Malek was no ordinary young man. Ever since childhood, he had been drawn to silence—to the shadows between things, to the rustling of leaves at dusk. It was in the ancient village of “Ain al-Sukoon,” where stories of jinn were whispered like prayer, that his fate began to unravel.
One night, while drawing water from the village's cursed well, Malek saw her.
She was radiant—more light than flesh. Her eyes shimmered with stars.
> “Why do you look at me like that?” she asked, her voice like a breeze through reeds.
> “Because I’ve dreamed of you,” he whispered.
Her name was Rihaneh. And she was not of his world.
Night after night, Malek returned to the well. They talked of music, of stars, of the loneliness that clung to both their souls. But the more he loved her, the more the veil between their worlds thinned.
Rihaneh revealed the truth: she was a guardian of the threshold between the jinn and human worlds. And their love was a violation of ancient law.
> “If we continue, both realms may collapse,” she warned.
Malek didn’t care.
> “Let the worlds burn,” he said. “If I must choose between them and you—I choose you.”
Rihaneh vanished one night. Taken by her kin.
To find her, Malek had to pass through the Trial of Shadows—a realm of illusions where one must face the truths they fear the most.
There, he saw himself growing old and alone. He saw his mother crying by the well. He saw Rihaneh turning to dust.
But he never turned back.
At the trial’s end, the Council of the Gloom appeared.
> “You are not one of us. Nor are you fully human anymore. What are you?”
> “I am love,” Malek said. “And I am staying.”
Faced with a terrible choice—return to his world and forget Rihaneh, or remain and lose all memory of his past—Malek chose neither.
He asked for a third path.
> “I’ll be a bridge,” he said. “An eternal traveler. Not jinn. Not man. Just... love.”
The Council warned him:
Rihaneh was imprisoned for breaking the Sacred Balance. Malek, now a "Walker Between," began a perilous journey through the realm of the jinn to find her.
He battled the Beast of Shadows, passed the Bridge of Forgotten Memories, and finally reached the prison guarded by Raimana—Rihaneh’s sister and the most powerful guardian of the jinn.
> “Your love is a threat to our very existence,” she declared.
> “Then your existence needs to change,” Malek replied.
They fought. Light against shadow. And just when all hope seemed lost, Rihaneh sacrificed her own power to help Malek defeat her sister.
Weakened, but together again, Malek and Rihaneh sought out the ancient sage beneath the Tree of Eternity, deep in the Forest of Unseen Things.
> “To restore the balance,” said the sage, “you must give up something dear.”
Malek gave up his childhood memories—his mother’s voice, his sister’s laughter.
Rihaneh surrendered her role as guardian and most of her power.
As they performed the ancient rite, the veil healed, but now it shimmered—porous, gentle, no longer a wall but a curtain.
> “You will be alone. Forever between.”
But he accepted.
The veil tore.
Malek’s body vanished. But his presence lingered—echoing in both worlds.
Back in the valley where they first met, Malek and Rihaneh watched the stars. The world had changed—but so had they.
They were no longer jinn nor human. They were the first of something new.
A bridge.
A story.
A legend.
And in the human world, Malek’s mother woke up by the well, holding a strange flower that had never grown in their land. It glowed faintly in her hands.
She smiled, though she didn’t know why.
> Somewhere between worlds... her son was in love.
THE END
تعليقات
إرسال تعليق