The Zombie System.

"Morning, sleepyhead. Dad's making pancakes."

Anna's voice drifts through Leon's bedroom door like sunlight through curtains. He opens his eyes to familiar ceiling stars that still glow faintly green in the morning light. The smell of butter and vanilla fills the house, mixing with coffee and his mother's lavender soap.

Leon stretches in his narrow bed, feeling the soft cotton sheets his mother bought from the market last spring. Everything feels solid. Real. The wooden floor creaks under his feet as he walks to the window.

Outside, Mrs. Patterson waters her roses. Mr. Chen walks his beagle down the sidewalk. Normal Tuesday morning in their quiet neighborhood.

"Leon! Breakfast!" His father's voice carries from the kitchen, warm with humor.

The kitchen buzzes with family energy. Anna sits at the table, syrup already sticky on her fingers. Their father flips pancakes at the stove, spatula dancing in his calloused hands. Their mother pours orange juice into mismatched glasses.

"About time," Anna says, gap-toothed grin bright as summer. "Dad made the funny-shaped ones."

Leon examines his plate. The pancakes look like lopsided animals—a giraffe with a crooked neck, a dog with too many legs. His father's specialty.

"That's supposed to be a butterfly," Dad says, pointing at something that resembles a splattered moth.

"Looks more like roadkill," Leon says.

Anna giggles. Their mother swats Leon's shoulder with a dish towel. "Be nice to your father's artistic efforts."

"My artistic efforts taste better than they look," Dad says. "That's what matters."

They eat together at the worn kitchen table. Anna chatters about her friend Sarah's birthday party next weekend. Their mother discusses grocery lists and whether they need new curtains for the living room. Their father reads snippets from the newspaper between bites.

Leon soaks up every detail. The way his father's hair sticks up in the back. His mother's humming as she clears dishes. Anna's elaborate plans for building a fort in the backyard.

"I'll walk Anna to school today," Dad announces, checking his watch. "Early meeting got cancelled."

"Can Leon come too?" Anna asks. "He knows the good shortcuts."

Their father smiles. "If he wants to."

Leon nods. More time. More moments to collect and hold.

They bundle into coats and scarves. Anna skips between them, backpack bouncing with each step. The morning air tastes clean and sharp.

Three blocks from home, the sky changes.

The blue deepens to steel gray in seconds. Birds stop singing. Dogs begin howling from yards they can't see.

Leon's blood turns to ice water.

"Dad," he whispers. "We need to go home. Now."

The sirens start before his father can answer. Emergency broadcasts crackle from radios in nearby houses. The Hunter Association's automated voice cuts through morning calm like broken glass.

"Dimensional breach detected. All civilians evacuate immediately. Repeat—dimensional breach detected."

Leon grabs Anna's hand, pulling her toward home. But the street beneath their feet begins to crack. Purple light bleeds through the fissures like infected wounds.

A vortex opens in the road.

Wind that tastes of alien worlds and screaming metal tears at their clothes. Anna's hand slips from Leon's grip as the gravitational pull drags her toward the hungry void.

"Leon!" she screams.

Their father lunges forward, catching Anna around the waist. But the pull is too strong. Too relentless.

Leon watches his family disappear into swirling darkness. Their voices fade until only the wind remains.

He falls to his knees on cracked asphalt. Tears carve hot tracks down his cheeks as the vortex seals itself, leaving nothing but broken road and the taste of loss.

——

In the real dungeon chamber, Elise watches Leon's sleeping form convulse. Tears leak from beneath his closed eyelids. His hands clench and unclench, grasping for something that isn't there.

"Leon," she whispers, shaking his shoulder. "Leon, wake up."

His breathing comes in ragged gasps. Sweat beads on his forehead despite the chamber's cold air. Whatever dreams hold him, they're tearing him apart.

Elise checks her other teammates. Marcus still breathes steadily, lost in his own illusion. Sarah twitches, fingers moving like she's casting spells at invisible enemies.

Jake's eyes snap open. He bolts upright, gasping like a drowning man breaking surface.

"What kind of dungeon is this?" he pants. "I was trapped in some nightmare. My squad—they were all dead, and I couldn't save them."

Elise's stomach drops. She crawls to their fifth teammate, a young mage named Tommy who'd joined them at the last minute. His chest doesn't rise or fall.

She presses fingers to his throat. No pulse. Skin already cooling.

"He's dead," she whispers.

Jake's face goes white. "How? We just entered the chamber. There were no monsters."

Elise looks around the moss-covered stone room. No obvious threats. No traps they can see. Just her unconscious friends and one corpse.

"Mental attacks," she realizes. "The illusions—they can kill."

——

Back in the dream world, the broken street warps and shifts. Reality bends like heated metal as shadows gather in corners that shouldn't exist.

A woman steps from the darkness.

Beautiful but wrong. Pale skin that seems to glow from within. Hair black as midnight that moves without wind. Eyes like starlight that have watched too many worlds die.

The night hag smiles with lips red as fresh blood.

"Poor child," she purrs, voice silk over steel. "Such pain. Such loss."

Leon can't look away from her face. There's something hypnotic about her features, like staring into deep water.

"I can give you peace," she continues, gliding closer. "Stay here, and I will give you your family—forever. No more pain, no more loss. Only the warmth of love eternal."

The broken street reforms around them. His house materializes, windows glowing yellow with interior light. Through the kitchen window, Leon sees his family setting the table for dinner.

"They're waiting for you," the hag whispers. "They need you. Choose to stay, and nothing will ever hurt you again."

Anna's laughter carries from inside the house. His father's voice calling his name. His mother humming while she cooks.

Leon takes a step toward the door.

——

In the real world, Elise shakes Leon harder. His pulse races under her fingers. His breathing becomes more labored.

"He's dying," Jake says. "Whatever's happening to him, it's killing him."

Elise pulls mana into her palms, channeling healing energy into Leon's body. But there's nothing to heal. No wounds, no poison, no disease. Just a mind trapped in dreams that feel more real than reality.

"Come on," she pleads. "Come back to us."

——

Leon's hand reaches for the door handle of his childhood home. The metal feels warm under his palm, solid and inviting.

Then a familiar voice cuts through the hag's spell.

"Master."

The warrior zombie's presence fills his mind like cold steel. Not visible, but undeniably real. The mental link they share pulses with urgent energy.

"Wake up. This isn't real. You must return. We need you."

The house wavers like a mirage. Leon's hand freezes on the door handle.

His zombie's voice continues, steady as bedrock. "Your mother waits in the real world. Your friends fight for their lives. You have responsibilities beyond dreams."

Leon looks at the night hag. Her beautiful face twists with frustration.

"Don't listen to shadows," she hisses. "I offer you everything you've lost. Love. Family. Peace."

"You offer me death," Leon says quietly.

The truth settles into his bones like winter cold. His family is gone. Has been gone for years. No amount of wishing or dreaming will bring them back.

Leon steps away from the door. "No. This isn't real. My family is gone—and I accept that. I won't let you use them against me. I have a life to live, and a mother to protect."

The hag's eyes flare with fury. Her beautiful features melt away, revealing something ancient and hungry underneath. Bone-white skin. Teeth like needles. Eyes that burn with the rage of stars dying.

"You'll regret this!" she shrieks.

The house crumbles. The street cracks. The sky tears open like rotten fabric. Everything dissolves in a wave of darkness that tastes of endings and empty graves.

Leon falls through void and shadow, the hag's warning echoing around him like thunder.

In the dungeon chamber, Leon's eyes snap open. He gasps for air like a man pulled from drowning, sitting up so fast that Elise stumbles backward.

Tears still track down his cheeks. His hands shake with residual emotion from the dream. But his eyes are clear, focused on the moss-covered stone around them.

The chamber feels different now. Oppressive. Hungry. Like something watching from corners his eyes can't quite see.

Leon's vision focuses on the shattered remains of the illusion still flickering at the edges of his perception. The hag's warning rings in his ears—a promise of vengeance that chills his blood.

His throat burns as he realizes the dungeon's true terror may be far from over.

He gasps.