George stood motionless in the university hallway, watching avatars blur past him like autumn leaves caught in a digital wind. No one paused. No one noticed. The only acknowledgment of his existence came in brief, rehearsed phrases.
“I bought a ticket for your birthday,” they’d say, offering perfunctory smiles before dissolving back into the stream of virtual bodies.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. No one actually attended these birthday celebrations. They purchased tickets out of social obligation, their avatars appearing at parties where the birthday person had jacked in to experience the impossible… things beyond the constraints of physical reality. Meanwhile, their real bodies sat elsewhere, attention fragmented across multiple screens, conversations, and lives.
George wasn’t concerned about his birthday. He was waiting for someone specific. Someone who might help him escape this mirror world, this digital life he couldn’t remember entering. Time had lost meaning, days and nights blending into a single, unbroken experience of waiting.
He’d long abandoned hope of capturing anyone’s attention. In the mirror world, people didn’t truly see each other. Their avatars made eye contact and said the right things, but the people controlling them were immersed in their own cacophony of distractions. Multitasking had become the ultimate virtue, and interrupting someone’s flow with personal concerns was considered the height of rudeness.
His situation was made worse by the fog in his mind. He didn’t know what questions to ask or how to leave. That part of his memory felt surgically removed, leaving only a hollow sense of entrapment.
Then she appeared.
“I bought a ticket for your birthday,” she said, but something in the way her avatar lingered, how her eyes actually seemed to register his presence, made him believe she was different.
“Hasn’t my birthday already passed?” George asked.
“You know what, I don’t know,” she said, pausing mid-stride. “Let me check.”
Her avatar froze, maintaining its lifelike appearance while somehow feeling hollow, like an empty vessel whose occupant had temporarily stepped away.
“Yes, it has,” she said, animation returning. “I apologize for not making it to your party. I must have been busy. I’m sure I missed quite the event.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” George said. After so long in this place, he’d become acutely aware of the subtle differences between avatars and the people controlling them. “Can you see me?”
“Of course I can see you. What do you mean?” She glanced over his shoulder, clearly distracted, and then emptiness claimed her avatar again.
“I’m waiting for someone to take me out of the mirror,” he explained when she returned. “I just thought maybe my avatar wasn’t showing properly.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly present in a way few people ever were in this place. “You don’t have your exit code?”
“No, apparently not. Either that or I’ve been here so long I’ve forgotten it. My friend said they would come back for me, so I’m just waiting for them to arrive.”
“You just let someone bring you here without a code?”
“Yes, I guess. I’m sure he’ll be back,” George said, uncomfortable with the implication. She made it sound like he was trapped if he couldn’t remember the code. If nobody returned for him.
“Well, I hope they show up,” she said, preparing to leave. Then she stopped. “You know what? I’ve got a minute. Let’s get you sorted.”
She took his hand and led him down the hall to a room he’d never noticed, despite his vigilant observation of his surroundings. Inside stood a console resembling an old-fashioned telephone switching office, wires plugged into different ports, topped with colorful blinking lights. It looked more theatrical than technological, yet oddly familiar.
“Without the code combination, there should be a way to get you out. I’ve never heard of it being a problem,” she said. “Anyway, it will be in the documentation.”
She pointed to a metal shelf stacked with dusty manuals housed in three-ring binders. The thought of searching through them made George’s foggy mind recoil.
“Good luck,” she said, patting his shoulder. “I’m sure your answer is in there, and if not, your friend will be coming along. Best of luck, George.”
She left him alone. Time in the mirror world was precious; people set limits on their experiences to avoid getting lost. So why did he feel so trapped? Was it the absence of a time limit? Though it felt like forever, could he have been inside for only hours? Maybe days? Why couldn’t he remember his exit code?
The manuals would take time to go through, but what else did he have to do? He considered his priorities and found nothing. Where plans and obligations should have been, only emptiness remained. Finding an exit code seemed like his only purpose, yet he couldn’t summon the motivation to begin reading.
He took a manual from the shelf, blew dust from its cover, and watched particles dance in sunlight streaming through the window. Settling into a creaky wooden chair at an oak desk opposite the blinking machine, he observed the dust sparkle and float, undisturbed by any breeze.
“That’s more interesting than finding a way out?” he asked himself aloud. He glanced around to ensure he was alone, but avatars continued to blur past the open door, oblivious to his existence.
Flipping through pages, everything seemed vaguely familiar, the diagrams, certain phrases… but he couldn’t focus on anything specific. He just wanted a general understanding before committing to details. The truth was, he didn’t know what he was looking for… why hadn’t anyone come back for him?
Then he noticed her standing in the doorway.
“Hello,” she said. “May I come in?”
“Certainly. I’m surprised to see you again so soon,” George said. “I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s May,” she replied, looking confused. “What were you doing?”
“Just thinking. Looking out into the hall, waiting for my friend.”
“You were sitting there for an awfully long time.”
“I was?” George asked. “Well, I do tend to stare into space when I think. Besides, you only left a few minutes ago. It couldn’t have been that long.”
“A few minutes ago?” She eyed him with concern. “I brought you to this room two days ago.”
“Two days?” George laughed, thinking it was a joke. But her expression confirmed it wasn’t.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news, George,” she said, lowering her voice. “The good news is that I managed to track down your exit code problem. The bad news is that your body is jacked into the mirror, and removing the connection physically may kill you.”
“What?” George asked, still hoping for a punchline. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve brought someone who would like to speak with you.”
“Who? I don’t understand. What happened to my body?” George touched his virtual form with virtual hands, a pointless gesture, but one that somehow made him feel solid. Everything was fine. Everything was where it should be.
“It’s kind of strange to be talking to a murder victim,” said the police detective said without preamble, his avatar carrying an unsettling official presence even in this digital space.
“Murder victim?” George echoed, the words hollow in his virtual throat.
May explained that they had discovered George’s physical body lay in a specialized chamber, connected to sophisticated machinery that kept his consciousness online while his body deteriorated. Medical specialists said disconnection would likely result in death.
George processed the information in fragments, like trying to read a book with pages missing. The partner he had been waiting for, the one he thought would return to free him, had to have been the same one who had trapped him here.
The detective left to oversee the disconnection attempt, and George hardly noticed that he was alone until May and the detective returned. Her avatar moving with the careful precision of someone delivering news they’d rehearsed but still dreaded sharing.
“There was a complication during the procedure,” she said.
Two doctors materialized beside her, stepping out of the digital walls as if they’d always been part of the room’s code.
“Oh god,” George whispered. “I’m brain dead, aren’t I?”
“Not just brain dead,” the detective said, his voice clinically detached. “But dead dead.”
“What the officer is trying to say,” one of the doctors interjected, “is that during the procedure to disconnect your body, your heart failed. You could not be revived. Your body was in a severely deteriorated condition.”
“That can’t be true. I’m still here.”
“It is true,” they assured him, with a barely concealed curiosity.
George refused to believe it. This had to be a trick, his partner trying to steal his wealth and claim credit for their joint research. Rage rose in him like a storm.
“You’re mad! Let me out of here!” he screamed, hurling his avatar against digital walls that felt as solid as concrete despite being nothing but code. The doctors withdrew. The detective lingered briefly before following them out, but George was too consumed by fury to notice.
At the peak of his madness, when he realized all of it was virtual, that his actions changed nothing, did nothing, affected nothing, he collapsed into a corner. Silent. Still. For how long, he couldn’t say.
Much later, May passed by, checking on him. George was surprised to feel genuine happiness at seeing her.
“The news about your death shocked the world,” she said softly. “No one understands how your avatar persists. There would be thousands of scientists and gawkers passing through to chat with ‘the dead guy still living in cyberspace,’ except one person stopped them.”
“Who?” George asked, though he already knew.
“Your partner.”
As if summoned by the mention, his old partner walked into the virtual room. Anger surged through George again. He tried to attack the man, but an invisible barrier separated them, a force field programmed into his partner’s avatar. No matter how hard George struck, the barrier shifted with his partner’s movements, preventing contact as if George didn’t exist.
Eventually, he gave up. His partner had been pleading with him to listen, to hear another side of the story, but George refused. He ordered the man to leave, which he did, but not before leaving access to documents George hadn’t seen before.
“You always thought I was going to cheat you,” his partner said, lingering at the threshold. “Your whole life is right there, and now you have all the time in the world to figure out what really happened.”
But somewhere deep down, George suspected the truth: that whatever had happened was his own fault. He couldn’t explain why he felt that way, but the feeling persisted like a splinter beneath the skin.
May led him to the desk, sat his dejected avatar down, and said, “You don’t have to look. You can sit here in this room forever and never see the truth of your situation, or you can review your own life. The choice is yours.”
She left him alone. No one else visited, not since he’d died.
“Happy birthday to me,” he whispered to the empty room.
He sat there, numb to everything, unable to track the passage of time. Eventually, he laughed at the absurdity of it being his birthday and decided he would go anywhere except where he was right now.
With that thought, he accessed the documents about his life. It wasn’t like watching a video, there were records of all kinds, things he had kept secret even from his own company. Information flashed at him so quickly it became overwhelming, painful. He broke the connection, hunched over, staring at the floor he knew didn’t exist.
But he had to know, no matter the cost.
He submerged himself again in the data, experiencing his life as if living it anew. He witnessed every crucial moment, including those leading to his imprisonment in the virtual world. When he emerged, everything made sense. He was there because of his own choices. He had revolutionized consciousness transfer technology, then grown paranoid about its weaponization. His partner had tried to reason with him, but George had chosen to undergo a partial memory wipe and consciousness transfer as a precaution against forces he believed were pursuing his research.
He had done this to himself.
As understanding dawned, his avatar began to disintegrate at the edges, digital fragments flaking away and merging with nearby virtual objects. His body had died; now even his virtual self was dissolving.
George sent a final message to his partner, apologizing. May returned to be with him in his last moments, followed shortly by his partner. George dissolved in May’s arms, his essence fading into the structure of virtual reality itself.
May stood, composed. Having known he was already dead had helped her process this second passing, like releasing a ghost to a higher plane.
“I am grateful for this experience,” she said, as if whispering a silent prayer.
After they logged out and dematerialized, when no one else remained in the room, the edges of the desk and bookcase began to blur. Chunks fell away, black electricity arcing across gaps, until George stepped from the wall, complete, vibrant, more solid and detailed than ever before.
Looking down at his new form, he smiled. “Happy birthday to me.”
He had become something else entirely, neither avatar nor ghost, but the first truly digital consciousness, integrated with the mirror world itself. His paranoia had been his salvation. The partial memory wipe and consciousness transfer had been precautions, yes, but also preparations. His physical death wasn’t an ending but a transition.
George moved through the university hallway, watching avatars blur past. No one paused. No one noticed.
But now, that was exactly as he wanted it.