The Man Who Bought The Apocalypse

Chapter 1: The Last Hour

"Drink it, Sarah. Just take a sip."

"No. Give it to someone who... who actually has legs left, Radit."

"There is no one else! Everyone’s gone. Just drink the damn water."

"It’s warm. Why is it warm?"

"Because everything is on fire, Sarah! The buildings, the asphalt, the air—everything. Now, open your mouth."

"It’s so red... the sky. Look at it."

"I’m not looking at the sky. I’m looking at you. Open up."

"Is that the sun? It looks too big. Is it supposed to be that big?"

"Sarah, please. One sip."

"Save it, Radit. You’re gonna need it for the walk."

"Walk where? There’s nowhere to go. Jakarta is a graveyard."

"Then let's just sit. It’s coming, isn’t it?"

"Yeah. It’s coming."

"Does it hurt? The red part?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

"Radit?"

"Yeah?"

"I’m glad it was you. At the end. Just... don't look up."

"I have to look up, Sarah. I want to see the thing that kills me."

"It’s beautiful, in a weird way. Like a big, burning orange."

"It's a nightmare. It’s—gah!"

The world didn't end with a whimper. It ended with a rhythmic, mechanical thwack-thwack-thwack and a searing pain in the center of his forehead. Radit’s eyes snapped open. He wasn't breathing smoke; he was inhaling dust and the smell of cheap laundry detergent.

"Ow! Son of a—!"

Radit recoiled, his back slamming into a thin mattress. Above him, a three-bladed ceiling fan wobbled dangerously, its low-hanging motor housing still vibrating from the impact with his skull.

"What? What the hell?"

He sat up, clutching his forehead. His hands were shaking, but they weren't covered in soot or Sarah's blood. They were clean—unnatural, impossibly clean.

"Wait. This room. Is this...?"

He scrambled backwards, his heels catching on a crumpled duvet. The walls were covered in peeling yellow wallpaper. A stack of half-finished university textbooks sat on a rickety desk next to a bloated CRT monitor.

"No way. This isn't real. I'm dead. This is the brain-dead hallucination stage."

He slapped himself. Hard.

"Ow! Okay, that hurt. Sarah? Sarah, are you here?"

Silence, save for the rhythmic clicking of the fan.

"Sarah? If this is heaven, it sucks! It’s like a hundred degrees in here!"

He lunged for his pockets. His hand found a sleek, rectangular object. He pulled it out, staring at the screen. It was an old-model smartphone, its edges scuffed, the screen sporting a hairline fracture across the bottom.

"July 12th, 2014?"

He tapped the screen frantically.

"No, no, no. This is a prank. Some kind of psychological hell."

He threw the phone onto the bed as if it were hot coals. It vibrated instantly. A notification chime rang out—cheerful, tinny, and agonizingly familiar.

Ping!

"Don't look at it. If I look at it, the demon appears."

He stared at the phone. Then, with a sudden burst of desperation, he snatched it back up.

"It’s a text. It’s just a text."

He read it aloud, his voice cracking.

"‘Need a quick boost? Get an affordable loan today! Approval in five minutes! Low interest, no hassle! Reply YES to start.’"

Radit stared at the spam. A loan shark text.

"A loan text? Seriously?"

He started to chuckle. The chuckle grew into a wheeze, and the wheeze exploded into a full-blown, manic howl of laughter. He rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach, tears streaming down his face.

"It's 2014! I’m in my crappy apartment! I’m poor! I’m broke! I have a loan shark texting me!"

He sat up, wiping his eyes, gasping for air.

"Okay. Breathe. Think. Is it just the phone? Maybe someone reset the date as a joke."

He scrambled to the desk and jammed his finger onto the power button of the old monitor. The CPU groaned like an ancient beast before whirring to life.

"Come on, come on. Load faster."

"What are you doing, you piece of junk? Boot up!"

The Windows login screen appeared. He typed his password with trembling fingers—his old university ID number.

"Yes! Okay, Chrome. Open Chrome."

He typed into the search bar: Current Date Jakarta.

"July 12th, 2014. 10:14 AM."

"Not good enough. News. Give me the headlines."

He clicked the first news portal he could find.

‘Government Proposes New Infrastructure Bill.’

‘Local Celebrity Spotted at Luxury Mall.’

‘Weather Forecast: Clear Skies, High Heat.’

"Clear skies. No fire. No red."

He opened another tab. Then another. He checked a foreign news agency.

‘Stock Market Hits Record High.’

"It's real. I'm actually back."

He stood up, pacing the three steps his room allowed.

"Okay, Radit. Think. What happened? One minute I’m watching Sarah vaporize, and the next, I’m getting a concussion from a ten-dollar fan."

He looked at his hands again. No scars. No radiation burns.

"Is Sarah alive? If I’m here, she has to be here. Somewhere."

He grabbed his phone again. He scrolled through his contacts. His breath hitched.

"Sarah. Sarah... there."

He hovered his thumb over the call button. He froze.

"What am I gonna say? 'Hey Sarah, don't go to the city center ten years from now because the sky turns into a furnace'? She’d call the cops."

He put the phone down, his knuckles white.

"The money. I need to see how much time I have before everything goes south."

"Wait, not time. Resources. I need resources."

He sat back down at the computer, his face shifting from shock to a cold, razor-sharp focus. The hysteria was gone, replaced by the terrifying clarity of a man who had already seen how the world ended.

"Login. Come on. Show me the damage."

He navigated to his online banking portal. He typed in his credentials from memory—those were numbers he could never forget, mostly because they were usually so low they haunted him.

"Direct access. Verification code sent to mobile."

He waited. His phone buzzed.

"Code... 4-4-9-2."

He typed it in.

"Enter."

The screen flickered. The loading circle spun. Radit leaned forward until his nose almost touched the monitor.

"Balance..."

He squinted.

"IDR 142,500."

He leaned back, a dry, sharp laugh escaping his throat.

"Ten bucks. I have ten dollars to save the world."

He looked around the room. The cheap textbooks. The broken fan. The smell of poverty.

"Wait."

He pulled up the loan shark text again.

"Reply YES to start."

His eyes tracked to a small notebook on his desk. He opened it, flipping through pages of old sketches until he found a blank one. He grabbed a pen and began to scribble.

"The crash. The 2015 tech bubble burst. The crypto surge of 2016. The gold spikes."

He looked at his empty bank account, then back at the phone.

"I don't need a lot of money right now. I just need a start."

He picked up the phone. His thumb didn't shake this time.

"You want to give me a loan? Fine."

He typed: YES.

Seconds later, his phone rang. He picked it up before the first ring even finished.

"Yeah?"

"Is this Mr. Radit?" a smooth, predatory voice asked.

"It is. Talk to me."

"We saw your inquiry. You looking for some fast cash? No questions asked, low collateral."

"How much can you give me by noon?"

"Whoa, eager! Typically, for a first-timer, we look at five million. Maybe seven if you have a job."

"I want fifty million."

The voice on the other end paused. "Fifty? That’s a bit steep for a student profile, don't you think?"

"Give me fifty million. I’ll give you back a hundred million by the end of the month."

"Listen, kid, that’s not how interest works—"

"I’m not talking about interest. I’m telling you I’ll pay it back in full, with a fifty-million-rupiah bonus, if you get it into my account in the next two hours. Do we have a deal or should I text the other three guys who just messaged me?"

"Where the hell are you gonna get a hundred million in two weeks?"

"That’s not your business. Your business is the hundred million. You want the profit or the lecture?"

A long silence.

"Two hours. But if you miss the deadline, we don't just send letters, Radit."

"I know exactly what you send. See you then."

He hung up and slammed the phone on the desk. He didn't look at the screen. He looked at the bank balance one more time.

"IDR 142,500."

"By tomorrow, that’s gonna look like a mistake."

He stood up, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the door. As he reached the handle, he stopped. He looked back at the ceiling fan.

"You're the first thing I'm replacing."

He stepped out into the humid hallway, his mind racing through thousands of data points from the future. He didn't just have to survive. He had to build a fortress before the sky turned red.

His phone buzzed again. Another text.

‘Transfer Pending: IDR 50,000,000.’

Radit stared at the screen, a cold smile spreading across his face.

"Game on."