Virtual Reality: A User Review

I liked it at first. We all did! That level of virtual reality had been a science fiction dream since those Amazing Stories magazines from the 1950s, that my granddad left me when he died. So when the dream turned real and was boxed and sold and brought home one day by my dad, we all clamoured for it. In the beginning it was like how older people describe dial-up internet, only one person at a time could use it, and there was always someone sealed up in that chamber experiencing god knows what. The morals police pushed for and got parental control options, but these were basic at best and when the technology spread far enough that each member of our household had their own cylindrical chamber in a corner of their room, there really were no limits to a kid’s imagination. Gone were the days of having to hurry along mum’s date with George Clooney, dad’s winning title fight with Muhammad Ali, and my little brother’s God knows what. Now at my leisure I could hang out with my favourite YouTubers, get makeup tips from Lele Pons like she and I were besties trying out blush in the girls’ room of a top LA club, make out with the Paul brothers and not have them say anything creepy or perv-y or pressure me for more, and perhaps best of all, kick the crap out of Shane Dawson.

I’ll admit it, sometimes I used my hacker skills to check on what my little brother was doing. I’d only watch for a second. Who wants to see their kid brother get freaky with five blonde bimbos? But that’s why I’m leaving this review. I logged in the other day and saw that he’d set up a multiplayer room. (Which he’s not supposed to be able to do on a family set up.) Turns out loads of boys from our school had been in there. The room was this big house, and when I opened the door a text box came up saying PARENTS SHOULD BE SCARED TO RAISE KIDS LIKE US. That creeped me out, but then I saw inside. There were dead girls everywhere, hung upside down from the roof, abandoned on the stairs and in doorways. I can’t even describe some of the stuff that had been done to them. And they all had the faces of girls that I knew, from our school. One had my face. In fact, she was me, same body type and everything, right down to the pink onesie I wear when I’m alone. That only my parents and my brother know I wear.