I raise a glass to you, zombie!

*Grrr!!! Grrr!*

Cassian heard the zombie growl excitedly, as if it had found its prey. First it started scratching at the door, and after it failed to open, it went wild, pounding at the door with something.

"He's banging his against the door!" Thought Cassian, that's what they usually do in movies, given that all zombies are stupid and easy enough to fool if you reason in cold blood.

*Crack! Crack!*

Something crunched in the door, it looked like it was starting to break apart under the onslaught of the zombie, if it wasn't a dream Cassian would have taken steps to eliminate the zombie, but since he was sure it was his mental illness that had progressed and he wasn't really in any danger, Cassian relaxed.

He was no longer afraid, considering what was happening as an illusion, he took the cigarettes left by Luna from the table, and then lit one up while lying on the bed.

Cassian lay on his bed, slowly smoking a cigarette while a zombie was about to break through the entrance door to his room.

"Soon the zombie will break the door after which it will bite me and then I will be able to wake up already!" Cassian thought, as in the first nightmare, the key to getting out of the dream consisted in his death, so he was not nervous and calmly waited for the death sentence.

It had been about an hour since the zombie had burst into the dormitory, the people's screams were getting quieter and quieter, there seemed to be very few left, when Cassian looked out the window he roughly estimated that about 80% of the university students had become zombies and 20% were probably still alive people, for now that is.

*Boom!*

The zombie's left hand broke through a small slit, poking his hand through it, like in some horror movies, the skin was slightly desiccated and the hand was in greenish color.

'What an abomination!' Thought Yang Ming, smoking the second cigarette in a row.

"What's taking him so long?" Usually when people first encounter something unknown, dangerous, or supernatural they are frightened or panicked. But Cassian, feeling quite different, just didn't accept what was happening as reality.

Not only that, but lying on the bed he sometimes encouraged the zombie by giving motivational speeches, and sometimes Cassian felt that the zombie looked at him strangely. It was as if it were looking at a madman.

And he's not the only one, if you ask anyone about Cassian's actions absolutely 10/10 would say that the man has a problem with his brain, how can the victim cheer and be impatient when the killer comes to him in order to kill him.

A second zombie arm was stuck through the slit, at which point not only the zombie but also Cassian cheered up that the end was near. Occasionally, he had the thought of just walking to the door and opening it.

But every time he wanted to act on his impulse his instincts screamed danger, and in the end he just lay still on the bed waiting to die.

"What the fuck is this door?" He cursed as if it were not made of wood but of iron, for two hours the zombie was trying to make a passageway, but it only managed to poke its hands through. As Cassian took a close look at the zombie, he was prompted with its information.

"Maybe they are weak on this level." Just like on the street the zombie wasn't too dangerous even for normal people, it was just a level 1. And it looks like it was one of the lowest levels you could find, of course there are probably zombies at level 0, like in some games.

And yet Cassian didn't think much of it, for it was only a dream, a silly illusion caused by his mental illness.

Three hours passed, the zombie still hadn't succeded in catching it's victim, namely him, so Cassian stopped expecting anything from such a stupid creature. So he decided to amuse himself a little.

At first he tried to turn on the TV but apparently there was no electricity, the phone was also dead, so his mood became even worse. Searching the room he found the only thing he needed now.

He found alcohol, or rather half a bottle of cognac, which he had not had time to drink yesterday. For him it was like a treasure, in the last nightmare he had been out of his body, but now it seemed he could do what he wanted, and no matter how you look at it, it reminds him too much of reality.

It was impossible to spot any difference at all, but Cassian assured himself that it was all just an illusion, that very soon he would wake up and return to his peaceful daily life, well, one in a psychiatric hospital, but still peaceful nevertheless.

"Cheers! Do your best." - Cassian muttered, lifting the small glass filled with cognac in front of the zombie. Then he began to drink.

Pretty soon half a bottle of cognac was emptied, and Cassian was barely drunk, he put a chair by the window and looked at the landscape right in front of him while savoring the last glass of cognac and a cigarette.

If an artist had painted this moment, perhaps his painting would have become a famous art piece, the man sitting by the window smoking a cigarette and drinking alcohol while in front of his eyes was a pile of zombies, exploded cars, a pile of blood spilled all around the perimeter of the university and scattered human limbs.

"Magnificent!" Cassian laughed, feeling no regret or contradiction at seeing people being eaten alive by someone who not long ago was one of them, laughing heartily, perhaps he thought everything was amusing, so absurd and real an illusion that he could not praise the hallucination plot.

Suddenly a strange thought popped into his head. What if he didn't go along with the hallucination plot and wait for the zombie to come and eat him, but walked up and killed it?

The longer he ran the thought through his head, the more excited he seemed to become; in the last nightmare he couldn't move or control his body, he could only watch and endure the same thing every time, and now everything was different.

*Sip*

Swallowing lightly, he put the alcohol and cigarettes away, looking at the zombie who was breaking into his room with a look as if it was a guinea pig.

"What if I really killed you?" - He was talking to a zombie like a madman. Even though he wanted to give in to the impulse and go smash its head in, Cassian was a little afraid of the alternative outcome.

There were two possibilities: the first was that he would immediately wake up from the illusion, and the second, which he feared the most, was that after killing the zombie Cassian would not wake up and continue living in the illusion. Which would be a complete disaster.

Of course, there was also the option of just waiting for the zombie to come into his room and eat him, which would have been an easy choice for him, but certainly not for an ordinary person, because this act was against human instincts.

About ten minutes passed, and Cassian decided that he no longer wanted to follow anyone else's script, but to choose his own path, a path not chosen by anyone else but by himself. And with this thought he decided to act.