Leon found himself in a broken, abandoned city.
Houses were crumbling, walls cracked wide, and debris scattered everywhere.
Not a single sign of life stirred, no birds, no wind, no footsteps.
At the city's center stood a spiraling tower, a castle reaching high into the sky.
Without hesitation, he stepped inside.
A grand staircase wound upward inside the castle walls.
Mirrors lined the staircase, reflecting his every move.
He began to climb.
Minutes stretched into hours.
Hours felt like days.
The staircase seemed endless.
Leon's eyes kept drifting to the mirrors.
He didn't want to touch it at first, afraid that it would trigger something that would lead to his failure. But he was out of ideas and choices.
Maybe they held the key to this dream.
Leon stared at the mirrors.
They didn't just show his reflection, they showed different versions of himself. An amplified version.
The first mirror revealed an angry version of him, eyes blazing with fury.
As he climbed, another mirror showed deep sadness, the weight of sorrow pressing down.
And then others, fear twisting into shadows, joy flickering like a distant flame, regret heavy and suffocating.
He kept moving, but confusion grew.
Did he have to choose one of these emotions to move forward?
Because these mirrors weren't just reflections, they felt like tests.
Tests of which part of himself he would accept, or maybe which he would reject.
Leon's mind drifted back to the previous dream, the creature.
He remembered how that symbolized the dreamer's conflict: the fight or flight instinct.
Maybe this was what the eighth dream was about too.
Maybe he had to choose which path the dreamer had taken.
Because the dreamer had been torn, between fighting his demons or running from them.
And that choice had shaped the unstable, broken world Leon now climbed through.
If Leon had to choose, he believed the dreamer had escaped, running from whatever was hunting him.
But that escape wasn't without cost.
It had piled up, building into this broken, twisted state of mind.
On the other hand, maybe the dreamer chose to fight.
To confront those demons head-on.
But that choice had also led to the ruins of the city beneath him.
It seemed simple, fight or flee, but the consequences were far from clear.
One wrong choice here could mean the end.
Leon paused, his mind racing.
Maybe the dreamer didn't choose just one path.
Maybe he chose both.
Or maybe he chose nothing at all.
Sometimes, when people are under too much pressure, they freeze.
They get trapped inside their own minds, unable to move forward or back.
But if that was true, how was he supposed to choose?
Taking a deep breath, he placed one hand on the mirror reflecting his angry self.
Then, with his other hand, he touched the mirror showing his calm, relaxed side.
He decided to give it a try, because these two were the opposite of each other.
Suddenly, powerful emotions surged through him.
The fury he'd never truly felt before burned bright.
At the same time, the calmness from the other mirror wrapped around him like a gentle wave.
When he finally pulled his hands away, he was gasping for breath.
He collapsed to the ground, the overwhelming flood of feelings threatening to drive him mad.
But nothing changed.
He didn't escape the dream.
Still, he kept going.
Time blurred as he placed one hand on a mirror, then the other on its opposite.
He repeated the motion two, three times.
Then, something clicked.
Each pair of mirrors was placed side by side, right next to each other.
It made sense.
Why else would they be arranged like that?
It wasn't about choosing one emotion over the other.
The dreamer was meant to hold both at the same time.
He kept at it for what felt like an eternity.
Each time he finished, the chaos inside him grew louder.
He scraped his face raw with his fingers until blood ran down his skin.
He punched himself, the floor, the walls, anything to ground the madness swirling in his mind.
It felt like he was losing himself.
But deep down, he believed this was the right path.
So he pushed on.
Then, as he reached out to touch a pair of mirrors, pressing his hands against them both…
The mirrors cracked all at once, spiderweb lines racing across their surfaces. Then they shattered, raining down in glittering shards that clinked against the stairs.
Each fragment caught his reflection, angry, afraid, calm, laughing, before tumbling into the dark.
A door appeared, the entrance to the ninth dream.
As the darkness cleared, realization hit him like a thunderclap.
The dreamer hadn't chosen either path.
He hadn't fought or fled.
He let both consume him.
His anger wasn't released, it tore him apart.
And instead of escaping, he fled into a fantasy world inside his own mind.
That endless spiraling castle, the broken city below, it was all a reflection of that mental prison.
To pass this test, Leon had to step so close to madness, almost become it himself.
if he hesitated too long, if he didn't face these mirrors, the dream would consume him.
The door loomed just ahead, glowing faintly in the shadows.
But Leon struggled to stand.
A storm of anger, sadness, and every other heavy feeling crashed through him all at once.
The last dream had pushed him to the edge of insanity.
Slowly, the door began to fade, melting away like smoke.
Panic surged, and Leon dropped to his hands and knees.
He crawled forward, each movement a battle against his own mind.
The distance seemed endless, but he forced himself onward.
By the thinnest thread of willpower, he reached the door just as it disappeared.
He slipped through, breath ragged, and found himself inside the ninth dream.