The first thing Ellie noticed was the silence.

In LuxeVR, the new virtual reality platform, silence wasn’t part of the design. Every scenario—tropical beaches, bustling cities, even alien landscapes—was filled with sound. Yet now, in the lush meadow she’d been exploring, the chirping birds and rustling grass had vanished.

“System glitch,” she muttered, tapping the glowing bracelet on her wrist. It was supposed to be her ticket back to reality. But the interface didn’t appear.

“Exit menu,” she commanded. Nothing.

Her chest tightened. This wasn’t supposed to happen. LuxeVR had been hailed as the safest, most immersive VR experience yet, complete with neural syncing. Ellie had been skeptical at first, but her friends raved about it. “It’s like living another life,” they’d said. “Just try it.”

Now, she regretted listening.

Ellie wandered through the meadow, her panic rising with every step. She tried everything: voice commands, gestures, even closing her eyes and willing herself awake. But the meadow remained. The sky was too blue, the grass too green—beautiful, but suffocatingly artificial.

Hours passed. Or was it days? There was no sense of time here. Ellie screamed, kicked, even tried to hurt herself, hoping the pain would wake her up. Instead, the system responded by resetting her injuries in real-time.

That’s when she saw him.

A man stood at the edge of the meadow, his suit crisp and his face oddly blank. “Welcome to LuxeVR,” he said, his voice a perfect monotone.

“I need to get out!” Ellie shouted, running toward him.

The man tilted his head. “Your session is still active. Exiting is not currently available.”

“What do you mean not available? Shut it down! Call support!”

“The system is experiencing an error. Please enjoy your experience while we resolve the issue.”

Ellie’s fists clenched. “You call this enjoyment?”

The man didn’t respond. He simply blinked out of existence, leaving Ellie alone again.

The days blurred together, her memories of the real world fading. She began to wonder if her friends had noticed her absence. Had they called LuxeVR? Was anyone trying to pull her out? Or was she just another lost user, buried under a corporate apology and a non-disclosure agreement?

Eventually, the meadow stopped feeling like a prison. The grass became softer, the sky warmer. Ellie found herself lying in the sun, her mind dulling, her fight fading.

When the system finally rebooted, the headset slid off her head. But Ellie didn’t move. Her body sat lifeless in the LuxeVR pod, her mind still in the meadow, where the birds were finally chirping again.