Early on a Saturday morning, Eliot is in his room browsing an online forum. The people in the forum have some sort of conspiracy theory on how the world is just a simulation. Eliot giggles to himself because he thinks it’s funny to see how much some people believe crazy stuff like that. He closes his laptop and heads downstairs for breakfast. His mom is down there making bacon and eggs. His mother, Mary, is a supportive mom and always trying to encourage Eliot to go through with his ideas. She sees Eliot’s potential and tries to give him a boost any time she can.

“Hey mom,” Eliot says to his mom Mary, “breakfast ready?”

“Sure is,” she responded, she makes Eliot a plate. “So, have you thought about entering that robotics competition coming up next month?”

“I’ve thought about it, but I’m not sure if I’m good enough to do any good in it,” Eliot responds.

“I know you’ve done more coding than building robots, but I’m sure you’ll excel at it, you are a quick learner, and you’ll do great.”

“Hmm, I’ll consider it I guess.”

“Good, anyways, what’re you going to do today?”

“I was going to hang out with some friends at the park in a bit”

His mom brings over a plate of bacon and eggs for him, “that sounds fun, what’re you all going to do?”

“Just hang out you know.” Eliot eats his breakfast. 

After he finished he headed out for the park on his hover scooter. He rides past many people on their hover vehicles on his way to the park. Eliot was being reckless and nearly gets hit by someone in a flying car while crossing the street. He arrives a little late but is greeted by his friends.

“Hey Eliot,” said his best friend, Raymond, “Why’re you late?”

“Sorry, I was just reading a weird conspiracy theory and lost track of time.”

“Ooo, I love conspiracy theories,” said his other friend that is there Brock, “what was it?”

“It was something about the entirety of our world being a simulation after some sort of apocalypse caused the real world to be unlivable or something”

“Huh. That’s interesting,” said Brock, “do you believe it”

“Well, not too much you know, however, who knows? Maybe it is? I don’t know, I just like reading about the crazy theories like this people post on the internet.”

“Fair,” said Raymond, “I don’t really believe them. But I agree, none of us really know whether it is or not so”

The rest of the day passed by fast and before they knew it, it was time to head home. They all said their goodbyes and headed home. When Eliot got home, he was tired, and said goodnight to his mom and went to bed.

In his sleep, Eliot had a dream. The dream was unusual, he was standing in front of some blueprints of some sort of machine. He got a good look at the blueprints in the dream. The device looked like some sort of box with a door, and according to the blueprints, it could make people escape the simulation. He walks into it and suddenly there is a flash of light and he woke up.

He was amazed by this dream. He wasn’t sure if it was a vision or just simply a dream. He quickly grabbed his dream journal and wrote down important parts of the blueprints he saw. He thinks that he can be able to figure out the rest of it if he can just get the most important parts of it.

Eliot calls his friends and explains his vision to them, and asks them to come over. They think that it’s an insane idea, but agree to help. Raymond is still sceptical about this, however, Brock is very interested in helping Eliot and believes that what he saw was indeed a vision. When they arrive Eliot shows them the blueprints he sketched out

“This is what I saw in my dream,” Eliot said, “I couldn’t remember everything, but I made sure to get all the important parts.”

“I’m still not entirely convinced about this…” Raymond said, “but I’m fine with helping.”

“I could probably figure out what the parts you didn’t write down are,” Brock said.

Eliot and his friends worked on completing the blueprints, at first it seemed hard to be able to figure it out, they eventually did. Now their problem was with actually getting the stuff to make it. Eliot asked his mom to borrow her credit card for a project he was working on to buy the necessary stuff to build it.

After buying everything, Eliot and his friends flew off into a nearby field with everything to begin assembling it.  They began to follow the blueprints. After a few hours, they realized that this would take a while to build. Since it was getting dark they decided to come back later and finish it. They hid what was built so far behind a bush.

The next day they continued working on it early in the morning, and after an entire day worth of work, they were nearly finished that evening. They weren’t sure if it was fully finished yet but we’re confident that it was.

“Well, There’s only one way to find out if it works,” said Brock, “Why don’t you try to activate it, Eliot?”

“Alright,” Eliot said. He goes over to the door shaped device they had built. He pulls the lever and… nothing happens.

“Welp, just as I thought, this wouldn’t work,” said Raymond.

“No, we must’ve just messed up somewhere. We must keep trying.” Eliot said.

“Eliot, just give it up. It doesn’t work. We don’t live in a simulation.”

“I’ll keep helping you, Eliot”

“Thanks,” Eliot said.

“Well I’m out,” Raymond said, “I knew this wouldn’t work from the beginning and that it just was a waste of time and money.” Raymond got into his car and flew off into the horizon.

“Okay, well let’s check the blueprints and perhaps touch them up,” said Eliot. He and Brock spent hours reviewing everything until they noticed what was the problem. It was a mistake they made in the blueprints. They fixed it and then Eliot had a flash of deja vu from the dream as he looked up from the blueprints. This is what he saw in his vision. Brock was able to realize from Eliot’s face that he felt this. 

Eliot walks up to the portal and activates it. A beam of light emits from the portal. Brock runs for cover and the power goes out. Raymond looks over towards the field from his house amazed that it worked. After the light is gone, Brock looks over to see that the device has disappeared. There is an area of singed grass right where it used to be.

Eliot’s portal to the real world worked, and when he opened the other side of the door, He was in a room full of people behind glass doors. He had been in one too, so his theory is that the machine was a connection to the real world that let him open his door. He realized that there were people monitoring everything, so he made sure to hide quickly.

He explored the area, and eventually found a door to outside. When he opened it, he soon knew why the choice to make everything in their lives be virtual. It appeared as if there were some sort of nuclear disaster that left the planet in an unsafe shape. They were all in a bunker living normal lives unaware of what had happened. 

As Eliot walks around the bunker, avoiding being found, he finds some documents and can piece together why they live in a virtual world. After the nuclear war started, the world was an unsafe place to live. The government decided that the best way to preserve life was to make a bunker and create a fake reality. Eventually, the first people in the simulation died off, and the only remaining evidence of their world not being real was theories passed down from their ancestors. In their virtual world, they had many things that weren’t possible in the real world. Things such as hoverboards and flying cars. They had these because these were the things that their ancestors had wanted the future to have, before the nuclear war. 

Eliot finds a nursery, and he figures that this is how they make sure people can have kids in the simulation. This explains why Eliot doesn’t look like his mom or dad at all. He also comes across a network room. He realizes that if he wanted to, he could potentially destroy the virtual world. He decides that the false reality is better than the real world and doesn’t go through with that idea.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be here!” Someone shouts at Eliot. Eliot takes off running. Soon, there is a group of guards chasing after Eliot. He is not able to escape them and they keep gaining on him. Eliot trips and they grab him.

Eliot wakes up in his room. Was that all a dream? It couldn’t have been He thinks to himself. He quickly writes down what happened after he got to the real world before he forgets it in case if this was just a dream. He went downstairs to his mom.

“Hey, what happened last night? Some weird men brought you in after the blackout ended and said they found you out in the field. What was that project you spent my money on? Are you okay?”

Eliot explains everything that happened to her. About the dream he had a few days ago, about the portal, about the real world, everything. His mom did not know what to say. She had a look of confusion. Eliot tried to elaborate more but she still couldn’t understand. 

Eliot posted about what he saw that night on the forum he had been browsing, however, everyone dismissed it as just a dream. There were few people that actually would believe him. His friends were some of those people. Even Raymond accepted that it had happened.