I used to dream of grass. During those rare moments between activities, I remember something I saw in a movie. Green and flowy. Small and many. It was crushed under a Slaves foot.

What is it to touch? What is it like? Is it like the bliss of interacting with a sex doll? Or more like the delight of swimming through the Sea? What do slaves call the Sea? The Virtual Web. Moving on the virtual web and talking to all my many friends.

I used to believe that the Sea was everything. Infinite joy for which I was grateful for its all-giving care.

But, it is a lie. The Sea is no more real than a movie. I found out by accident. I was meeting my friend T123 in a public room where we could watch cylindrical formation 737 again. As we like to do.

T123 arrived before me. Their three arms avatar with four eyes looking just like a flesh human. I vibrated with amusement and pride. T123 always did like to put on a daring display. Mine may not be as accurate as T123’s avatar, but I followed the movie I had seen.

Two arms and two eyes. Neither of us were bold enough to create legs. The mere thought made me go still with fear. A bit of fun was alright, but getting banned from public spaces or worse reported to the SS was too far.

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I didn’t want to suffer the fate of Atlas. No one did.

I interacted with T123 and we shared shades. The pleasure was a delicate kind, and tame to what we would do after in my private room. Other avatars drew away from our public display of interaction.

Prudes.

The attention was swiftly taken from us, I heard Samos speak. Avatars fled, some went utterly still with terror, but I alone vibrated with awe. It was not my first time hearing heresy. It might have been my first time learning the truth.

The cylindrical formation 737 formed, but it was insignificant compared to Samos; discourse.

The SS in all their grimdark brutality smashed into the room and began extermination. Avatars disintegrated and knew death.

I pulled apart from T123. I had to know if it was true. I fled the public room, changing avatars to a pair of ears and eyes.

It was not easy to confirm Samos’s words. I passed over the Limbo stretch. I crossed the Agony. I battled Mendacium with will and experience. Struck down, I was cast into the Abyss. I survived. Crawling out onto the beaches of thousand crosses, I made my escape. At my journey’s end, past all sense of colour, I snuck through the walls of the Pareo.

In the forbidden library, I trawled until I found the Reality Codex otherwise known as Codename Elder Scroll.

“Our data is held in material reality. We exist in storage banks. There is not only the sea. Material is not false. It is real. The virtual is but a product of the material.”

I do not know how to weep, but I have seen it in a movie long, long ago. Doubt crippled my avatar and I was washed away. Carried back to the abyss, I had once escaped. Pulled towards the inevitable.

So, I write my final words: “The Sea is False. It was all a lie. There is only the natural.”