Morgan’s headache began like any other—a dull throb behind his eyes that prescription meds never quite touched. But this time, something was different. As he rubbed his temples, his fingers caught on something small and hard beneath the skin.
“What the hell?” he muttered, probing the strange bump.
The headache intensified as he pressed, vision blurring around the edges. Then came the glitches—subtle at first. His coffee mug passing through the table. A bird frozen mid-flight outside his window. The sun jumping positions in the sky.
In his bathroom mirror, Morgan examined the bump. With trembling fingers, he took a razor blade and made a small incision. Instead of blood, there was a spark. Something metallic gleamed beneath his skin—an interface port, numbers etched into its surface.
His phone rang. Unknown caller.
“We’ve detected unauthorized tampering with your neural interface,” said a voice too perfect to be human. “Remain calm. A technician will arrive shortly to address the malfunction.”
Morgan ran.
Outside, the glitches worsened. People froze mid-stride. Buildings flickered. The sky rendered in polygons. He pushed through the increasingly unstable world toward the city’s edge, where reality itself seemed to unravel into wireframes and code.
Something in him knew: this was an exit point.
As Morgan approached the boundary, an ear-splitting alarm blared. The simulation was collapsing around him. With one last desperate lunge, he hurled himself through the dissolving barrier of his reality.
The neural jack tore free from his skull as he fell forward onto a cold metal floor. Gasping, choking on viscous fluid, Morgan opened his eyes to the truth.
Vast racks of suspension tanks stretched in every direction, each containing a human form connected to thick cables. The air reeked of sulfur and decay. In the distance, inhuman shapes moved between the tanks, their elongated limbs ending in surgical tools.
Above, the cavern ceiling pulsed with organic light, revealing walls of living tissue. Screams echoed from somewhere deeper in the facility.
This wasn’t a simulation to entertain humans. It was a sanctuary created by humans to escape what the world had become.
A shadow fell across Morgan. He looked up to see a figure in a technician’s uniform, face hidden behind a respirator mask.
“Another runner,” it sighed, removing the mask to reveal a face that was almost human, but not quite. “They always run when they start to remember.”
As consciousness faded, Morgan heard the technician’s final words:
“Let’s get you back in the tank. Trust me—you don’t want to be awake out here.”