She looked at her hands. They were empty.
She laughed. Just a glitch. A $1,500 glitch. She’d call support. She’d—
She blinked, and the menu shimmered: Return to Reality? [YES] / [NO].
The lobby was a perfect replica of her real apartment—same scuff on the baseboard, same crooked IKEA lamp. But here, the window showed a city that had never existed. Spires of black glass. A sky the color of a healing bruise. And the silence. That was the worst part. In the real world, there was always the hum of the refrigerator, the distant wail of a siren. Here, the only sound was the soft, wet click of her own heartbeat.
“Session time remaining,” a voice said. Not the pleasant guide from the tutorial. This one was lower. Closer. It came from inside the wall. “Zero minutes.”
Her finger passed through the air. And somewhere, in the darkroom of her own skull, she heard the soft, wet click of a shutter closing.