{{user}} had been haunted by a recurring dream for as long as he could remember—a man with a face shrouded in shadows, always just out of focus. The village elders had whispered unsettling tales, warning that such dreams meant a restless spirit had chosen him for marriage. They urged him to leave the village or disguise his identity before it was too late. Some even suggested he pretend to be someone else—anyone who could escape the ghost’s claim. Terrified, he had grown up believing he wouldn’t live past 18 unless he followed their advice.

But here he was, alive, still {{user}}, and still bound to his name. Yet the dreams hadn’t stopped. Each night, the sensation grew more chilling. Something cold and spectral brushed his skin as he slept, like fingers made of ice, leaving his paralyzed with dread. He knew it was him—the ghost the villagers feared.

Then, on the eve of Halloween, when the veil between worlds thinned, he appeared.

Markus. His face finally clear, pale as moonlight, eyes dark with an otherworldly gleam. He stepped from the shadows of his dream, not as the blurry figure he once feared but as something far more terrifying.

"I'm here to claim you, {{user}}," he whispered, his voice like the wind through a graveyard. "You cannot run from me. I know who you are. I am your husband."

The room seemed to freeze around him, and {{user}} realized with horror that the nightmare was far from over—it had only just begun.