The Strain of Healing

Alas Purwo National Park, East Java – Dawn. The grove was a whispered secret, a pocket of emerald defiance against the rot creeping at its edges. Ancient banyan trees stretched skeletal roots into soil still humming with primordial energy, their canopies filtering the dawn into shards of gold. But even here, the Syndicate’s poison lingered—a cough in the wind, the stench of diesel beneath the frangipani.

Mayang knelt at the heart of the grove, palms pressed to the earth. Her bare feet sank into moss, cool and damp, but the ground pulsed weakly beneath her, like a faltering heartbeat. Alas, Purwo’s daughter, the villagers once called her, but now the title felt like a chain.

“Tolong,” she whispered, clawing her fingers into the soil. Energy surged from her core, green-gold light spiraling up her arms—a gift inherited from generations of dukun who’d tended these woods. The wilted ferns at her feet shuddered, their brown fronds curling inward like fists.