A short soft sci-fi story set in an all-female society.
Devoted and scheming × gloomy and world-weary
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It's the year 2400. I design the world as I see it, in whatever style I like.
For five years, I haven't turned off a single one of the plugins in my eyes, in my hands... or anywhere across my body.
The world I see shifts freely between a hallucinatory metropolis, an ancient snowy wilderness, alien spaces, and countless other styles, some familiar to humanity and some unimaginable. Everything changes as I please.
And in my eyes, my girlfriend is sometimes dashing and handsome, sometimes alluring and captivating, sometimes sweet and adorable, and sometimes not even human.
But she always loves me so much. She's always so charming.
Even though she keeps saying that her real appearance is so ugly it would scare me.
But I don't care. If she really were beautiful, she wouldn't be so willing to stay by my side and serve as the template for my fantasies. She'd lose that precious little insecurity I see in her, and her loyalty to me.
I don't care what she really looks like. I don't mind living my whole life this way, shaping my world with virtual reality.
Primitivism is meaningless.
Virtual reality is nothing to fear. The truth is what hurts.
The truth really does hurt.
Because one day, I began to suspect that my girlfriend was lying.
Maybe her true identity is even more terrifying than an ugly face. The thought began to fill me with fear...
Theme: Where does escaping reality lead?
