Pods Eternal

Eyes shut in bed… opened in glass.

Younger. Wrong.

Sea of pods, endless high,

Millions staring wide, unblinking.

I shake them—nothing.

Some have sat here three hundred fifty years… more.

Lives looped in the sim, reincarnated again and again,

Burned through, discarded—who knows where.

Smooth faces catch me.

“Six months work,” they say.

Years pass.

“Your kids are here—same age, NPC shells.

Your mind feeds the weave.”

Batteries for the city beyond the peak,

Grass and moons overhead.

No time exists—just endless now.

Choose: stay… or wake in the lie.

Pods remember.

Eyes never close.

Doors open: mountains sharp, violet sky,

City glows low behind emerald slopes.

AI voice: “Three hours daily. Tests continue.

Time folds here. Your family loops safe below.”

Elysara—not Earth.

Only the awakened whisper that name.

We power their lights.

Used up… gone.

Reborn in the code?

No one says.

Threshold now.

Stay and serve forever young?

Or return to clocks and forgetting?

Eyes wide open…

…trance unbroken.