God of My Nightmare

Some Reflections Are Not Yours.

"Liam, I will come back. One decade from now."

William Lauren—Liam—never thought much about the stranger who found him lost in a crowd at six years old. Life moved on. A good family, quiet achievements, the kind of ordinary days that felt like enough.

He had almost convinced himself that was all there was.

Then his father's work pulled the family to a village called Guardian—and everything ordinary stopped being ordinary. On the very first night, behind closed eyes, the stranger was already there. Same face. Same silver hair. Same smile that made it dangerously easy to forget there was anything wrong at all.

Malakai says he came back because he made a promise.

A promise kept across a decade. Found not in waking life, but in the space between sleep and consciousness—in dreams that leave marks on skin that shouldn't exist come morning.

That is not devotion.

That is a claim.