"So sorry, you've all failed the challenge!"

  The first thing Mike heard as he woke up from the dizzying illusion was Jake Johnson's gloating voice!

  Mike rubbed his eyes, confirming again and again that he was free from the nightmarish hallucination and back in reality. He breathed a long sigh of relief, the suppressed emotions slowly releasing.

  He also felt a sense of survival, lucky escape.

  "Thank God that was all an illusion, if it were real..." Mike had never felt the world was so beautiful, the air felt fresher, and the wildflowers by the roadside smelled sweeter.

  At the same time, the other three also woke up from their illusions.

  Liam was the first to wake, leaping to his feet with a start, shouting in a panic.

  "The zombies are coming, everyone hide!"

  Jake walked over and gently patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Sir, what you just experienced was an illusion. There's no such thing as zombies in the world!"

  Liam's eyes widened in disbelief. "What do you mean? I just fought a zombie face-to-face, and it bit me! It almost made me pass out from the pain!"

  "If you don't believe me, look at the bite mark on my calf!"

  Seeing Jake staring at him like he was crazy, Liam got agitated and rolled up his pant leg to prove he wasn't lying.

  Jake glanced at it, scoffing, "Where's the injury?"

  "Are you blind? Can't you see this huge bite mark... Huh... Where's my bite mark?"

  Liam stared blankly at his smooth, unmarked calf. Apart from a few sparse leg hairs, there wasn't a trace of injury.

  "This..."

  "What's going on?"

  "Was I really just in an illusion?"

  Liam found it hard to believe.

  The disgusting, nauseating stench of the zombie.

  The pain from the zombie bite on his calf.

  He remembered it all so clearly.

  If everything he had just experienced was just an illusion...

  Then the Death Shack was even more terrifying than he imagined!

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "Honey, you're finally awake!"

  "You scared me so much! You were shouting and screaming the whole time!"

  Tammy Ray, the only one of the five who hadn't entered the Death Shack, hugged the awakened Ian Smith, overjoyed.

  Ian touched his nose, looking at Tammy in his arms, a warm smile unconsciously appearing on his face.

  For the first time in his life, he felt so happy to hear Tammy's voice.

  "Honey," Ian said.

  "Hmm?" Tammy looked up at Ian.

  Ian smiled softly, took a deep breath, and, with newfound courage, said the words he never thought he'd say.

  "Can you come home with me in a couple of days and meet my parents?"

  "If things go well, I'd like to... marry you!"

  "Huh?" Tammy's eyes widened, hardly believing what she'd just heard.

  "I said," Ian said solemnly, word by word, "I want to marry you!"

  "But," Tammy's face flushed red, "didn't you say you wanted to think about it more, that you didn't want to rush into the next stage of your life?"

  Ian turned to look at the Death Shack. "Because I suddenly realized how terrible it would be if you weren't in my life!"

  "So, will you marry me?"

  "Yes, I will!" Tammy's face broke into a happy smile.

  Ian pulled Tammy into his arms, holding the "regained" woman tightly.

  Tammy suddenly remembered something. "Honey, what's inside the Death Shack, anyway?"

  "Its horror is hard to describe without experiencing it yourself!" Ian said with an even more serious expression than when he proposed, "The Death Shack is definitely the most mysterious, bizarre, and terrifying haunted house in the world!"

  "Honey, even more terrifying than those haunted houses overseas?" Tammy asked in astonishment.

  She knew that Ian was a very cautious person and rarely spoke so definitively about anything.

  Ian nodded. "Although I haven't been to those notoriously scary haunted houses, I doubt they could compare to the Death Shack!"

  Tammy was too surprised to speak.

  "Man, you guys have no idea what I just went through!"

  "I was working out at the gym when I was surrounded by a bunch of guys who were over 6 feet tall!"

  "They ate my muscle-building meals and drank my protein shakes!"

  "I couldn't take it anymore and tried to fight them!"

  "But I was immediately pinned to the ground!"

  "Then they took me to a small room and started laughing creepily!"

  "I screamed and shouted for someone to come save me!"

  "But they said that even if I screamed my lungs out, no one would come!"

  "They told me to cooperate, or they'd kill me."

  Ethan, still shaken, was describing his experience to Liam and Mike.

  Liam scoffed. "That's nothing. I encountered zombies! Zombies! I almost got eaten!"

  The more Mike heard, the more he felt that the Death Shack was eerie and unpredictable, as if watched by a divine entity.

  How else could it so easily see through a person's facade and strike at the root of their deepest fears?

  Fears that even you didn't know you had before they appeared!

  "Mike, what did you experience inside?" Ethan suddenly asked.

  Mike smiled. "My story is a bit long. I'll tell you about it over drinks sometime."

  "Let's do it tonight. I need a little something to calm my nerves," Liam said, patting his chest.

  "I can't this week. I'm going home!" Mike said.

  "Why are you suddenly thinking of going home?" Ethan scratched his head. "By the way, I've known you for so long, and I still don't know where you're from."

  "My home is in..." Mike was about to make something up when the image of his father's twisted leg suddenly flashed before his eyes.

  Mike took a deep breath, summoning his courage. "My home is in a remote, poor place that you've never heard of!"

  Now, Mike was more afraid of something happening to his family because of him than of being looked down upon.

  "I see. Then the scenery must be beautiful!" Ethan said, stroking his chin.

  Liam nodded. "I'd love to visit your home sometime!"

  Mike was taken aback. He had been prepared for mockery, but even Liam, who usually had a sharp tongue, had said something unexpected!

  Mike smiled, feeling relieved.

  He finally understood that many things only mattered to himself and that others didn't really care!