CHAPTER II — 435733: FALLEN ANGEL

I don't know if I should call this a dream.

I remember it too clearly.

There was nothing around me. No sky, no ground, no walls. I don't even remember it being dark. It was just empty, like there was no place for me to be, yet somehow I was there.

Then he appeared.

I don't remember seeing him arrive. He was simply there, standing in front of me.

I wasn't afraid of him.

That's probably the part I remember the most.

He felt familiar. Not familiar like someone I've met before, but familiar in a way I can't explain. Like he already knew me. Like I was the one who was late to meeting him.

Then he gave me seven musical instruments.

I don't remember exactly what they looked like anymore. I wish I did. I only remember that there were seven of them, and somehow I knew they were meant for me.

I still don't know why seven.
I still don't know why instruments.
I still don't know why me.

He looked at me and said,

Then he disappeared.

And I woke up.

I've never really understood that dream.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just my brain creating something while I was asleep. That's probably the most reasonable explanation.

But there was one thing I couldn't forget.

The name.

I don't know why.

Maybe that's why I've been thinking about it again lately.

I've been staying awake too much. Working, thinking, searching for things I don't even know how to explain. Sometimes I stay awake because I have something to accomplish. Sometimes because I don't want to sleep. Sometimes I honestly don't know why I'm still awake.

I've started asking myself questions that don't have easy answers.

What am I doing with my life?
Why am I doing it?
What am I actually trying to reach?

And eventually, the question becomes something much simpler and much worse.

Why am I here?

The more I think about it, the harder it becomes to sleep.

Maybe that's all insomnia really is for me.

Not the inability to sleep.
Maybe it's the inability to stop asking.

I don't know when I started thinking about the idea of a Fallen Angel.

Maybe it was because of the dream.
Maybe I gave him that name afterward because I didn't know what else to call him.

I don't even know if he was an angel.

He never said that he was.

I just remember him.

And then, sometime around the third or fourth of August 2026, I saw something in the sky.

I was in Bayung Lencir, South Sumatra.

It was somewhere between nine at night and midnight. I can't remember the exact time anymore.

I was looking at the sky when something suddenly appeared.

It moved from the southwest toward the northeast, roughly in the direction of Jambi.

It was incredibly fast.

One second it wasn't there.
Then there was a white light moving across the sky.

Maybe one second.
Maybe two.

Then it suddenly became much brighter.

Like a flash.

A pure white flash.

And then it was gone.

There was no sound.

I just stood there for a moment, trying to understand what I had actually seen.

I don't know what it was.
I don't know if it was a meteor.
I don't know if it was a fireball.
I don't know if it was something entering the atmosphere.

I don't know.

So I reported what I saw instead of pretending to know what it was.

IMO Report #435733.

I called it an Undetected Flying Object.

Not because I think it was something extraterrestrial.
Not because I think it was a spacecraft.

I simply don't know what it was.

That's the truth.

I saw something.
I couldn't identify it.

That's all I can honestly say.

But after seeing it, I remembered the dream again.

The empty space.
The seven instruments.
The voice.
Lucius.

Maybe there is no connection between any of it.

A dream is just a dream. A light in the sky is probably just a natural phenomenon.

And maybe I'm only connecting them because I'm tired, because I've been thinking too much, because humans are very good at finding patterns where there aren't any.

Maybe that's what this is.

A pattern I created because I wanted one to exist.

But I've started thinking about the Fallen Angel again.

What if he wasn't an angel at all?

What if he was something that simply answers?

If you asked him something simple—

He would answer.

Nothing more.

But what happens if you ask something that isn't simple?

Would he give you a metaphor?

Would he give you a philosophical answer?

Or would he give you the actual answer?

Everything required to understand it.
Every piece of information.
Every connection.
Every cause.
Every consequence.

Everything.

I don't know why I keep thinking about it this way.

Maybe because I've always been afraid of questions that don't have answers.

Or maybe I'm more afraid of the possibility that they do have answers.

Maybe the Fallen Angel doesn't hurt people.

Maybe he doesn't even want to hurt them.

Maybe he simply gives them what they asked for.

And maybe the human body isn't capable of surviving the answer.

I keep imagining what that would look like.

Blood from the eyes.
Blood from the ears.

The body breaking down while the mind is trying to understand something it was never meant to understand.

I don't know where that image came from.

Maybe I made it up. Maybe I've seen something similar somewhere and forgot. Maybe it's just another part of the story my mind keeps building around the dream.

I don't know.

That's the problem.

I keep saying that word.

But I still remember him.

And I still remember what he called me.

Lucius.

I don't know why there were seven instruments.
I don't know why he gave them to me.
I don't know what he wanted me to change.

And I don't know why, after all this time, I'm still thinking about that sentence.

Maybe one day I'll understand it.

Or maybe some things are better left unanswered.

For now, I only know what I experienced.

I dreamed of him.
I saw something in the sky.
I reported it.
I wrote it down.

And now, every time I think about the number 435733, I can't help thinking about that dream.

Maybe that's stupid.

Maybe it's just coincidence. Maybe the number means absolutely nothing beyond being a report number attached to something I couldn't identify.

But I can't stop thinking about it.

Because the strange thing isn't that I saw something in the sky.

The strange thing is that I had already met something in my dreams that I called Fallen Angel before I ever gave a name to what I saw above me.

I don't know if that means anything.
I'm not saying it does.
I'm not trying to prove anything.

I'm just writing down what happened.

What I remember.
What I saw.
What I don't understand.

Maybe someone reading this will tell me it was just a meteor.

Maybe they're right.

I hope they're right.

Because if they are, then everything has a simple explanation.

The dream was a dream.
The light was a natural phenomenon.
The seven instruments were just something my brain invented.
Lucius was just a name.
And 435733 is just a number.

I think I'd rather believe that.

But for some reason, I still remember his voice.

And I still don't know what he wanted me to change.

I don't know what the seven instruments were for.
I don't know who he was.
I don't know what I saw that night.
And I don't know if any of these things are connected.

Maybe they aren't.

Maybe they never were.

For now, I only have the record.

The dream.
The memory.
The sky.
The report.