarms like zombies."
He tried to steady himself.
"Maybe... maybe there was a gas leak in the sewers. They panicked. Yeah, that has to be it."
Arlen continued walking, his pace quickening. He just wanted to get to the safety of his apartment. Trying to lie to himself.
But the terror wasn't over.
THUD!
Something fell just two meters in front of him.
A small, feathered body. A sparrow.
Its neck was broken, fresh blood oozing from its beak.
Arlen looked up.
The glass office tower beside him stretched high into the sky, reflecting the brutal sunlight.
And up there, he saw rain.
Not rain of water. A rain of birds.
Dozens of them. Pigeons, sparrows, even crows, were flying at full speed, diving straight into the reflective glass walls of the skyscrapers.
*Thud.* *Crack.* *Thud.* *Crack.*
The sound of small bodies impacting the glass sounded like a macabre drumbeat. One by one, their broken bodies fell to the pavement, showering the screaming pedestrians below.
"Why..." Arlen stumbled back, hitting a lamppost. "Why are they flying into the buildings? Is their navigation sensor broken?"
Tank's words from the chat last night echoed in his head.
"The biological radar is silent. The insects know before we do."
"Impossible," Arlen whispered, wiping cold sweat from his temple. "That's just my fiction. I just made it up."
He broke into a jog. He needed to get home. He needed to lock his door.
He turned into the housing complex road leading to his apartment. It was quieter here.
In front of a luxurious house with a high iron fence, a young man was crouching down, trying to calm his Golden Retriever. The dog was barking wildly at the empty sky.
"Easy, Boy! Easy!" the man said, pulling on the leash. "It's just the heat, be patient."
Arlen slowed down. The dog... looked wrong.
Its tail wasn't wagging. The fur on its back stood straight up like wire bristles. Its eyes were wide, the pupils dilated so much they swallowed the brown irises. The dog wasn't looking at its master. It was looking at something in the empty air.
"Sir, be careful!" Arlen shouted instinctively.
The man turned to Arlen. "Huh? It's okay, he's jus—"
Snap.
The dog spun around with lightning speed.
No warning. No growl.
The jaws of the animal, a breed known for its gentleness, opened wide and locked directly onto its master's throat.
*Crunch.*
Blood sprayed out in a heavy mist, turning the golden fur crimson. The man fell to the ground without a scream, only a terrible gurgling sound escaping his torn windpipe.
Arlen froze. His feet felt nailed to the asphalt.
The dog didn't let go. It shook the man's body with the brutality of a wild predator, as if it were killing prey, not the person who fed it every day.
After the man stopped moving, the dog released its grip.
It looked up.
Its pitch-black eyes stared straight at Arlen.
Blood dripped from its snout.
Then, the dog howled.
A long, high-pitched sound of pure terror. It was a mournful cry at the edge of death.
Arlen didn't wait to think anything.
He just turned and ran. He sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him.
He didn't care about the heat anymore. He didn't care about his exhaustion.
In his head, one sentence played on loop like a warning siren.
Page 2: The Bestiary.
"When the field drops, the radiation rewrites instinct. The scavenger becomes the hunter. The guardian becomes the coward... or the killer."
Arlen slammed through the lobby doors of his apartment building, gasping for air, his eyes wild as he scanned for safety.
All of this, wasn't a coincidence.
Rats. Birds. Dogs.
Everything went mad at the exact same time.
Arlen leaned against the elevator wall, his hand shaking violently as he mashed the button for his floor.
His skepticism, his "cleverness," his belief that "this is just marketing"... it all shattered on the asphalt outside along with the bodies of the birds.
Something was happening.
And this time, Arlen knew he wasn't the one that writing the story.
He was the one living in it.
***
[Location: Arlen's Apartment]
[Time: 08:00 PM]
The glow of the laptop screen was the only light in the room.
Arlen sat motionless in his plastic chair. He had showered an hour ago to wash off the sweat and the grime of the city, but the phantom sensation of the heat still clung to his skin.
The smell of the open sewer, the metallic, bloody scen. Seemed to be stuck in his noose.
He stared at his hands. They were trembling slightly.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Golden Retriever. The snap of the jaw. The blood spraying onto the hot asphalt. The way the rats moved like a black liquid carpet.
"It's not possible," Arlen whispered, his voice cracking in the empty room. "Mass hysteria? Infrasound driving animals crazy? There has to be a logical explanation."
He opened the Information Club.
He expected chaos. And he was right.
The five sub-channels were blinking furiously with red notification badges. Arlen clicked on them, his heart sinking with every scroll.
CHANNEL 2: [THE BESTIARY]
> [User: City_Drifter]: I saw it on the news. They are calling it a "Rabies Outbreak" in Central Jakarta. But... it happened all at once. Lord Tank, is this the 'Rewritten Instinct' mentioned in the archives? <
> [User: Cat_Lover_99]: My cat... she just started slamming her head against the wall. She wouldn't stop until she passed out. She's bleeding from the ears. I'm crying, guys. I don't know what to do. Please help. <
> [User: Tank]: [Pinned Message]: Stay inside. Seal the vents. If your pets are acting strange, cage them. Do not touch them. The radiation has fried their brains. <
CHANNEL 1: [WAR ROOM]
> [User: Ojol_Driver_JKT]: The hospitals are full. People bitten by rats, people attacked by stray cats. The doctors are overwhelmed. <
> [User: Night_Watch]: I heard gunshots in Pluit. People are shooting at the stray dogs. Commander Viper, what are your orders? Should we engage or retreat? <
Arlen covered his mouth. The reports were flooding in from every corner of the city. It wasn't just what he saw. It was everywhere.
Panic was bubbling up in the every sub-chanel. The Echoes were terrified, but even in their terror, they held onto a strange, reverent discipline towards the Pillars.
> [User: Mom_of_Three]: Are we going to die? The animals are turning on us. <
> [User: Skeptic_No_More]: Architect... please. We are lost. Give us a sign. Why is this happening now? <
> [User: Jakarta_Survivor]: Architect, we await your wisdom. Please guide us through the madness.
Arlen's fingers hovered over the keyboard. He wanted to type: "I don't know. I'm scared too."
But before he could type a single letter, Seraph stepped in.
The text didn't appear as a frantic burst. It appeared as a long, composed paragraph, like a sermon delivered in a storm.
> [User: Seraph]: Peace, children of the frost. Breathe. <
The chat slowed down immediately. The reverence for Seraph was absolute.
> [User: Seraph]: Do not let the blood on the streets stain your spirit. Look at what is happening. Look closely. Is this not what was written? <
> [User: Seraph]: The Architect told us of The Fever. It came. He told us of The Silence of the insects. It came. And now, he has shown us The Madness of the Beasts. <
Arlen read the words, feeling aoo cold knot in his stomach. Seraph was twisting the tragedy. He was turning a city-wide disaster into a confirmation of faith.
> [User: Seraph]: You are panic-stricken because you think this is chaos. It is not. It is a clock. Every bite, every scream, every fallen bird is a tick of the countdown. <
> [User: Seraph]: We are not victims. We are the Informed. <
> [User: Mom_of_Three]: But what do we do next, Lady Seraph? <
> [User: City_Drifter]: Guide us, Lady Seraph. We trust in the Pillars. <
> [User: Seraph]: We do exactly what we were told. Open the Manuscripts (The Pages). Look at Page 2. The answers were there before the questions were even asked.
> [User: Seraph]: Secure your perimeter. Fortify your windows. The Architect has given us the map. Now we must walk the path. Do not fear the breaking world. Fear only being unprepared. <
The effect was instantaneous.
The panic evaporated, replaced by a terrifying sense of purpose.
> [User: Skeptic_No_More]: It's right. It was on Page 2. "The Guardian becomes the Killer." The Architect knew.
> [User:F banh bather_1985]: Okay. I'm boarding up the windows tonight. Thank you, Lady Seraph.<
> [User: Viper]: [System Message]: Stand by. I am uploading a tutorial on how to reinforce glass against bird impacts in the War Room.<
Arlen sat back, his hands sliding off the keyboard.
He watched as Viper uploaded a PDF about home fortification. He watched as Apothecary advised people on how to treat bites without going to the crowded hospitals.
They were functioning like a well-oiled machine.
And Arlen... was just watching.
He swiveled his chair around and grabbed his notebook. The one filled with his scribbles, rough drafts, and "lore ideas."
He frantically flipped to the page titled "The Science of the Freeze."
It was just notes. Things he had Googled late at night to make his book sound smart.
Note 1: The Earth's magnetosphere acts as a deflector for solar wind. If the core destabilizes, the shield drops. Without it, high-energy solar particles slam directly into the ionosphere, 'exciting' the oxygen atoms and turning the sky a bruised purple. This allows raw radiation to leak through, literally microwaving the surface and frying the navigational senses of animals long before the temperature actually drops.
Note 2: Animals have a natural GPS in their brains (Magnetoreception). When the Earth's magnetic shield breaks, their internal compass doesn't just fail. They will also experience blinding headaches and disorientation. The panic overrides their usual behavior. The pet doesn't attack because it's turning evil, its attacks because it is in pure, invisible pain.
Note 3: Without the magnetic shield, the atmosphere loses its ability to filter sunlight. The result is "Phantom Heat." The thermometer might only read 36°C, but the UV radiation hitting your skin is intense enough to cook you. It causes deep-tissue blistering that feels like fire, even in the shade.
Arlen stared at his own handwriting.
He had written these things to sound cool. He thought it was pseudo-science. He thought it was just convincing gibberish for a sci-fi plot.
"But... the birds," Arlen whispered, his eyes wide. "The birds hitting the glass. That's magnetoreception failure. The skin blisters... that's UV radiation."
His breath hitched.
"I wasn't making it up. I was right. The science... it's actually happening."
A wave of pure, unadulterated terror washed over him.
If his "Page 2" prediction about the animals was scientifically accurate, then the rest of his notes.
He flipped to Page 10.
* Note 10: The atmosphere is like a blanket that keeps the Earth warm. When the magnetic shield dies, the solar wind strips that blanket away. Without insulation, the planet is exposed directly to the cold that close to absolute zero of space. The heat will sucked out into the void. The temperature will crash from a blistering 40°C to a lethal -50°C.
Arlen looked up at his apartment.
The window was thin glass. The door was plywood. His pantry had three packets of instant noodles and a half-empty bottle of warm soda.
In the chat, Viper was reinforcing their fortress. FrostBite had dozens of couple warehouse of food for them. Tank and Apothecary was also preparing, Seraph was the most prepared for it all to happend.
They were ready.
The "Architect," the man they worshipped, was the only one who wasn't.
"Oh shit," Arlen whispered, clutching his notebook. "It's real. The Freeze is actually coming."
He looked at the chat one last time
> [User: Seraph]: Rest now, Echoes. The Architect watches over us. <
Arlen let out a nervous, hysterical laugh.
"Watches over you? I dont think I can even watch myself right now."
›› To Be Continue ‹‹
—KS