Leo blinked. His reflection stared back from the dark monitor. He tried to move his mouse. Nothing. He hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete. The keyboard was dead. Even the power button on his laptop was unresponsive.
Leo laughed nervously. “It’s a virus,” he muttered. He stood up to unplug his router. But his legs wouldn’t move. He looked down. His feet were… gray. Not sock-colored gray, but textureless, digital gray. Like a low-poly render.
Then the screen went black.
For two hours, Leo was hypnotized. The film was a slow, brutal descent into a man’s fractured mind. The final scene showed the protagonist staring directly into the camera, whispering: “You only get to leave once.”
The voice returned, softer now. “Uploading consciousness. Estimated time: 0 seconds. Welcome to the server, Leo. Your first shift begins now.”
A chime echoed through his apartment—not from his laptop, but from his smart speaker, his phone, his TV. All of them, simultaneously.
His laptop screen flickered back to life. On it, he saw a familiar room—gray walls, one door, one red button. And a man sitting in a chair, staring at the camera. The man was him. Younger. Clean-shaven. Terrified.