To the casual observer, Pak Shom—or "Uncle Shom" as we called him—was just another retiree. He lived in a faded teal single-story house at the very end of Lorong Gatal, a dead-end street choked with bougainvillea and secrets. The paint peeled from his walls like sunburnt skin. His front gate, a creaking iron contraption held together by rust and stubbornness, always leaned inward as if weary of holding the world at bay.

It thrives primarily through short-form video series and serialized web fiction.

That was thirty-seven years ago. I’m forty-seven now. Uncle Shom never returned. My father claimed the whole thing was a stress-induced hallucination. My mother refused to discuss the “spare room.” But the pocket watch is in my desk drawer as I write this. And every now and then, usually at 2:47 AM, I hear a faint knocking.