White. It was all Lestari could see.
An absolute, boundless white, as if the entire world had been erased, leaving only an empty space without shadows. There was no floor to stand on, but she did not feel like she was falling. There was no air to breathe, but she did not feel suffocated. In that emptiness, time seemed to lose its meaning. It could be that she had only been there for a few seconds, or perhaps it had been thousands of years since Rara Jonggrang's heart had stopped beating.
'This emptiness is so quiet ...'
A new understanding slipped into Lestari's mind, emerging from the fog of pain she had just felt through Rara Jonggrang's perspective.
In Lestari's reality, Rara Jonggrang existed only in the bedtime stories about the origins of Prambanan Temple. Yet, in that emptiness, she realized that Rara Jonggrang was not merely a fictional character. She had developed her own consciousness after being cursed to turn into stone by Bandung Bandawasa. Her soul had become a subject in samsara, an endless cycle of life, death, and reincarnation.
'Was it because of her burning desire for revenge? After thinking about it, Rara Jonggrang's life was quite unfair, despite her being the main character in the legend of Prambanan Temple. First, her father was killed by Bandung Bandawasa. Second, she was raped by Bandung Bandawasa, her father's killer. Third, she was forced by Bandung Bandawasa, the man who had raped her, to marry him. Fourth, she was killed by Bandung Bandawasa, by being cursed into stone.
In the legend that I remember, though Rara Jonggrang was a race of giants, never did she kill any living creature, and certainly never ate humans. It is true that she did attempt to kill Bandung Bandawasa, by burying him alive while he was digging the Jalatundha well, but, hmmm, who would want to be forced to marry their rapist and murderer?'
Things like reincarnation, as far as Lestari knew, were synonymous with dharmic beliefs. But she wasn't even a follower of those beliefs. She was an agnostic—she believed in God, but not in religion. Although she was a Javanese from the Prambanan district, she did not really practice Javanese traditions. To the best of her knowledge, the concepts of reincarnation, rebirth, and so on did not exist in Javanese culture. During the Hindu-Buddhist era, such things were clearly believed by the Javanese, however, this was not the case in the New Javanese era.
'Most importantly, I am not dead, so how could I possibly be involved in Rara Jonggrang's cycle of samsara?'
Lestari stared at her body. Her brown skin had returned. Her slightly chubby fingers had returned. Those were all characteristics of her original physical self.
'But why are there golden armbands on both my arms?
Why does this woven gold cloth cover my upper and lower body?
Why is my head crowned with gold?
Why do my wrists and ankles encircle gold bracelets?
Why are my breasts covered with a gold necklace and cleaved by a gold chain?
Why do my feet wear slippers?
Why are gold rings adorning my ring fingers and big toes?
Why has my waist been wrapped in a gold belt?
Why has my outfit still been like that of an ancient Javanese princess, though not exactly like Rara Jonggrang's? I'm sleeping, I should be wearing a batik sleep shirt ....'
"Is anyone here?"
There was no answer, but Lestari noticed that her original voice had also returned.
'If I'm dreaming, why did the pain feel so real? Even now, I'm still feeling the sensation of broken bones and the cold metal piercing my heart ....'
The emptiness gradually filled Lestari with fear. She imagined a door.
Strangely, in just one second, a door appeared, glowing gold.
'Only in a dream can matter be created this quickly.'
Slowly, Lestari walked toward the door. She muttered, "If I get out of here, I'll definitely wake up in my room."
Despite her quickening pace, the door remained the same distance away, as if she was walking on an invisible treadmill. The white emptiness around Lestari remained stagnant, offering no other objects she could use to estimate her speed or distance.
In a lucid dream, Lestari knew that the mind was the absolute controller. Despite her success in conjuring the door, the laws of space in the emptiness did not seem to follow her logic.
Each step Lestari took felt heavy, as if the emptiness had the consistency of thick oil. The closer she tried to get to it, the faster the door receded at the same speed.
Closing her eyes, Lestari tried to focus on the door immediately in front of her, or teleporting, as she often did in her previous lucid dreams. Yet, when she opened her eyes, the door was still there.
The silence in the void began to press on her eardrums.
'Could it be that the door was not physically far away, but more related to frequency, and could not be reached just by walking?'
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the white emptiness, Lestari no longer tried to chase the door. She decided to just stay and try to understand why her consciousness was stuck between "Lestari" and "Rara Jonggrang."
Suddenly, Lestari felt a gentle pull, as if the emptiness itself was closing the distance between them. The golden door now stood majestically right in front of her. She reached out her shaky hand. As soon as her fingers touched the golden surface, a flash of memory ... her own memory hit her.
On that afternoon of Satu Sura, Lestari remembered how excited she was to wear a kemben and a gold-thread woven cloth and copper jewelry that she had specially asked a copper craftsman in Cepaga to make for her. She wanted to capture the moment at the Prambanan Temple courtyard at sunset, dressed perfectly as the female figure in the Prambanan Temple legend, Rara Jonggrang.
The beautiful sunset, however, turned into horror. As Lestari crossed the road near the temple complex, the blinding headlights of a car, the loud crash, the brief feeling of floating, and the smell of asphalt mixed with something metallic were the last things she knew.
The death of Lestari at the time of sandikala and the sacred day of Satu Sura, at the location that is the center of the legend's energy, while dressed in the attire of an ancient Javanese princess, created a mystical knot.
Lestari looked down, her breath stuck in her throat. Red liquid suddenly appeared on both her palms, her hands, and her clothing ....
Later, Lestari touched her face. Her fingers felt wet with red liquid on her cheeks, forehead, nose, ears—basically her whole face. But luckily, there were no bones sticking out and no torn skin like you'd expect from someone who'd been in a fatal accident.
Still, it was a contradiction to the sterile white emptiness around Lestari.
Soon, the golden-lit door opened wide and swallowed Lestari.