Mystery of the Book of the Air
Puzzle Pieces

...-pov: Dani-...

*March 24, 2017*

A quiet night, crickets started greeting each other in the rice field behind my boarding house, I opened my bedroom door and rushed to the bathroom to take a shower and rest afterwards.

Before I rested, I sat down in front of my study table first, to read the book that Feni gave me this morning at school.

"This book seems to be very old, the cover is made of buffalo skin, the paper filling is made of stitches of dried leaves!!"

It's really amazing for a nerd like me, I've read a lot of books, but it's the only one that amazes me.

I saw a piece of writing that faded on the cover, it looked like a font, I tried to look carefully at what was written on the cover of this book.

I picked up my pencil and Bugis book, then started looking for the same letter after letter as the one on the cover of this book, and finally after some time looking for clues as it turned out! The inscription on the cover is "Tair" which means Faded.

After I found out what was written on the cover, I began to open one by one the pages of this book. Each section explains the Bugis traditions of the past, starting dances, abstinence and also the history of the kingdom of Parepare.

But in this part of history where the contents were torn partially out of nowhere, I tried to find on each page whether the tear was tucked in between other sheets, but it was not there.

I took my phone to contact Jina and Feni, I opened my mailbox on whatsapp and saw a message from Feni.

"Dani, you have to be careful! The book you're holding right now was targeted by Hani's mother, somehow she found out about the book!"

I was surprised after reading a message from Feni, I replied to his message and asked about the missing sheet in this book, but it turned out that Feni was not active.

I tried to contact Jina, but just the same, she was also inactive, even though this was something very important and maybe they knew where the sheet was.

But I put that aside first, because I had to find something in this book that might help us figure out what made Sam disappear after holding this book.

It got to where I opened the sheet that gave me goosebumps! In this section of the sheet there is a painting of someone dancing in the middle of a mound of human corpses, I was very frightened when I saw the painting.

When I looked at the bottom of the painting, there was an inscription that read

"Ooo Puakku! engkani tau ta andre napappesau i dekka sibawa lupu ta, nasaba iyana ritu! taalekka alampekang sunge sibawa will bejareng tappa"

This is very, very crazy, because the sentence written above means.

"My Lord! This is the man for you to eat, so that your thirst and hunger are gone, but! Give me immortality as well as a beautiful face"

I calmed down for a moment, took a breath, and resumed. I think that the painting depicts the collision that was given to the "God" of the Bugis in ancient times.

I checked my mailbox again, but there was no reply from Feni and Jina. I went to the next page and found a picture of the ring.

The ring has a lontara inscription on each side, with a touch of stone in the middle. I can't confirm the color of the ring, because in the painting, the ring wasn't colored like the previous paintings. This ring is exactly what Jina got in the Jompie forest.

This section of the book also has a sentence at the bottom of the painting.

"Iyaro maneng tau melo mala potto, nakenna i matu abala"

Implicate

"Everyone who wants to take treasure, then they will get misfortune"

I concluded that, Sam may have taken one of the treasures in the Jompie forest, and this is what made Sam disappear.

I also arrived at the last part of the sheet that means I have read every part of this book, I then took my phone a third time to check the mailbox, but there has been no reply from my two friends.

I remember, it turns out the clothes I washed earlier I have not lifted from the clothesline. I went to my back and started taking my clothes one by one.

I finished picking up clothes after that I planned to go into the house, to check the shiny object. I jumped over a wooden fence that looked fragile and worn out.

This house is said to have been uninhabited for a very long time, because the son of the owner of this house was very sick and later died. The name of the family is Harman family, this is what made the family leave this house.

After a few steps, I arrived at the door and turned the handle, the wind gently blowing on my face, the air was already very gripping. I started to light my flashlight and illuminate the middle room.

The furniture that is here is also still there, but because it has been a long time this house was abandoned! The whole house became very dusty. As I looked through the contents of this house, suddenly there was a shadow that flashed at the end of the hallway.

I was curious!, I also advanced to the end of the hall to check if there was anything there, when I was about to reach the end of the hall, I was surprised by the extremely loud lightning bang.

Not long after the rain stubs fell on the roof of the house, the rain made the atmosphere increasingly gripping, the sound of crickets was no longer heard, lizard did not make its special sound.

I had already reached the end of the hallway and started to check what was behind the hallway, my heart was beating so fast and!! There's nothing. I looked left and right, but there was nothing here.

While I was still checking at the bottom, there was a loud noise coming from the top floor. It was like the sound of an object being dropped on the floor, I turned up the stairs to head upstairs.

On the floor of the atmosphere felt even more tense, the room temperature here felt like a cool breeze when opening the refrigerator, I saw there were 4 rooms and one small room next to the last room.

When I saw the sparkle, I thought it was from room 3, but I was curious about the contents of each room, I started to enter one by one.

In one room there is a mattress for one person, maybe this is the room of the eldest son of this family. I continued to open the door to the second room, this room contained one mattress and there were several artist patches on each wall, I thought this might be the second girl's room in the house.

I also arrived at the third room, when I opened the door of this room, I heard a small child's voice coming from room five, with a strong instinct I immediately looked to the left, towards room five, and then I looked at the room five, there was a voice asking for help.

"sister.... Help u!! "

With a voice that sounded very soft.

I slowly walked towards the door of the room, I stood up with a feeling of great fear, until I felt like I could not stand it.

I swung my hand to the doorknob and prepared to open it, when I opened the door, it turned out that in the room there was a very large photo plastered on the wall of the room.

The photo contained, the picture of every resident of this house, there was the father of Mr. Harman the mother is the mother Suri, the eldest brother is Fandi, the second daughter is Bunga, and the youngest is Wilda.

As I was busy looking at each member of the family, I sensed that someone had placed his face on my shoulders and said.

"Sir, the book is evil! Brother will get unlucky luck like me, the book brings bad luck to anyone who keeps it"

When I heard that voice, I turned around! But there's no one behind me. Just then my whole body was goosebumps, I rushed back to room three and started looking for the shiny object I saw earlier.

I searched every place in this room, I unpacked the contents of the drawers, cabinets, under the mattress, under the carpet but did not find the thing.

I'm also not sure what that sparkling thing is, but it's possible it's made of glass, silver, iron, or gold.

Apparently, the glittering thing I was looking for was a bosara made of silver, having a layer of gold on each side. Bosara is a place where dishes are commonly used when important events are carried out in the Bugis tribal customs.

But the bossara was in the closet, I had to take a chair to reach him, when I stretched my hand up to take the bossara, suddenly there was a little boy sitting next to the bossara.

My legs were instantly limp, I wanted to scream but my voice could not come out, the boy had pale skin, long black hair, and it seemed like he was only 6 years old.

When he saw me, he started talking.

"Sister! Brother can take this thing, but brother must promise, if brother finds the person who killed me, if brother finds it!!, I will thank you brother, but brother must also remember! There's something really terrible that would happen if you took this thing"

After saying this, the boy disappeared somewhere. Without lingering I immediately took the bossara and ran out of this house.

I went into my room and locked the door with a wet shirt and heavy breathing, my energy exhausted from fear, I decided to go to bed so that it wouldn't bother my mind tonight.