Hugh couldn’t stand it any longer, he had to see what this Simulated Fantasy thing was all about.
What he had heard from friends and relatives was profoundly intriguing, the ability to live any life, any experience, all through the machine. His uncle told him he had slept with Marilyn Monroe, his buddy Chris had become an eagle, soaring over the White Mountains of New Hampshire and his own girlfriend, Lizah, had gone with her friends and fought massive sci-fi battles in physically impossible mech suits over 1980’s Japan.
All of this sounded incredible as far as Hugh was concerned but… everyone he talked to had a certain look in their eyes afterward, the look of someone hooked, the kind of look he had seen in the eyes of synthetic opiate addicts during his residency at the Mass. General ER.
He had told himself he wouldn’t go, too scared of losing his grip, losing his desire to be a member of the so-called real world, but he was compelled. Hugh now stood in front of the monolithic onyx glass structure, delicate glows of complex color were barely visible through the dark tint. On the ground level was an immense automatic revolving door, spinning slowly and eternally, beckoning new visitors to come inside and experience anything. Above the door was a neon sign, old-fashioned for a company utilizing cutting-edge technology but serving the overall vapor-wave aesthetic the marketing team had surely been aiming for.
The radiant sign read: “AnyLife” in redish pink, neon and xenon gas molecules excitedly providing the incredible shimmer.
Skies above AnyLife were still dark this early morning, pregnant clouds hung overhead threatening to bring forth their hidden spouts, and in this darkness the redness of the sign seemed to gleam off of every surface, bathing the area in a comfortable visual warmth, the building beckoning Hugh towards it’s ever-spinning maw.
The threatening clouds above began spitting in a way that indicated a coming storm, Hugh had neglected to check the weather and hadn’t brought an umbrella or coat. His white silk shirt began to splotch grey with wet, the only place outside of the rain was inside.
He took a step towards the open arms of LifeCorp, medical images flashed in his mind, images of slack-jawed sapiens staring into the void, wire-heading themselves for ultimate experience, bodies and minds wasting, letting the machine snake it’s tentacles into their living life until it clutched it so tightly there was no way to escape its suckery grip.
These images were terrifying, and made Hugh weak in the knees as he felt his feet continue to carry him through the rotating golden door, all of his good sense telling him to run in the opposite direction but knowing that he was powerless to the pull, the promise of anything.
