[Opening Scene: Dimly lit room, Aarav sitting at a desk, staring directly into the camera.]
Aarav:
Do you think that the people who are in power care about you? Do you think your friendly neighborhood politician whom you see shaking hands and kissing babies cares about you? Do you think your boss who could replace you in a heartbeat cares about you? Unless you've been living under a rock, your answer is going to be, "No". And even though I live a century ahead of you, my situation is not much different from yours.
If you're lucky enough to live in a democracy, the politicians are forced to throw some help your way. They need to give money to the farmers to please the majority vote bank and they need to build schools and hospitals to cement their future tax revenues. But what happens when the majority vote bank is screen addicted idiots? I'll tell you what happens.
First, they develop AI so that there is no need for labor anymore to generate their tax revenues for them.
Next, they ensure that everyone is addicted to social media so that no one has the power to form logical arguments and rebel against them.
Finally, when the majority of the population are screen addicted zombies, highly susceptible to suggestion by social media algorithms, they start selling the propaganda that virtual reality is better than the real reality. In fact, it's so good that no one needs to live in the real world anymore! Hurray! Now, we can all just be plugged into a rainbows and unicorn addled VR world 24/7.
And that's how I ended up living in the VR world Rainbows & Unicorns: Four Hundred and Seven. (To be more precise, my real body is in an underground bunker somewhere in South Africa). Hi, my name is Aarav and I can already tell one thing about you: You don't like me. Most people don't. They find my negative way of speaking crass and it is true that I have no shame. I just start spewing to anyone I meet and I have no regrets.
Here's what you're thinking: I mean, this is a story about a VR world which has Rainbows and unicorns! How bad could things possibly be? Above all, while the people in power and the government may not care about you, they can't do anything bad to you.
Right?
Well, with the top 1% getting rid of the people by stowing them away underground to rot, you can't silence me or make me speak in a more polite way! I don't care if I make you ostriches uncomfortable, who bury your heads in the sand, even if you dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist.
Alas, for all my lashing out against the world my life has turned out worse than most else's. This is my warning to you, my forefathers, that I hope reaches you through time. It's the last video I'll ever have the chance to make so listen closely to my story.
Day 0
"Don't worry. Everything will be alright," says the doctor, draping a blanket around my shoulders before going to fiddle with a needle on a tray beside the bed. How the doctor has managed to perform a gesture which is supposed to be caring in such a mechanical way is beyond me. I guess you have to turn into a machine when your job is sending people to their death. You have to brainwash yourself into thinking that that is not what this is, that the minds of the people will be in a better place. Brainwashing is the only way such an affront to the Hippocratic oath would be tolerated.
I can see the bags under her eyes as the doctor pushes the needle into the patch of skin she had sprayed with antiseptic on my thigh, bared by shorts. Then she lays my shoulders back, forcing me into a sleeping position. I am just one of countless, forgotten faces she has performed on this past month amidst the third wave of people going into a VR. The limited workforce of doctors has been stressed with the seemingly unlimited rush of people who need the procedure to go into a VR 24/7 and their burden has perhaps been added to by thinking about the fact that soon, it is their families who will be under their blade. Living in the cities is no longer a viable option.
My toes suddenly curl up and I see red. My hands clutch at the blanket, wishing to tear it to shreds, wishing to pounce upon the doctor and scratch out her eyes.
It hits me now that this blanket was my burial shroud, laid upon me by the doctor with the mechanical precision of a funeral director. My fingers dig into the blanket until the last minute, my fists clenched and trembling, before my consciousness fades.