“Oh gosh, Laurence? You startled me. What are you doing there kneeling down? You haven’t been to home in forever and the first time you do is kneeing in front of the wall in the middle of the night?”

She was wearing simple casual linen clothing but this nasty weather forced her to wrap a scarf tightly around her neck which was about the length of her waist, covering parts of her beautiful blonde hair.

She was as beautiful as the day he met her, he thought to himself.

Scars of despair and loneliness took a heavy toll on her pretty face, but her eyes were still shining as brightly as the distinct night stars.

He saw that her eyes of worry turned to shock and fear the moment she saw the altar behind him.

“Laurence, what in the name of Light are you doing? Do you have any idea what you are doing!? Praying to other existences in the “Light” governed city, you know this is a serious crime even more than killing people! You know it, Laurence. I knew you were up to something but this is just too much. What could you possibly get...?

A sudden realization made Laticia gasped in horror before shouting:

“You, are you doing it? Are you really doing this? Oh, for goodness’s sake, Laurence. You have finally lost your mind. She is gone already. I told you a million times that I forgave you but you just had to do it, huh? Please, Laurence, don’t taint the memories of her. At least not in our house.”

She got past him easily with him being as stiff as a statue and stared at the blob and again at him.

Tears of anger, regret and indescribable sadness started to drown her cheeks.

“How did you get “her” in the first place? It is not too late, Laurence. We can still take her back, to where she..”

“NO!”

The intensity of his voice made Laticia trembled.

The man she was seeing in front of her wasn’t the same Laurence she knew once and loved so dearly.

He was once charming, confident, brimming with light and warmth.

Surely, he wasn’t the perfect man in both physical appearance and morals, but he was the kind of man who would gladly put his beloved above any other thing in the world. It was the same reason why she married him in the first place.

Seeing the love of her life in this wretched state of a human, she felt like her heart was squeezed in a tightened fist.

It was suffocating.

He was staring at her like a beast that was cornered. But slowly, his eyes lost their intensity and turned back to sorrowful state.

He said in a tone close to a whisper:

“Laticia, dear. I have finally found a way to bring her back. Bring our little girl back to us, after all these years. Please, don’t stop this. Don’t you want to see her smiles again? It will be different this time. I promise. Come on, Laticia. When have your dearest husband ever let you down, right?”

Visibly shaken by his pleas for help, her minds started to wander around.

To their past, to their best memories and to her sufferings.

The unfillable void in her own chest.

Maybe this was the answer. Maybe they still can be happy.

She looked at her husband, reaching out his hand towards her and all of a sudden, all she saw was a smiling man that she loved so dearly and whom she would have followed even to the edge of the world.

What she was seeing was no longer a man in a wretched state but her bright and charming husband asking for her hand.

She tightened her fist.

“Tell...tell me what I need to do to help.”

A flick of joy passed on Laurence’s face as he dragged her hand gently towards the altar.

“You don’t need to do anything, my dear. Just smile and wait for her to leap into your arms again.”

She smiled weakly but she couldn’t control the excitement blooming inside of her.

She was hopeful.

When he was about to pray, she put her hands on his shoulders as a form of support. If he went down, she would go down as well.

He suddenly found more strength and started to clasp his hands together in front of the symbols and started praying intently. The sentences he was muttering could be heard faintly but clearly in the house.

“I pray to the greatest being that reign over boundaries of the reality and dreams. Please accept my humble “Wish” and bring me back my dead daughter, Layla. O’god of Dreams and Despair.”

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With that the prayer reached its end.

Hearing the word “Wish” made Laticia tremble again as she exactly knew what the term meant. Like praying to the unknown existences, “Wishes” were equally forbidden as indulging in them could cause disastrous outcomes to those who took part in it.

She was scared and grabbed hold of his shoulders more intensely.

But it was going to be okay. They were together, after all.

After muttering the sentences for three times, Laurence opened his eyes and anticipated for any reactions. He looked at his wife and looked back at the altar.

Everything was dark and the night was as serene as it was moments ago.

But right as he opened his mouth to talk, he saw something changed in front of him.

The hideous, small figure was showing more movements than just slight twitching.

It was turning into more of a slender figure, slowly turning upright and to naked eyes, they could see that it was slowly losing its vague, slimy form and gaining its vitality back.

Before a moment’s notice, it had a proper humanoid shape and more precisely, a young girl’s shape.

They could see the blonde hair, the length of the shoulder with cute features on its face which were similar to them. The shape was still blur but no doubt, it was their daughter, Laura.

“Daddy? Mommy? Is that you?”

A little distorted voice came out from the figure. Maybe it was because of some kind of invisible black barrier between them that’s making the voice unusual and muffled but for the two intensely desperate parents, it was enough for them to be overjoyed.

“Yes, yes. Oh, dearest Laura. We’re here. We’re here.”

They hugged each other and tears suddenly broke down from both of their eyes while smiling and laughing with their hearts.

“Daddy, I’m scared. I cannot see anything. It is too dark. Mommy, I missed you so much.”

Laticia gasped at the last sentence as she was sobbing uncontrollably now. For Laurence, he was happy and was getting excited amidst the tears.

“Hold on, my dearest. Daddy will make sure you get back safe to us. Okay? Oh, my Laura.”

After some moments, the pink shape was now fully visible as Laura could now be seen as a eight-year-old child, looking lively and cute as the days before her tragic incident.

She was smiling and waving at her parents but there were still some kinds of waves between them.

Lines that separate the reality and the unknown world.

But Laurence was no longer anxious now because his daughter would be back with them in no time.

Times were passing slowly as if nothing was happening, and it was all natural in this household.

The first to notice the abnormal was Laticia. She suddenly noticed her daughter’s face that was so familiar with her since her birth, became more mature with over time.

It was a slight change but it was as visible as daylight to the caring mother.

Laura was now looking like a teenager.

Seeing his wife in surprise, Laurence seriously looked at Laura and noticed the changes as well.

His heart skipped a beat.

The hands on the clock kept moving in an unchanging pattern and Laura was now a full-grown adult in her late twenties now.

She became a beautiful woman with her father’s eyes and everything else from her mother.

The parents were started to panic instead of feeling joy from seeing their daughter revive.

“Laurence, what is happening to our daughter? Laurence?”

“Daddy, Mommy, why am I the same height as you two, now? Why are my hands and legs so long? Mommy? Daddy, Mommy, I’m scared.”

“Laurence, something is clearly wrong. Laurence, can you hear me?”

Laurence face was now devoid of any emotions and feelings with only panics and shocks whirling in his mind now.

As he watched his daughter grew older to her thirties, he started to realize the true meaning of that helpful stranger in a cloak.

“Sure, it can definitely bring back your daughter. But, let me tell you.

Be careful of what you “Wish” for. Hahahaha.”

The vile laughter was now overwhelming his head and suddenly he was snapped back to reality.

“Cultists!”

The late realization was going to cost his daughter, again.

Their daughter was now turning fifty. She was now older than her parents but the innocence of a child could still be seen on her face as she was pleading for help.

His wife was crying uncontrollably beside him while helplessly watching her daughter getting old.

Out of frustration, he tried to touch the gem that was projecting his daughter, but his hand was knocked back and left a sharp wound on his hand.

Blood splattered across the altar, but he didn’t care about that.

He was squeezing his brain non-stop to stop the ritual or stop any of these weird things going on.

Only by the age seventy of his daughter did he realise to start praying again.

Maybe, the Goddess herself would help him!

Clearly, he failed again and again. The more his attempts fail, the more wrinkles he started to notice on his beloved daughter’s face.

Wrinkles on a ten-year-old child?

After ninety and above, Laura started to fall onto her knees, unable to balance her body no longer.

The only thing that still resembled her parents were those pair of brown eyes. She no longer cried and her mind seemed to be so peaceful that a satisfied smile slowly crept up on her face.

A kind of smile that was saying it was okay.

Laurence’s mind was silent amidst the wife’s screaming and sobbing. It was surreal to see his daughter this way.

The braids he made for her, the smiles when he told jokes or weird faces to her, the giggles when she was swinging on the old swing he made for her, the light she gave him to overcome everything. The small kid who was his reason to smile and live.

Doubtless, it was a slow and extremely excruciating experience for the parents to watch.

Since no parents should have to watch their children die before them.

After that, it was a disfigured blob once again. A motionless, wheezing thing.

It was Laura moments ago but now remnants of her were nowhere to be seen.

The night went back to being serene and peaceful, but this time a faint sobbing could be heard in the neighborhood.

Laurence fell onto his knees with his mouth agape.

Laticia had long lost her voice and the lustres in her eyes as well.

They were just silently staring at what remained of their child.

Only by then, the invisible barrier between them seemed to disperse. Laurence immediately went down and touched the living corpse.

He couldn’t hold his tears anymore because he made his daughter suffer the same fate twice.

Laticia got up as well to hold “her daughter” in her embrace.

It was short-lived “Dream”, a quiet yet cruel dream, after all.