Cherreads

The Weight of Not Losing Again

arwa_alzaabi
Five years ago, Adnan buried his three-year-old son. The loss shattered his marriage, silenced his home, and taught him one brutal truth: loving a child means risking unbearable pain. At forty-five, Adnan refuses to remarry or build another family — convinced that survival means never losing again. But when his father’s health begins to fail, one final request is made: don’t grow old alone. Adnan agrees to marriage under one condition — no children. Preferably, a woman who can never have them. Saba is forty. Educated. Independent. Quietly resilient. After six years of marriage marked by infertility and three miscarriages, she was divorced and returned to her parents’ home carrying grief no one could see. When her aging father worries about her future, she agrees to marry again — not out of hope, but out of resolve. Their union is arranged, practical, and deeply uncomfortable. Both come from modern, well-educated Pakistani families. Both have careers — Adnan runs his family’s real estate business; Saba works as a social worker at a girls’ high school. Both know loss intimately. And yet, neither is prepared to face it reflected back at them. Adnan keeps his distance, offering respect without warmth. Saba tries to make the marriage work without begging for affection. What follows is not a love story born from passion — but one shaped by silence, grief, and the difficult choice to stay present instead of hiding in the past. Some marriages begin with promises. Theirs begins with restraint.
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Plants vs Dungeon

When dungeon gates opened across the world, it became a gold rush. Hunters chased glory. Guilds chased power. Corporations chased profit. Phong Tran awakened as a Level 1 Farmer. No skills. No passives. A broken EXP bar that never moved. So he sold energy drinks instead. Leg warmers. Electrolytes. Power banks. If everyone else was digging for gold, he’d sell the shovels. Then Josh came. University golden boy. Gym-built. Son of a man who could erase problems with a phone call. “Protection fee.” Phong refused. He woke up in a hospital bed, beaten within an inch of death. His aunt and uncle were gone. No bodies. No investigation. No media coverage. Just silence. Then, as if the universe had a sense of humor, his system finally gave him a quest: Plant and harvest 10 potatoes in the dungeon. That’s it. No penalties. No forced missions. No ticking clock. No promise of justice. Just a choice. Phong takes it. The potatoes mutate. Then other plants followed. Chilies spit burning rounds. Sweet potatoes bulk up into blunt-force bruisers. Garlic turns chemical-warfare illegal. Enoki mushrooms rattle like dungeon-grade machine guns. His crops become his frontline. Phong doesn’t want to conquer the dungeon. He wants to build something inside it. A farm. A hearth. A settlement for people tired of being disposable. He won’t let revenge be the only thing he grows. Revenge lit the spark. But it won’t be the only thing he grows. And if the most powerful man in the city comes looking to finish what his son started... He’ll learn something the dungeon already knows. This farm fights back.
Potato_mine · 48.9k Views