The perfection of Neo-Veridia isn't a gift; it's a filter.
Axel remembered the day the sky broke. He was ten years old, and the world smelled like cotton candy and air conditioning. He was walking hand-in-hand with his mother down the Avenue of Sighs, a place where the marble floors always shined and mechanical birds sang in perfect harmony. Back then, the Interface in his eyes was new, bright, and promised a life without pain.
"Look, Axel," his father said, his voice filtered through a happiness tuner. "The system says today will be the best day of our lives."
Then, the first glitch happened.
It wasn't an explosion; it was a stutter in reality. The vibrant blue sky flickered, revealing for a microsecond a black void filled with thick, pulsating cables hanging like mechanical intestines. The birdsong turned into a screech of static that pierced Axel's ears.
"Dad?" Axel asked. His father's face began to vibrate.
Literally. The left half of his face shifted three centimeters upward, leaving a trail of red pixels and raw flesh in the air. His mouth was caught in an animation loop, opening and closing rhythmically. A thick, black liquid that smelled of burnt ozone began to ooze from his right eye. His mother tried to speak, but her throat had inflated like a faulty airbag, turning her words into a gurgle of blood and code.
Then they descended: the Admins.
They were shadows of pure static, tall figures that didn't walk but teleported frame by frame. One of them approached Axel's parents. With a subtle touch on the forehead, the Admin executed the command. His father's body disintegrated into millions of red cubes that floated upward, sucked into a crack in the sky. His mother was claimed shortly after, leaving behind only a trail of magenta static.
Five years later, Axel woke up in his gray room. His Interface flickered, projecting an image of a delicious breakfast over his plate of synthetic paste. He touched the scar behind his ear. The world was perfect again, but Axel knew the truth: Neo-Veridia was hungry, and he was the only one who remembered the taste of blood.