It started with a scratching noise, the kind that makes you think of rats or maybe a trapped bird. But then came the thumps, heavy and deliberate, like something pacing above us. My father, never one for superstition, climbed the ladder one night with a flashlight in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He came down pale, lips pressed into a line so tight it could cut glass. “There’s a crocodile up there,” he muttered. And just like that, everything changed.

We lived in a wooden house on stilts in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Banjarmasin and the endless sprawl of oil palm plantations. The rivers were brown and sluggish, filled with things that slithered and snapped if you got too close. Crocodiles weren’t uncommon, but one living on our roof? That was a different matter.

“How big?” my mother asked, as if she were inquiring about the price of fish.

“Big enough,” my father said, staring at the ceiling like he expected it to collapse.

For a week, we pretended it wasn’t there. We listened to it move, felt the strange weight pressing down on the house. We whispered at night, careful not to wake it, whatever “waking” even meant for a creature like that.

Then came the rain. The real, furious kind that drowns entire villages. The river swelled, and suddenly, our house wasn’t so high above the water anymore. That’s when we saw it.

At dawn, after the storm passed, my brother and I climbed out the window, balancing on the bamboo scaffolding that held our house together. The roof sagged under the weight of something dark, something breathing. It lifted its head, and I swear its eyes held something almost… human.

“They say crocodiles remember debts,” my grandmother had once said. “Maybe you owe it something.”

But what could we possibly owe a crocodile?

My father called the village head. The village head called a man who was supposed to be good with animals, though from the way he flinched when he saw the roof, I had my doubts. They climbed up there with ropes and sticks, talking in low voices, planning. The crocodile did not move. It watched. It waited.

Then, just as they made their move, the roof cracked.

Wood splintered. The house groaned. And before anyone could react, the crocodile slid down the side like a shadow come to life. It hit the water with a splash that soaked the men to the bone. And then, just like that, it was gone.

They searched the river for days, but no one ever found it. No sign, no trail, nothing but the deep gouges in our roof where its claws had dug in.

“Maybe it was never really there,” my mother said one night, her voice quiet.

But we knew better.

Because sometimes, when the rain falls just right and the river swells up to kiss our doorstep, we still hear something moving above us.

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Fendy is an art worker from Malang, Indonesia. He works with words and music to study how time feels different to people, and how connections linger even when they’re gone. By day, he sells motorcycles. By night, he makes moody music as Nep Kid and writes stories in different forms. His art lives in the gap between words and true feelings.