Rania passed it to a man named Dimas two weeks later. A mistake. Dimas was gentle, but he cried afterward when she explained. “Why me?” he whispered. “Because I don’t want to die alone,” she said. That was the ugliest truth of 2021: loneliness made monsters of everyone.

Rania learned this from a BIN agent named Pras, whom she met on a dating app in April 2021. He was handsome, tired, and spoke in tangents. After they slept together in a pop-up hotel near ICE BSD, he sat up at 3 AM and said, “Dengar. Ada yang akan mengikutimu.” (Listen. Something will follow you.)