I Just Wanted to Nap, But They Built Me a Religion

"How long has it been??"

"20 minutes sir.."

"You have been asleep for 20 minutes".

"I thought it was just a short nap. 5 minutes max."

"Yes.. while you only sleep for 5 minutes, you have spent another 15 minutes trying to sleep."

With one eye, Julian Everan stare at the window.

The light from the council chamber window hit just right and was warm enough to make a nap feel earned.

But it was unfortunate.

He still can't rest properly.

"So....

What's next?" he muttered.

"Three meetings. Two speeches. One conference, then..." .

His secretary stopped talking when she saw that Julian began to ignore it.

While listening. Julian's mind already wandered someplace else.

Not because he was rude but simply cause he didn't have the energy to pretend anymore.

Politics had drained him, slowly and efficiently, like a faucet at a sink left slightly open for years.

And Julian had been the fool who let it run to reach his dream.

At forty-eight, he was the youngest to ever hold a seat on the Continental Peace Council. A tactical genius, a reformist, a war-ender, a symbol of unity.

But he was a complete idiot.

A real idiot.

The peace he thought he would get at the end of the war didn't come.

There will always be war, either on a large scale or a small scale.

He completely regrets his decision to become a politician.

There's nothing he can do to completely stop the war

It's not like he can conquer the world, right??.

Not only that.

Years in politics have made him too tired.

There to many dark things he has seen in his whole life

He hadn't taken a vacation in over a decade. He always eats fast food because there's not even time for him to eat normal food.

Sleep? Ha.

Sleep was a dream that he would never get.

He doesn't even get to have a date.

Why???

What other reason can he have other than being too busy with his political work?

---

That night, after shaking a thousand hands and answering the same question thirty times in thirty slightly different ways, Julian returned to his house.

He kicked off his shoes, fell face-first onto his bed, and mumbled, "I wish I could just sleep forever."

The ceiling absolutely did not answer.

But something else did. Something he never imagined existed.

---

He woke in a place that didn't exist.

It was dark, but not the usual, comforting dark. This one shimmered, pulsed. A dream, maybe. Or a mistake in the code of the universe.

There was some kind of entity in front of him.

A shape that shifted every time he blinked. A smile where there shouldn't be one. A voice that entered straight into his skull.

> "You desire eternal rest huh?"

Julian's mind is blank.

Facing this entity, he only blinks while replying.

"Huh?"

> "Sleep is your only wish. Peace through stillness. Oblivion wrapped in silence."

"I mean... yeah," Julian said. "Kinda."

He only wants to sleep, to rest from all the things he has faced in his whole life. The mind game, manipulation, and whole other things

> "Interesting."

The entity moved closer to him.

> "Most who pray to me ask for glory. Power. Revenge. Not naps."

"Revenge sounds tiring."

> "You amuse me."

Julian shrugged. He wasn't sure what else to do in front of what was probably either a hallucination or death.

> "Very well, mortal. I grant your wish. Eternal sleep shall be yours."

"Wait, what? No, I meant—"

---

He never finished the sentence.

Because Julian Everan died.

And somewhere far away, in a different world where gods still toyed with fate, a child was born under a full crimson moon.

A noble family wept with joy at the healthy baby boy.

They named him Ezrel, after a long-forgotten hero.

And in his tiny hand, branded in gold, was a single divine symbol

The Eternal.

A blessing from the outer god of rest, madness, and time.

A gift no one understood.

And no one will notice the symbol untiis l he 2 years old.

But one day, the world surely would.