Context and Background: This story is a dramatized retelling inspired by the mythology of the Kayan people of Borneo, centering around their supreme deity, Laki Tenangan, who governs life, death, and the afterlife. In Kayan cosmology, gods often present omens and signs to guide or warn mortals, but they rarely intervene directly. The story of Arit is an imagined narrative that takes place within this framework, exploring what happens when a mortal receives an omen of destruction and faces an impossible choice. Though based on traditional elements, the story is a fictional creation designed to evoke the emotional and spiritual struggles of its characters while remaining faithful to the mythological roots of the Kayan beliefs.
Summary: In a mystical world where gods and spirits preside over the lives of mortals, Arit, a mother consumed by grief, receives a vision of her village’s impending destruction. Haunted by the cries of her lost child, she embarks on a desperate journey to confront Laki Tenangan, the god of the afterlife. Faced with the chance to prevent the disaster, Arit is presented with a choice—sacrifice her life to change the fate of her people or allow the prophecy to unfold. In the end, Arit chooses to give up her life, saving her village while her spirit drifts into the land of the dead. This story explores the depths of human grief, the weight of destiny, and the courage to make impossible choices.
Arit’s breath came in sharp, shallow gasps, her vision swimming as she staggered through the dense undergrowth. Shadows bled across the trees, twisting their familiar shapes into dark, jagged figures, like ghosts clawing at her. She stumbled, feet tangling in vines that weren’t there a moment ago, but the cold pull from the pit of her stomach urged her onward.
Somewhere behind her, she could still hear it—the faint cry of her child, lost and unreachable in the distance. Her heart clenched with the weight of it, that familiar echo of grief now tearing at her mind, not just her soul. She pressed forward, her hands outstretched, reaching into the thickening mist that hung over the path. She knew she was crossing over now, slipping between worlds.
She didn’t care.
Her skin prickled with an otherworldly chill as the veil between the mortal world and Dali Matei thinned. The river was near. The strange pull of it had drawn her from the village in the dead of night, and now she was here, half-dreaming, half-awake, the barrier between life and death bending around her.
Arit’s foot met with slick mud, and she lurched forward, catching herself just before she fell into the glowing waters of the river. It shimmered faintly, casting silvery light onto the dark banks, the surface swirling with the faint shapes of spirits moving beneath. Her pulse quickened. She crouched by the water’s edge, her fingers hovering above the surface. The cold, aching emptiness inside her pressed forward, a hollow thing that seemed to breathe in sync with the gentle lapping of the current.
Then, from the swirling mists above the water, a figure began to materialize.
Laki Tenangan.
His form was vast yet indistinct, a shadow among shadows. He didn’t need to speak for her to know what he was—every fiber of her being trembled with the awareness of it. The god of gods, the presider over life, death, and everything between, stood before her.
Arit swallowed hard, her voice barely a whisper as it left her lips. “Why me?”
The god’s eyes—if they could be called eyes—flickered in the faint light of the river. He gazed at her, and the depth of his stare made her knees weaken. It wasn’t just her he was seeing, but the memories etched deep into her bones: her child’s face, pale and still beneath her hands; the small mound of earth she had placed over her; the endless nights since, spent haunted by a silence that gnawed at her from within.
When Laki Tenangan finally spoke, his voice wasn’t thunderous. It was quiet, softer than she expected for a being so immense, but it carried a weight that felt like the pull of the earth itself.
“The omen has chosen you, Arit.”
She flinched, the words cutting deeper than any blade could. She didn’t want to hear it—didn’t want to be the chosen one. She was a grieving mother, nothing more. Her gaze dropped to the water, unable to meet his. “The omen…” Her voice cracked, raw. “Why show it to me? I can’t… I can’t do anything.”
A shadow moved behind Laki Tenangan. Doh Tenangan, the goddess, his wife, emerged—her presence quieter but no less powerful. Her eyes, dark like the night, swept over Arit with the coldness of a judge rendering a final sentence.
“It is not for you to change what must be,” Doh Tenangan said, her tone distant, unfeeling. “You have seen what is to come. That is all.”
Arit’s stomach twisted in protest, the weight of despair pressing harder against her chest. “You mean to stand by and let my village burn? Let my people die?” Her voice grew louder, anger boiling beneath the surface. “I’ve seen it—smoke rising, flames licking at the sky, children crying. You expect me to stand aside?”
Doh Tenangan’s gaze remained steady. “It is the way of things. We do not interfere.”
Arit’s hands balled into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms. She wanted to scream, to tear the world apart for its cruelty. But beneath her fury lay something deeper—something colder. The truth she didn’t want to acknowledge. Laki Tenangan had shown her not just the future but her own powerlessness against it.
Her voice trembled when she spoke again. “So, I am nothing but a vessel? A bearer of your message?”
There was a pause. The wind shifted. And then, for the first time, Laki Tenangan stepped forward, closer. He reached out—not to touch her, but the air between them felt charged with the possibility of connection.
“You are not powerless,” he said, his voice lower now, as though sharing a secret. “But the price to change what is destined may be more than you are willing to pay.”
Arit froze, the words slamming into her chest like a tidal wave. She had known loss before. She had tasted the bitter sting of death, but this… this felt different. The implication hung in the air, its meaning twisting around her like vines in the dark.
“What price?” she whispered.
Laki Tenangan’s gaze turned heavy, sorrowful in a way she hadn’t expected. The god of gods, the one who presided over fate, now stood before her, and there was something in his expression that mirrored her own grief. “Your life, Arit. To alter the course of fate, one must give up their place in it.”
Her breath hitched. She stared at him, her heart pounding. For a moment, everything around her—the river, the mist, the trees—seemed to fall away, and all that remained was the crushing weight of the decision laid before her.
She could save her people. She could prevent the omen from becoming reality. But she would not live to see it.
Arit’s chest tightened. She thought of her child—her precious, lost child—and the life that had been taken from her far too soon. Could she bear to give up the last thread of her own existence, to walk into the void for the sake of those who would never know her sacrifice?
The silence stretched between them, taut and suffocating.
Finally, Laki Tenangan spoke once more, his voice softer than the wind. “You must decide.”
Her hands trembled. She looked down at the water, its silvery light reflecting the face of someone she barely recognized anymore. Arit, the mother who had lost everything. Arit, the woman who now held the fate of her village in her hands. Could she do this? Could she make that choice?
The wind stirred, bringing with it the faintest echo of a child’s laughter, carried from the far shore of Dali Matei. Her heart lurched, and in that moment, she knew.
With trembling fingers, Arit reached into her cloak and pulled out the small ceremonial dagger she had carried with her ever since the vision. The blade was cold, gleaming in the pale light.
She raised her eyes to Laki Tenangan, her voice quiet but steady. “I will do what must be done.”
He nodded, his gaze lingering on her for just a heartbeat longer—an unspoken acknowledgment of the sacrifice she was about to make.
Arit turned, facing the village far below, and with one final breath, she plunged the dagger into her chest.
The village woke to the gentle hum of birds and the soft glow of dawn. The sky was clear, free from the smoke Arit had seen in her vision. Life went on as it always had, unaware of the fate that had been averted in the dark of night.
But high on the hill, where Arit’s body lay still beneath the sky, Laki Tenangan stood alone, watching as her spirit drifted slowly toward the river’s edge.
And for the first time in centuries, the god wept.
