4) First Steps into the Strange

Location: Unknown Desert — Realm of Frost

Time: ??? — The Red Moon Hangs Still

Everett Miracle blinked into consciousness with a groan. Sand? No, not quite. It was cold. Bitingly cold.

His clothes were soaked in a dry chill, the grains of silvery dust clinging to him like powdered ice. A red moon hovered above, luminous and massive, casting an eerie glow over an otherwise featureless desert. And despite its crimson hue, the world below was breathlessly frozen.

Wind drifted soundlessly from nowhere to nowhere. Everett rubbed his arms. "Desert. Cold. Red moon. Weird vibes. Yep, checks out."

Then it came.

Ding!

Candidate Everett Miracle.

Welcome to the Realm of Frost.

Mission: Survive for one day.

Bonus rewards issued based on extended survival time.

Everett stared at the floating text until it disappeared like frost smoke. "...Right. I didn't dream any of this."

His breath fogged in the cold. He stood up slowly, rubbing sore limbs, mind still reeling from the cosmic gacha, the cube, the anime voiceover… and now this Realm of Frost.

Speaking of which…

The cube.

It floated silently in front of him — glowing faintly, as if trying to decide what mood to be in. As Everett focused, he noticed a peculiar change: one of the cube's sides had begun to shift, its color deepening to mirror the same shade of red as the moon overhead. Within that side, barely visible, was the faint outline of a blurry moon.

He tilted his head. "Are you… copying the sky?"

He had a thought — maybe this was how the Cube of Becoming worked. Forming fragments of something bigger. Maybe if he completed the picture, something would unlock? But right now, theorizing was second to staying alive.

Everett scanned the surroundings again. No water. No plants. No animals. No shelter. Nothing.

The realization set in like frostbite: this place was deadly.

"First rule of survival: don't freeze or starve. Second rule: keep moving."

He started walking in a direction — any direction. But after an hour, the landscape hadn't changed. It felt like walking on an infinite treadmill of icy sand. No progress. No landmarks.

His limbs grew heavier. His breaths shorter. The cold gnawed into his bones.

Eventually, exhaustion won. Everett slumped to the ground, collapsing into the frigid dust. The cube hovered nearby, pulsing gently like a concerned pet.

He glanced up at it, muttering, "If I die, you better at least unlock a cool skill."

The cube pulsed again.

Then something strange happened. The world around him… held its breath.

A wind shifted. The air grew stiller, heavier.

And then — a sound. Footsteps crunching across the frost. Steady, deliberate. A voice followed, distant yet growing closer. Singing? No — chanting.

Everett stiffened. He couldn't tell if the figure approaching was friend or foe, but the voice was undeniably human.

And then, from the stillness, a voice — not from the person, but from the world itself — echoed into the air, hollow and cryptic:

"Those who rest shall be forgotten in the turning of the wheel.

Those who walk may bleed, but they will be seen by the stars.

Follow the frost not with foot, but with fate._

Only the willing may hear the answer beneath silence."_

Everett shivered. Not from the cold — but from something else. That voice didn't belong to the figure. It was everywhere and nowhere.

He stared toward the distant silhouette in the frost.

"...Well," he said to the cube, "this got biblical."

The cube pulsed in agreement.

Out of the horizon, a figure emerged — slender, radiant in white. The man's outfit shimmered like moonlight made cloth. He was young, strikingly symmetrical, with wheat-colored skin and eyes that seemed to hold riddles instead of pupils.

Everett stood. "Stop! Identify yourself!"

The man didn't flinch. He smiled faintly, as if he'd expected this.

"Child... I am just a traveler of the far and the forgotten. I walk the frost where time sleeps and truths hide. I do not know my destination, for it changes with every question."

Everett squinted. "That tells me nothing."

The stranger smiled wider. "Answers are for endings. You are in a beginning."

He stepped closer. Then, in a voice that seemed to echo in Everett's chest more than his ears, he spoke a prophecy:

"To walk is to search,

To stop is to shiver.

But to stand still long enough...

Is to hear what the frost remembers."

The cube pulsed again, its red glow syncing with the stranger's words.

Everett felt a strange stillness in the air. Not peace — not danger — just a silence filled with potential.

Then the traveler added:

"You are a shard of becoming, Everett Miracle. This world watches not who you are... but what you might become."

"What I might become?" Everett repeated.

The traveler nodded. "Even a cube can become a cathedral… or a coffin. It all depends on how you build."

With that, he turned and began to walk away, humming an unplaceable tune.

Everett stood in silence. The frost whispered around him.

And he realized: He was still hopelessly lost… but not alone.

-----

Everett, although still confused by the events that had dragged him into a realm of frost and riddles, made a decision: he wouldn't stay still. He would walk forward—because in stories, people who stay in place die of cold, boredom, or narrative irrelevance.

And so began his uneventful journey—with a cube humming by his side like a motivational paperweight.

Some time passed, and as Everett trudged across the shimmering frost-sand, his frozen boots finally scraped against something new: structure. A city. No—something more surreal. Sharp crystalline towers jutted out like frozen lightning. Bone-like arches stretched across roads paved with geometric glyphs. It looked like an architect had thrown a tantrum inside a snow globe.

Everett's heart raced. He was cautious, but also genuinely thrilled. Civilization meant information. Information meant answers. And hopefully, answers didn't come with teeth.

As he crept in through the outer alleyways, he saw them—inhabitants. Creatures of all shapes and biological opinions filled the cold streets: Towering reptiles walking upright like bipedal thunder. Giants tall enough to use buildings as chairs. Ghost-like entities that shimmered with no bodies, only swirling robes. Alien forms—too strange to compare, too real to ignore.

It was Everett's first time seeing true interdimensional diversity.

"...As expected of aliens," he muttered, half-joking.

And then came the weirder part—he could understand them. A pair of hulking lizardfolk chatted by a hovering soup stall:

"Çßarïis This year's participants seem like weaklings."

"There's too little meat. I bet the Realm Culls will finish in record time."

Everett gulped.

He found that he could understand their language though he didn't attended any alien language course.

Everett tucked himself into a narrow alley.

As he walked out of the alley, he found a small stall.

A 10 cm tall dwarf stood behind it, perched atop a canister like it was a throne. The dwarf squinted up at him and replied, "Hey, a skinny Cercopithecidae! I haven't seen one of your kind."

"What is your kind called?"

"Me? My kind is called human."

"Hummannn, huh?" the dwarf cackled. "So you're this time's participant, huh."

"Yes, good sir," Everett said, keeping polite, "can you tell me what's this all about? This second phase, or first challenge, if you can?"

"Hmm. You're quite polite for a skinny candidate," the dwarf said, stroking a tiny beard like he was considering a business proposal. "So I, the great Grimbleshank Ironpocket, shall answer you!"

The dwarf—Grimbleshank Ironpocket, as he so grandly introduced himself—adjusted his posture on his canister-throne and leaned in with theatrical seriousness.

"See, lad. The Game of Realms ain't what it looks like. Some say it's a trial. A way to measure worth. But that's just the surface snow."

He leaned closer, voice low.

"The truth? It's searching for something. Or someone. The system—this grand cosmic thing—was built not to judge, but to find. Each phase, each challenge, each death and survival… is a clue."

"To what?" Everett asked.

Grimbleshank tilted his head. "No one knows. Not even the ones who win."

"As for Phase Two—this is where you stop being a pawn. Or at least, start realizing you're one. The challenges shift now. They have narrative weight. Symbols. Echoes from lives you haven't lived yet."

Everett stared.

"And this first challenge—surviving a day here—isn't just about not dying. It's about resisting what the Realm wants from you. Because Realms feed too, you know. On fear, on memory, on regret. If you cave… it remembers you as a meal, not a contender."

---