1 Chapter 1

A chill crept in a dark, moist room.

A shrill that made the body trembled.

My heart beats faster.

The feeling of eagerness that kept higtened. Ah...

This is the feeling I wanted.

Great, really great.

A smile slowly bloomed on my face.

Meri opened her eyes, gasping for air. She placed her right hand over her left chest, where her heart lies. She could only felt its fast beats, a lingering trace of the feeling of excitement left.

"Darm... turns out it was just a dream." She mumbled. And here she thought that it was real. She could not help but felt disappointed.

By the time her breathing and heartbeat back to normal, she started to get ready for the day. An hour later she got a message from her assistant, Sastri, to head for the meet and greet location immediately. After reading the message, she got in a taxi.

The drive took quite a long time due to the work hour. By the time she arrived, there are already a lot of people at the location.

The meet and greet were held in a mall centre. It was one of the programs that had been waited by loyal readers in the book fair event. Many famous authors were invited to introduce their books and of course the most demanded to do-signing part.

Every author was prepared with small stages to talk about their books. Then there will be an interview, the topic usually information and facts around the book they wrote. Following with question and answer session, and last it will be closed with a signing session.

When she entered the book fair area, she could see many people there, loyal readers were either sitting in their designated chairs of standing. Some authors had arrived earlier, talking about their book. There were even reporters and social influencers doing live streaming.

She looked around and finally found Sastri waving her hand by the side of a stage. Raising her eyebrows, she walked leisurely with a faint smile to her assistant.

"do you know what time is it now, Meri?" Sastri whispered angrily.

"I know... I'm sorry. I slept in"

"I don't care. Quickly go to your stage, your loyal readers had been waiting for for 30 minutes for you. Oh my god... what kind of main character will come late for her show!" the beautiful assistant kept nagging while pushing the other woman to the stage.

Meri, the main character who got nagged for her lateness, entered the stage calmly. She sat on the chair at the centre of the stage. There's a plain white table in front with a bottle of mineral water and a book on top of it, her latest book.

There was another person on the stage, a cute boy with curly hair. He looked like a university student. When the boy saw that the woman has sat in the chair, he opened the event. After a simple opening and introduction, he then let the woman introduce her book.

"Hello everyone. Good morning. I am Meri Sadistira. In today's activity, I will introduce you to my latest book, The Messanger. Have you read the book?"

All readers responded with a 'yes' while raising a blue-covered book in their hand.

"Great! I am thankful to all of you for buying my books. Alright then, without further ado. This book told the story about the life of Gun, the main character who was a criminal charged with murdering. Upon release from his punishment in jail, he finally enlightened and decided to be a new person. Alas! He just got back home, sitting on his sofa while scrolling on his cellphone to order some take-out, but his hand slipped and accidentally opened a new message."

The audiences were laughing hearing it. For they knew there's no such event happened in the book at all.

What take-out? What slipped off the hand? How came an ex-murderer action so comical?

This was supposed to be a suspend story, not a comedy!

"anyway, the message consists of a bunch of random alphabets and numbers. But he didn't think much of it at first. You know, people like to prank with a phone nowadays. But the next day, he got another message with different alphabets and numbers. Concern over it, he begins to crack the meaning of the messages. Every day, he would get another message, all with different alphabets and numbers. In the middle of his attempt to crack the messages, he coincidently met detective Jonathan, the very person who put him in jail. And so they made a deal. Detective Jo agreed to help him crack the messages, but he has to help detective Jo to solve a case. Until... he found out that all the messages were leading them to a serial murdering case 10 years ago, which happened again. It happened to be the case that detective Jo was handling and needed Gun to help him. Alright.. that's all for now. Please read the book if you want to know more about the story."

The audiences turned silent while listening to her storytelling at some point. It took them a few seconds to come back to their senses and gave big applause. And so.. the first session was closed with booming claps by the audiences.

"What an intriguing story. I feel like I can't wait to read the novel as soon as I go back home later. Alright! Now that the first session has ended, let's move to the next session. Miss Meri, please sit comfortably. You may drink the water we prepared for you. And you'll need to answer questions we have arranged for this session." Explained the MC. Meri only gave a simple nod to answer him.

After a while, the Mc sat on another chair and began his first question, "what's the background of your novel this time?"

"like my previous works, this time my novel was also influenced by my love for mysteries and thrill stories."

"is your work this time related to your certain previous work called Murder in Time?"

Calmly, the woman answered, "there's indeed a connection between the two stories. But just a little bit. It's just a few characters in the police station and Detective Jo. I did admire the character Detective Jo which I created. Although, after this novel, my admiration for detective Jo will have to be shared with Gun."

The readers chuckled lightly when they were listening to the last part of her answer.

Next questions soon followed. There were 20 questions given by the MC, and all were answered calmly by Meri. Until the start of the third session.

"The second session has ended. It's time for the last session, the QnA session. Does anyone have a question for the author?"

A lot of readers raised they had one after the other. The MC let a woman with a pink blouse with a skirt of the same colour speak her question.

"I want to as will this novel adapted to movie screen like your previous works?"

The MC let Meri answered the question.

"Good question. There were indeed a few of my previous works adapted to the screen. But, for this novel, I can't be sure yet. Well… let's just hope that this novel will be able to be as successful as it's older siblings. That way, it won't be possible to watch it on screen soon."

"Next question."

The readers raised their hand once again. One by one, they were let to speak their question, from asking about the location for the novel's setting to the main character in the novel. Well… they probably curious if the place or the person exists in real life.

"Did your love to write mystery stories based on the betrayal of your ex-fiancee?"