Leonard awoke with a violent jolt, heart pounding, breath ragged.
The tremor that had pulled him from sleep still echoed through his bones, like every fiber of his being was trying to deny the reality around him.
"Ah—! What the hell was that?! These dreams keep getting worse! How am I supposed to sleep like this?!"
He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to calm the wild rhythm of his heartbeat—
And that's when he noticed it.
This wasn't his room.
The familiar walls were gone, replaced by a vast, foreign expanse. The air itself was wrong. Heavy. Wrong in a way that pressed against the skin like regret.
A memory tugged at him—something from a forgotten nightmare, something that once haunted him as a child.
Only now… it was real.
Before him stretched a massive ravine, endless and silent.
Rocks painted in shifting hues of red shimmered beneath a black star, glowing as though it were a twisted sun.
Even the sky seemed like it was trying to break him.
"What the fuck is this…?!"
He gripped his arm tightly and pinched hard, hoping—desperately—that this was still a dream.
Pain shot through him.
He was awake.
Leonard stood, eyes scanning the ground.
"I should be in bed right now… I've got work tomorrow. What the hell is this helping with…?"
Scattered along the crimson soil were strange, wilted flowers with a purplish tint. They reminded him—disturbingly—of chrysanthemums.
He barely had time to reflect on it.
Instinct screamed.
He dove sideways just in time to dodge something lashing out from the petals.
"I need to get out of here!"
A grotesque creature had emerged—like a whip of flesh ending in a mouth full of jagged teeth.
He landed badly, shoulder slamming into stone, but he didn't stop.
No room for pain.
He got up and ran.
The landscape changed around him as he fled.
The jagged ravine walls gave way to towering crimson mountains—breathtaking, yet overwhelming. Terrifying in their scale.
And above them, suspended between thunderclouds, loomed a massive castle—
Sharp towers knifing the sky, black stone gleaming with something that wasn't light.
Just looking at it made Leonard feel crushed.
The air thinned. His chest tightened.
"No… I can't… breathe…"
He staggered, hand clawing at his shirt. Each breath hurt.
Each heartbeat was a hammer inside his skull.
There were no words for the feeling that castle gave off. Only despair.
His knees buckled.
Pain exploded in his lungs, his limbs, his head.
Then—
The ground trembled.
Something was coming.
From the scorched earth rose enormous tendrils, followed by a vast, shapeless black mass.
At its center: a single, watching eye.
Leonard's breath caught in his throat.
He ducked into a narrow crevice in the cliffside, heart slamming.
"Shit—shit—shit—what the hell is that?! Are those… the things those investigators fight against?! No, no, this is a nightmare, this has to be a nightmare—!"
The creature's eye glowed red, sweeping over the ravine like a searchlight.
It pierced stone. It revealed everything.
Leonard didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Barely breathed.
Only when the tremors began to fade—when the beast slithered away into the distance—did he collapse, gasping, body trembling like a leaf.
"It's over… It's done… I'll wake up now, right?
Right…?"
But relief never came.
Next to him, something he hadn't noticed before.
A corpse.
Half-rotted.
Maggots squirming through the torn flesh.
The chest cavity blown wide open.
Leonard choked—then vomited. Violently.
He collapsed to the dirt, some of the bile splashing his own face. Shaking, he scrubbed it off with a trembling hand.
He crawled away, slumping against the far wall—anything to put distance between him and the corpse.
His mind was unraveling.
But thoughts of his brothers kept him grounded.
They couldn't be here.
They must never see this.
And for the first time in what felt like forever—
Leonard cried.
Tears fell in silence.
Not from weakness, but from something deeper. Older.
His body ached. His throat burned. His mouth tasted of acid.
He tried to gather spit to clear the bitterness, but his throat was too dry, his tongue cracked.
He was alone. More than ever.
He thought of James. Of Calli.
Of the fragile happiness they'd managed to carve out in the cracks of their broken life.
He wanted them close.
But the idea of them suffering this same hell made his chest tighten with dread.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
Leonard collapsed into a dreamless sleep.
How long had passed?
An hour? A day? A week?
He had no answer.
But when he woke, the pain was lighter. His back rested on something soft—almost comfortable.
For a moment, he thought he was home again.
Almost.
But full awareness returned quickly.
And with it, wariness.
His last memory had been the corpse beside him.
Now, there was nothing.
The body was gone.
As if it had never existed.
Leonard slowly rose, leaning against the wall, and crawled out of the crevice.
The red ravine stretched before him once again.
A sky black as death stretched overhead.
Mountains loomed like silent judges.
His mind reeled.
He swore he heard whispers—words broken, jagged, like cracked glass.
And then—
A voice.
Soft, yet edged with menace.
"No... This wasn't just a nightmare. It was a warning. And somewhere deep in the crimson shadows, something was waiting… just for him."