---
The cold, sterile room hummed with an eerie hum as the metallic doors slammed shut behind him. Trey O'Malley was no longer in the courtroom where his fate had been decided. His trial had been a blur—a cacophony of words and cold logic that had stripped him of everything but his innocence. The jury had spoken, but their verdict meant nothing. They hadn't listened. The system had already decided: guilty.
The virtual coffin loomed in front of him, its sleek, unfeeling surface reflecting the dim lights above. Trey's pulse quickened. He didn't understand how any of this was supposed to work. He was sixteen, a boy caught in a world that no longer seemed to make sense. His family—his parents, his younger sister—were dead, but it wasn't him who had killed them. It couldn't have been. He remembered the moments before everything had shattered, his hand held out, reaching for his mother, but then… it was all a blur.
Now, all he had was the cold, metallic chair beneath him, his hands bound, his legs stiffened by the weight of it all. He was trapped, not by chains, but by something far worse. The virtual coffin. The place where souls went to be erased.
A voice echoed in the room, muffled by the mask strapped tightly to his face. "Trey O'Malley, sentenced to the virtual coffin. For your crime, you will experience the eternal cycle of simulations. You will live the lives of others—others who, like you, were victims of their own trauma."
The words were mechanical, as though spoken by an algorithm rather than a human. There was no room for mercy here. No room for justice.
The mask tightened, and Trey's breath faltered. The moment it covered his face, darkness swallowed him. He felt his body sink into nothingness, and then, as if he were being pulled through some unseen vortex, he arrived.
---
SYSTEM INITIATED:
Simulation 1: Subject Trey O'Malley
Simulation Parameters: Incarceration Phase — Subject's Consciousness Unstable
Commencing Simulation...
Trey opened his eyes—or did he? Was it his eyes? The world around him felt wrong, distorted. His senses were overloaded, but his body wasn't his own. He was someone else, living in someone else's skin. He could hear their thoughts. Feel their fears. And then, it hit him.
A girl—no, a woman—stood in front of him, her hands shaking, her face pale. He wasn't sure why, but there was a deep sadness there. Her lips trembled, and then she spoke, her voice cracking.
"Trey? You can't leave me. Not again…"
The words were so real, so raw. He wanted to respond, but nothing came out. The world around him faded, and then it snapped back into focus. Trey was now standing in front of a run-down house, a place he had never seen before. The door was ajar, the air thick with the smell of neglect and decay.
He could feel the weight of his body, but it didn't feel right. He wasn't *him* anymore. He wasn't Trey O'Malley. He was someone else, someone with their own trauma, their own broken past.
---
As he stepped inside, the scene unfolded. The house was eerily silent, but the tension was palpable. The walls, once vibrant with life, were now faded and cracked. A photo frame hung crookedly on the wall. Trey's eyes moved to the corner of the room, where a figure stood—someone familiar, yet not. A man, weathered by time, his face etched with pain. He looked at Trey with a mixture of anger and something deeper. Fear? Regret?
A harsh voice broke through the tension.
"You're *nothing,* you hear me? Just like your mother."
The words sent a shiver down Trey's spine, though he couldn't understand why. Something about them felt *too* familiar. The pain in his chest was immediate, like a pressure building, pushing against him.
He reached out for something, anything, to ground himself, but it was too late. A flash of memory hit him like a tidal wave. He was drowning in the memory of another person's life. A life full of suffering, abuse, and neglect. The trigger was there—he couldn't avoid it. It was happening.
---
The world around him darkened, a sudden, jarring shift that felt as though the very fabric of reality had torn apart. He stumbled, falling to his knees, overwhelmed by the intensity of the trauma. He could hear screams—his own, or someone else's. The sound was deafening.
His vision blurred, the world spinning. The traumatic experiences of the person whose life he now inhabited began to flood his senses. He could feel the abuse—the verbal assaults, the hatred. The anger from the man in front of him. The hatred of a father.
Suddenly, Trey's body moved without his control. His hands—no, the hands of the person he was now—grabbed something. A blade. A tool. A weapon. It felt heavy, wrong. The scream that tore from his throat was not his own. It was the voice of someone who had endured so much, for so long, that they had broken. It was the sound of pain, rage, and hopelessness, all mixed together.
The blade slashed through the air.
And then, silence.
---
SYSTEM COMPLETE:
Simulation 1: Subject Trey O'Malley — Trauma Trigger Executed
Results: Subject Unconscious — Immediate Termination Required
Simulation Over.
---
Trey blinked, his breath ragged. The world around him shifted again, pulling him into another memory. Another life. But the cycle had begun. There was no way to stop it now.
His mind screamed out for escape, but there was nowhere to run. There would be no justice here. Only endless suffering.
And the only way out was death.
---