📜 READER RULES
"A Realm Where Cowards Get Lost Twice"
1. This story uses a system structure.
Not a tax system, not a coding system— a choice-based survival system.
And every choice has consequences. (Yes, even the stupid ones.)
2. You must be as honorable as a grandmaster in desert chess.
Once your finger touches a pawn—no takebacks.
No crying. No "I didn't mean it."
Live with your decision.
3. Do NOT read all paths.
You're not an omniscient deity. Choose one route and stay loyal.
If you peek at the others, the jinn will judge your commitment issues.
The protagonist's fate is now in your hands.
If they die, that's between you and your conscience.
Do not DM the author at 2 a.m. to blame the plot twist.
5. Confused? Terrified? Regretting your choices?
Perfect.
That means the system works.
Proceed.
6. You may laugh, scream, or re-evaluate your life choices.
You may NOT go back and redo the chapter.
This is not a dating sim.
This is destiny—with lag.
***
The glassy ground cracked softly under their sandals as the two young men crossed the invisible threshold. The forest stopped there.
In front of them—
Al-Mashraqat opened like a crystal plain bowing in salute to the three suns.
A field of crystal plants rose from waist-height to roof-height, their stems slim and faceted, veins of light pulsing slowly within. Under VENA and ZURQ, this place might have looked like a New Year's lantern garden.
But now—
SAFRA was rising. Slowly.
The third sun climbed the sky from an angle, its pale yellow light cold and sharp, reflecting off the crystal surfaces in razor-bright glints. The veins inside the crystal stems shifted color too: from bluish white to greenish gold, like warning lights just switched on.
Behind them, the howls of the glass jackal-deer cut off. Their pounding footsteps stopped right at the forest's edge.
Rafi glanced back once. Dozens of yellow eyes gleamed between the dark trunks. None of them crossed the line. As if the whole pack was saying:
"This isn't our territory. Go die over there."
Rafi drew in a breath—short, dry, like dragging a blade into his lungs.
There was relief in it. And a new kind of dread.
"Bro…" his voice came out hoarse,
"…I think… the Boss just changed."
Sahim squeezed his throat to keep it from crying out.
"Alhamdulillah… and Astaghfirullah… in one breath, ya Rabb…"
They stepped further in.
The crystals around them creaked faintly, reflecting the shadows of two small humans with far too much debt in the bank of oxygen. A thin metallic scent rose from the hairline cracks in the ground; threaded through it was a soft sweetness—the lingering scent of Nabat al-Muhayyil that had somehow managed to grow wild along the edges of Al-Mashraqat, its petals smaller and its veins tipped with pale yellow.
Rafi stopped. Safra's light flashed in his eyes.
"Stop. Here," he said curtly.
He reached into his bag. The dream-flowers filled half of it—blue-green petals with silver lines. He counted quickly how many stems he had left. His exhale was loud in the cold-dry air.
"From now on…"
He looked at Sahim, jaw locking.
"…Nabat is for emergencies only. SERIOUS emergencies."
Sahim raised both hands.
"Na'am, na'am… agreed, my Commander."
He peeked at the flowers, eyes sad like a kid told to ration his snacks.
"This was such a premium hallucination bomb, though," he muttered under his breath.
Safra climbed higher.
Under its light, Al-Mashraqat began to change.
The veins of light inside the crystal stems pulsed faster, like the heartbeat of a stadium. Some of the crystal "leaves" unfolded—arranging themselves into thin discs facing the sky, clinging to the stems like tiny satellites.
Arena.
That was the word that surfaced in Rafi's mind.
He swallowed.
His feet moved with meticulous care over the hairline-cracked glass. Every step is measured. Every breath is trimmed of noise.
But another sound got there first.
"Tik—tik—tik—tik."
Fast. Light. Precise.
Rafi lifted a hand—signal for silence.
Sahim froze instantly, more obedient than he'd ever been in physics class.
They peered through the gap between two thick crystal stalks. A small creature shot up onto one of the "satellite" discs.
Squirrel-like—
if the squirrel had been crafted by an obsessive glass artisan.
Its body was sleek, with a long tail whose fur frayed into strands of light at the tip. Its claws flashed Safra's reflection like tiny knives. Its eyes—neither yellow nor white—but clear, with a green point of light in the center, like a miniature camera lens.
The creature halted on the crystal disc.
Sniffed the air.
Then raked its claws across the leaf's surface.
"Krik—krk—krk."
The sound spread like a signal. Three more appeared at once from the sides, running along the tilted stalks, heads low, tails balanced like tightropes.
Sahim swallowed.
"Bro…" he whispered,
"…premium squirrels…"
Rafi narrowed his eyes.
"Not squirrels, Bro. Look at how they move. They're… a small unit."
He watched the pattern:
Every time a claw scratched the disc, the other three shifted position.
A tiny life-clock, running on sound.
"Bro."
His voice dropped lower.
"…if we move wrong, we'll be walking through their sensor grid."
Sahim bit his lip.
"Like walking through free CCTV coverage, ya Rabb…"
They tried to circle around.
One step to the left—The glass groaned softly. The nearest creature stopped dead. Its ears twitched—two points, two directions.
"Tik."
One short sound. Four heads turned.
Too late.
One glass-squirrel launched toward them like a tiny bullet, foreclaws raised. Two others climbed the stalks to the left and right, closing the angle.
Rafi exhaled, rough.
"Emergency," he said quickly.
"Now it's an emergency."
Sahim nearly shouted "Na'am!" from sheer panic. He yanked out one stalk of Nabat, twisted its end, then hurled it forward like a chalk-throw.
"PUFF—"
The flower burst into mist right in the first squirrel's face.
The creature froze—
its green eyes flaring wide, the little light-pupil blinking rapidly, like its entire operating system had been force-restarted.
Its steps faltered.
Its grip slipped.
The small body slid sideways—almost making it out.
Rafi gave it no chance. He slammed his shoulder into the nearest crystal stem, shoving it a fraction off balance.
"CRAK—"
The creature smacked into the side of the stalk at full speed. A slice of light ripped through its body.
No blood.
Its glassy frame cracked from within—shattering into tiny shards that hovered briefly, then dissolved into dust-light.
Silence, for a split second. One tiny thing dropped to the ground:
"Tik."
A miniature crystal, no bigger than a fingernail—clear green, with a fine yellow line running through the center. It throbbed faintly, like a dot-pulse.
Sahim blinked three times.
"Bro… item drop."
His tone hovered somewhere between awe and horror.
"…this world really is a game server, ya Rabb…"
The other two "squirrels" realized their friend had died.
Their tails rose.
Claws scraped glass.
The "krk—krk—krk" came in rapid bursts now, sharper—like an alarm.
Rafi snatched up the tiny crystal and slid it into his pocket.
"We'll analyze it later. First—STAY ALIVE."
Each squirrel leapt from one disc to another, ping-ponging through the air: claws tapping crystal; short breaths; Safra's reflections streaking across their fur.
Sahim gripped two Nabat stalks—
but didn't throw them at once.
He bit the end of one like a threat, but the glass-squirrels clearly did not speak diplomacy.
"RAFI—RIGHT!!"
Rafi ducked, the creature whistling past his head.
"BRO, ABOVE!!"
Rafi kicked at a loose stem; the attacker lost its footing for a heartbeat; Sahim snapped the Nabat's petals in mid-air—thin mist exploding exactly over its nose.
Under Safra, the effect shifted.
No deep euphoria.
More like a five-second vertigo.
Enough.
The creature staggered, claws slipping. Rafi caught its small body out of the air and slammed it down against an angled crystal.
"DRAK—!"
Glass fragments flew. The tiny form burst into dust-light. Another tiny crystal landed near his sandal. Sahim snuck a glance at his bag.
"Bro… how many Nabat do we have left?"
He already sounded like a panicked accountant. Rafi inhaled his own breath, then answered short:
"Enough for a few big problems. NOT for practicing free hits on squirrels."
Sahim winced. Na'am… but these squirrels feel like training dummies, Bro…
The third squirrel didn't attack. It stopped at the top of one tall disc, tail flicking, eyes narrowing.
Then—
all the crystal leaves around it began to vibrate, slowly, as if keyed to a frequency only they could hear.
Rafi stiffened.
"Bro… it's calling backup."
Sahim chewed his lip.
"Can we… call backup too? Like… an army, maybe…"
Rafi lobbed a pebble into empty space ahead—just to check. Four small shadows sprang out from behind a pile of crystal.
"NEW SQUIRRELS, BRO!!"
Reflex. Nabat stayed in the bag. They chose the cheap option instead:
Head-banging strategy, perfume-saving mode.
The fight dragged on.
Seconds filled up with:
Flying glass shards, claws skidding across surfaces, ragged breaths, and shouts of
"ALLAHU AKBAR!"
tangled with
"BROOOO LEFT LEFT!!".
Safra edged higher. Its light sliced the shadows, making the sweat on Rafi's temples glisten. They started to read the pattern:
- Squirrel → always jumps to the nearest highest point.
- After two jumps → always scratches a leaf → sends a signal → calls the pack.
- After a hit of Nabat → staggers for about five seconds—just enough to slam it into a stalk or sweep its legs.
Rafi tracked the counts with a brain half on fire.
"Two jumps—one scratch—WEAK POINT NOW!"
His foot swept out the creature's legs, and Sahim jabbed a stem from the side. Impact.
"DRUK!"
Glass splinters.
Dust-light.
Another small crystal dropped.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Sahim was panting hard now. His shoulders rose and fell like clogged pistons. His sleeve was torn at the arm; a thin cut stung, but no serious wounds.
"Bro… why do they just keep coming?"
Rafi glanced around.
The rest of the pack… was actually backing off. Some creatures only watched from a distance, tails tense, eyes calculating. They stopped at a precise line—as though an invisible circle had been drawn around the two humans.
"Territory," Rafi murmured.
The hair on his neck lifted.
"Bro… they won't step outside that circle. Which means—we're standing in the middle of their training field."
Sahim raised a hand in despair.
"Why do we always spawn in the middle of someone else's EXP farm, ya Rabb…"
When the last echo of the skirmish died away, what remained was:
- Two boys' ragged breathing,
- the faint smell of ozone,
- drifting dust-light,
- and five tiny green-and-gold crystals scattered on the ground.
ZURQ was fading far behind the mountains. SAFRA owned the sky now. Rafi crouched slowly, picking up one crystal carefully.
It was cold—but not a stabbing cold.
More like a friendly ice cube.
Its light spun slowly inside, inhaling and exhaling.
"Bro," he said quietly.
"I think… this is their energy core."
Sahim touched one crystal with the tip of his finger—only a fraction of contact. He felt—
A little stronger.
A little clearer.
Like a single sip of properly brewed coffee.
"Bro… this is a buff, Bro… Wallah," he hissed.
"But if I overdo it, I swear my heart will turn into a techno track."
Rafi tucked three crystals into his pocket.
"Two for you later. One for me. The rest are backup. We don't know the side effects yet."
Sahim lifted an eyebrow.
"So… we're literally farming crystals off animals?
Is that even legal, Bro?"
Rafi sighed.
"Focus on survival first."
Every few steps, he stopped to listen. He tried to distinguish which vibrations were natural crystal hum, and which were claws.
The tall crystal stalks formed narrow corridors. Above, some of the satellite discs spun lazily, reflecting Safra like stage lights. Beneath, the glass ground was cracked and sometimes covered with a thin yellow moss, soft as a luxury carpet in another world.
It was in that moss-filled crack that they found something:
Fruit, almost.
Not soft fruit.
More like a clear gel capsule stuck to the rock, thumb-sized, filled with pale golden liquid.
Rafi bent down. Stared at it for a long moment.
"Bro… this looks like… portable drinking water."
Sahim immediately reached out to pry it off.
"Bismillah, let's dr—"
Rafi's hand shot up.
"HEY. Test first."
He picked up a tiny glass ant crawling nearby and flicked it gently toward the capsule. The ant touched the surface, drank a bit of the liquid and then—
Walked faster.
Its movements were steady.
It didn't fall over.
Didn't seize up.
"Test passed," Rafi murmured, relieved.
He cracked one capsule carefully in his palm and sniffed. It smelled like zamzam water with a hint of lemon. Clean. Clear.
He took a quarter of it.
Waited.
His heartbeat stayed human, not war drums.
"MasyaAllah…" he breathed.
"…it's water. I think. Water plus some otherworldly vitamins."
Sahim immediately took one.
"Bismillah…"
He downed it—paused—
"BROOOO!!" he whispered, overexcited.
"…it's like fridge water after a heatwave! Ya Rabb!!"
They filled two small bottles with the golden liquid as best they could, then scratched a mark onto the rock above it.
"Shajarah-Ma'," Sahim declared.
"What kind of name is that?"
"Water tree. So we remember."
Hours under Safra felt like a full day. Sweat dried on their skin, then reappeared, then dried again. They slowed—not from comfort, but because everything around them kept getting stranger.
The next creature they met had a round body like a giant beetle, up to their knees, its "skin" not glass but glossy black stone. Across its back ran thin green lines, like half-written script. From its mouth it exhaled thin clouds that stuck to the nearby crystals and left faint dark stains.
The creature trudged in a slow loop around a pile of crystal stalks, as if it were painting the area with smell.
Rafi crouched lower.
"Bro… this looks like the local perfume guy."
Sahim squinted.
"If it's a perfume vendor, then its scent…"
He sniffed carefully.
"…ya Rabb… it's like firewood, camel hide, and brand-new sandals."
The creature stopped.
Sniffed.
Its "nose"—if that's what it was—turned toward them. Rafi lifted his hand again.
"Don't. Breathe. Loud."
It took one step forward. The green veins on its back glowed slightly brighter. Sahim crushed a Nabat stalk in his grip, eyes begging silently for the signal to throw.
The beetle paused…
then turned left.
It didn't come closer.
It just shuffled past them, continuing to mist its scent onto other crystals, as if the two humans were nothing but extra rocks. Rafi only realized he'd been holding his breath when his lungs complained.
"Bro…" he whispered,
"…it didn't read our scent."
"Why not?"
"Because…"
Rafi glanced at their bags:
the faint smell of the first world's creature-piss still clung to the fabric, layered with flower perfume and the dust of another forest.
"…maybe to it, our smell is… too scrambled. Like a corrupted timeline. Its brain just doesn't want to process it."
Sahim gave a shaky thumbs-up.
"So… we survived because our smell is… chaos."
The beetle finished marking the area. Then, something else triggered its sensors. It turned its small green eyes toward them again. This time they narrowed.
"Bro…" Rafi's voice dropped an octave.
"…I think it's revising its opinion."
The beetle bent its hind legs, coiling—ready to jump higher than any creature that heavy had a right to.
Rafi didn't wait.
He grabbed a small stone and hurled it—not at the creature, but beside it. The rock struck one of the scent-coated stones it had just sprayed.
"PLAK."
Instantly, a thick cloud rose up, smothering its own face.
The beetle coughed—
or did the closest thing to it—
stumbled, and smashed full-body into one of the crystal stalks.
"DRAK!"
Its black armor cracked, peeling open. Rafi didn't waste the opening. He shoved another stone from behind, adding a second impact.
"KRK!" sounded.
The beetle froze—
then collapsed.
Like the others, it left no flesh behind. Only:
a small oval crystal, ash-grey with deep green veins inside. The light in it didn't pulse; it simply spiraled like trapped smoke.
"Bro… is this… a fragrance, or a cleaner?" Sahim asked.
Rafi sniffed from a safe distance.
Nothing.
"…feels like… a smell absorber," he decided.
"Like a filter. If we carry this, it might swallow our scent too."
Sahim held it with two fingers.
"…so this is… legendary deodorant?"
Rafi tapped his forehead with the tip of the crystal.
"If we survive because of this, I don't care if all our smell disappears."
They took that one grey crystal—just one—and slipped it into Rafi's front pocket.
The world under Safra grew denser. Far off, they glimpsed other beings: a tall, reed-thin shape moving silently between the crystals… a cluster of glass spheres bouncing like heavy dandelion seeds… high shadows overhead that might be birds, or might not.
A few times, something came closer—
a flat-bodied predator with long fangs.
It sniffed the air, face wrinkling in confusion. The grey crystal in Rafi's pocket trembled faintly, bleeding out a thread of invisible vapour. The creature turned away, as if their scent trail had ended in mid-air.
"Bro… this thing is OP," Sahim said, impressed.
"…crystal deodorant."
"Don't get cocky around other monsters.
Maybe only some of them are dumb enough to fall for it," Rafi replied.
They slipped through crystal corridors, choosing paths with the fewest claw marks. Every so often they stopped for a sip of golden water—just enough to wipe the metallic taste from their tongues.
Sahim's stomach growled softly.
"Bro… if this world has fried chicken, I might just migrate permanently," he muttered.
Rafi almost smiled—mostly out of exhaustion.
"If this world has fried chicken, the chicken can probably eat us," he shot back.
Safra began to tilt—
its light sliding, merging the crystal shadows into long, tangled lines.
Rafi halted at one point.
Ahead, the crystal corridor opened onto a small clearing—
the glass ground widened, with several large stones like altars, and in the center, a thicker crystal pillar rising like a giant column.
Its surface was claw-scarred—
deep, overlapping grooves swirling around it.
"Bro…"
Rafi's voice thinned.
"…this isn't just a random area. Something uses this place… to sharpen its claws."
Sahim swallowed.
"Is it allowed… that we don't meet the owner?"
The grey crystal in Rafi's pocket suddenly pulsed harder. Its once-gentle light began to spin wildly—then… dimmed sharply. As if there were a scent far too large for it to swallow.
Rafi pressed his palm against it, as if he could force it to work overtime.
"Bro… why did it just… drop performance?" Sahim asked.
Rafi didn't get the chance to answer. Because the air in front of them suddenly grew… heavy.
Not wind.
More like pressure, like unseen eyes cocking their heads.
There was a sound.
Soft.
"DRR… DRR…"
Not small steps. This was the heavy cadence of something with too many joints. From the left, behind the pillar, something moved. A shadow darker than the others.
Tall—maybe twice a man's height.
Its body wasn't lean like the jackal-deer.
It was more like a composite of:
a long segmented torso plated in black glass,
four slender legs whose joints could rotate too far,
and at the front—something like a head… rimmed with a ring of eyes. Too many eyes.
Safra's light glanced off its black surface.
One eye—
two—
six—
opened, one after another, like stadium lights flicking on.
All of them stopped at a single point:
Rafi.
Then slid to Sahim.
Then to the grey crystal in his pocket.
That creature… saw them.
—To be Continued—