Trapped in the Virtual World

When you put on your cousin's experimental VR headset, you get sucked into the game world for real. The only way out is to beat all five levels — but the NPCs have started thinking for themselves.

You have always been the cautious one in your family — the kid who reads the instructions before opening the box, who looks both ways twice, who asks 'but what if it breaks?' before touching anything. Your cousin Milo is the exact opposite. He is a fourteen-year-old tech genius who builds robots out of junk and once accidentally set his garage on fire trying to upgrade a toaster. Every weekend you visit his house, and every weekend he has some wild new invention to show you.

This Saturday, Milo has something on his desk that looks different from his usual projects — a sleek VR headset covered in blinking lights and duct tape.

'Check it out,' Milo says, practically vibrating with excitement. 'Full neural immersion. I cracked the sensory feedback loop last night.'

'Is that duct tape holding the circuit board on?' you ask.

'Structural duct tape,' Milo corrects, as if that makes it better. 'Just put it on for ten seconds. Ten seconds and you will never want to take it off.'

'That is literally the scariest sales pitch I have ever heard,' you mutter. But Milo is already holding the headset out, grinning in a way that makes your cautious side very, very nervous. Against every instinct screaming in your head, you reach for it. The moment the headset touches your temples, the world dissolves into light.