Vikram Patel lays on his lounge chair and watches his grandchildren run along the beach. They kick their sandcastles down, giggling as they cake each other with bits of wet Earth. He takes a sip of his piña colada before calling the kids inside for dinner. Shaking the shore from striped towels, he lets the (mostly) dry kids run ahead while he grabs the final pair of sandals by the strap. Following their laughter with an inflatable tube around his arm, all Vikram feels is the warm ground on his feet and a smile on his face.

Gwen sighs, resting her hand on her chin as she watches the brain activity monitor. Vikram, institutionally recognized as Dreamer 1596, has been living through the same set of experiences for over a decade. His grandchildren, figments of his own imagination, appear blurry and distorted, but she knows his brain will fill in the gaps for him.

Beside the dusty CRT monitor, the whirring of the off-white computer’s fan mixes with the ambient noise of the underground facility, a soundscape Gwen has grown quite familiar with. Flipping through the displays, she watches as other clients create their own afterlife. Dreamer 4856 has dinner with Anna Kendrick. Dreamer 2003’s teeth scatter across the kitchen floor. Dreamer 1723 relives an awkward bar mitzvah. All throughout the facility, people from all stages of life and death live on in their heads, conjuring up dreams again and again.

“Ooh, spying on Vik again, are we?”

To Gwen’s left, about seven feet down the counter, Susan swivels around in her chair. Despite the circumstances, her face is fully made up and her clothes are formal. Her black jeans and cardigan over a yellow dress shirt aren’t much, but they’re certainly a step up from Gwen’s sweatpants and T-shirt.

Gwen rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair.

“I’m not spying on him. He’s just one of the only people not reliving a birthday or sex.”

“Everyone likes birthdays, Gwenny.”

“I don’t, and stop calling me that. I’m already tired of this place as it is.”

Susan clicks the tip of her pen. “Why not go to the surface, then?”

“Very funny.”

Gwen cracks her knuckles, stands, and grabs a mug of cold coffee. “Alright, we might as well do a spot check while we’ve got the time to kill.”

She types a command into the computer and waits as it slowly prints a random list of dreamers to observe. Susan stands and stretches her arms. Gwen rips the list off and, checking the numbers, gives another sigh.

They step out of the office and into the holding space. The ambiance of industrial generators, copper pipes, and electrical circuitry mix together to form a harsh, constant noise. The air smells sterile with a tinge of formaldehyde. The enclosure, massive and oblong, is filled with shelves of glass boxes. Within each prism, a dreamer resides.

Gwen steps up to Pod #1596. Vikram, or what is left of him, is suspended in preservative solution. Tubes have been inserted into his abdomen, neck, the back of his skull, and the base of his spine. A thick copper mask covers his eyes and mouth, fused to his jaw and temples. His body is pale and emaciated beyond recovery. His brain, on the other hand, is completely engaged. As Susan produces a clipboard and a pen, Gwen looks at the small monitor at his feet.

“Dreamer 1596. BPM normal. Radiation low. Nutrition functional…. Yeah, he’s fine.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Next.”

Susan scribbles on the clipboard frantically. “Hold on, I’m not done yet.”

Gwen’s shoulders fall as she huffs. “Come on.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy! Not everyone’s as young as you, alright?”

They move on to the next pod. “Dreamer 9843. BPM normal, radiation low, nutrition functional. Fine.” Gwen sighs. “Next.”

They continue moving along. “Do you think they’re having fun in there?” Susan asks. The sheets on her clipboard are riddled with check marks.

“Not at all. These people aren’t living.” She examines another dreamer. “Normal. Next.”

“They’re living in their dreams, aren’t they?”

“Not really. They’re missing out on the real world.”

“So?”

Gwen stops and turns to Susan. “So, what?”

Susan points to one of the pods. “What’s the difference between living out here and living in there? Wouldn’t you rather have something nice to look forward to?”

“We’re living the authentic truth and experiencing the real world, while all they have is their imagination.”

“And what’s wrong with that? You have a pretty good imagination too.”

Gwen pauses for a moment, staring at her.

“Next.”

They walk in silence for a moment. Gwen examines another monitor. “Dreamer 799. BPM normal, radiation low, nutrition … oh.”

“What?”

“This girl isn’t getting any supplements. Strike them from the board.”

Susan frowns and scratches out a row of numbers on the list. Gwen walks around the back of the apparatus, pulls away the back panel of the base, and flicks a red switch. The monitor turns off, and as the various tubes attached to the dreamer grow limp and lose power, the body floats to the top of the glass.

Susan chews the tip of her pen as they continue to the next room. “It feels like we’re losing more people every day.”

“Oh well. Less work for me.”

Susan stops. “Don’t you think that’s kind of cold?”

Gwen turns to face her. “It is. I know it is. But let’s look at the facts.” She starts to count on her fingers. “This girl—799—has probably been dead for a few days if their body isn’t accepting nutrition. Seven-ninety-nine cannot feel pain and probably didn’t even realize they had died.”

Susan stares at her, tensing her jaw.

“Seven ninety-nine,” Gwen continues, “lived out the rest of their pitiful life in a dream they could never experience in the real world. Why should I feel sympathy for something that never suffered?”

She turns away.

“Someone,” Susan mutters.

Gwen resumes walking. “Next.”

They work in silence for a moment, save for Gwen’s checkups. Every now and then the monotony is broken by a steaming pipe releasing pent up pressure, the creak of metal support structures, or the rigid click of Gwen switching off another dreamer’s life support.

After checking a few dozen dreamers, they return to the office for a break. Gwen stands at the coffee maker, tapping on the counter as it drips a fresh pot. Susan leans back in her chair, resting her legs on the counter nearby.

“Oh, I get it,” Susan says.

Gwen turns to face her, leaning back on the counter. “Get what?”

“You’re scared.”

“Of?”

“You don’t know what you’d dream of if you were in there, do you?”

She laughs. “I know exactly what I’d dream of.”

“Then why not plug yourself in and see it?”

Gwen sniffs, mixing whitening powder into her mug. “Because that would be a nightmare.”

“You’d have a nightmare?” Susan arches an eyebrow.

“No. It would be … fine.” Gwen lets out an exasperated sigh. “But how can I plug myself into a dream machine knowing that I’m still in a world that has ended? How do I abandon my job because managing dead people is depressing when they’ll all die if I don’t run this place? How can I …” she trails off.

“Gwen, you don’t have to—”

“How can I be happy knowing the real world is dust and fallout? Would I be happy when we’re dwindling and the only thing that’s saving humanity right now is a set of tubes and formaldehyde solutions? Would I be happy knowing we have a few years left before this place falls apart and everything we know will be gone forever? Knowing death will come at any given second? Knowing it’s all for nothing?”

Gwen slides her back down the side of the counter and buries her face in her hands.

Susan goes to her and crouches to her knees. “Honey,” she says. “It’s okay.” She rests her hands on Gwen’s heaving shoulders. “I know you’ll make the right choice when the time comes.”

Gwen looks up, eyes red.

“I’m tired, Mom.”

“I know, love, I know. You’ll feel better soon.”

Gwen’s hands begin to shake. Then her body. Then the counter. Across the bunker, the sound of metal girders creak as the ceiling begins to bend and distort. She pulls herself up and runs from the office as the walls begin to crack. Throughout the facility, glass prisms shatter as their supports dislodge from the concrete walls, spilling their contents throughout the bunker.

“It’s an earthquake.” Gwen squints in the dust. “What do we do?”

When she looks behind her, Susan is gone.

Gwen runs down the oblong room, dodging glass as it shatters around her. Small shards scrape and cut at her neck and clothing. At the end of the hall, she lifts a cover on the wall and slams the emergency alarm button. A siren sounds, adding to the chaos of the crumbling box. If anyone else is alive on the surface or in a nearby bunker, she may have a chance at life. She turns around to look back at the room. Only minutes remain until everything gets crushed.

There’s only one way to avoid a painful demise.

Gwen unseals the empty dream chamber and steps in. She haphazardly tapes on the sensory blockers and places the copper mask over her face. It’s hard to breathe in the contraption, but it won’t be easy to breathe outside for much longer either. She doesn’t bother with nutrition or IV tubes and begins the process of transition immediately. She tunes the signal knobs to distribute the right voltage, inserts the earpiece deep into her lobe, and flicks several switches, disabling her senses one at a time until there’s nothing left but sight. With the last of her will, she turns the valve to release sedative gas into her mask, then flicks the final switch to disable the last organic sense she can.

Gwen wakes up in the middle of a freshly-cut lawn. The brightness of the sun is practically blinding as she recovers from years of living under dim industrial lights. There are children playing freeze tag on the other side of the road. Birds sing in a nearby tree.

She gets up and turns around to see her old house, freshly painted and loud with people. She steps in and it’s her tenth birthday all over again. Her grandparents sit together on the couch and smile deeply when she walks by. There are presents in a corner of the living room, and she hears the stomping of her friend’s feet above her head as they play upstairs. Her younger brother runs around the island in the kitchen. She sits down at the table where everyone sits around her. Sitting in front of her is a chocolate-frosted cake. Across the table, Susan grins.

“It’s nice to see you again, love. Go on. Blow out the candles.”

She blows out the candles and everyone cheers. Through the window behind Susan’s head, she just manages to discern the flash of a mushroom cloud before everything goes black.