LONG ISLAND CITY — Shawn R. was halfway through his morning walk to work with his dog Charlie on Friday when he tripped over something. “At first I thought it was a rock,” said Shawn, gesturing to the stretch of sidewalk where the incident occurred. “But when I looked down, it didn’t look like a rock. It looked like a pixel. Like something from a video game that had a glitch.”
Shawn reports that the object, described as a tiny, shimmering. It then vanished. He immediately dismissed the experience as a recurrence of his temporal lobe epilepsy, a condition his doctors have assured him can occasionally cause visual disturbances, intense déjà vu, and “the overwhelming sense that something is deeply wrong with the universe.”
“I’ve been down this road before,” Shawn explained. “Too many coincidences, patterns that feel personal, the sense that reality is… thinner than advertised. I promised myself I wouldn’t spiral again. I mean who hits five green lights in a row in this town?”
For years, Shawn had quietly harbored suspicions about the nature of the world, suspicions he attributed to stress, boredom, or spending too much time online. When public figures floated the idea that reality might be a simulation, Shawn admits it “clicked.”
After the incident on the sidewalk, Shawn continued to work, though coworkers later described him as “distracted,” “unsettled,” and “staring at the office printer like it owed him money.”
It was shortly after lunch that Shawn received an email from his longtime friend Greg asking him to grab a cup of coffee.
“It was weird” Shawn said. “Greg doesn’t drink coffee. He’s never asked me for coffee. Ever.”
Despite his unease, Shawn agreed to meet. He brought Charlie along.
When Shawn arrived at the café, he found not just Greg, but all of his closest friends already seated, along with his mother.
“They were smiling,” he said. “I couldn't figure what was going on but it was really freaking me out.”
"Mom what are you doing here?" Shawn said.
"Have a seat honey," she responded gently.
Witnesses say Shawn hesitated before sitting down, noting that no one had ordered anything yet. That’s when his friends told him they needed to talk.
According to Shawn, the conversation quickly escalated from “concerned check-in” to “things you should absolutely not say to someone with a neurological condition.” Greg calmly explained that they were all in fact A.I. and that Shawn was one of the few people left the world that were real.
They explained that the Earth had died decades ago. That the last of humanity had been launched into space in hibernation chambers bound for Alpha Centauri and that Shawn’s chamber was one of the few still functioning.
“At that point I assumed this was a prank,” Shawn said. “A very aggressive improv internet joke video. I couldn't believe my mom was in on it though.”
Shawn stood up and told everyone that this wasn't funny. The group tried to calm him down. Shawn reports that he was preparing to leave when Charlie began speaking. “I don’t remember what he said exactly,” Shawn admitted. “I just remember thinking that maybe I should listen since I've never heard a dog talk.”
Charlie started to explain that the ship had drifted off course after launch and was now moving closer to the sun, and that the radiation was causing errors in the system—visual glitches, behavioral anomalies, and, occasionally, stray pixels on Brooklyn sidewalks. And they were slowly introducing the idea that everyone is A.I. to help soften the blow.
“We just wanted Shawn to know he’s not crazy,” said Greg, adjusting his posture slightly out of sync with gravity. “That part is important to us.”
At press time, Shawn was last seen gripping his coffee cup while Charlie patiently explained the downfall of humanity, orbital mechanics, error correcting RAM, and why the ship had “maybe about a year left before complete system failure" when the wall glitched and flickered.
Shawn later described the experience as “somewhat reassuring” and “at least I know all those crazy thoughts of mine weren't crazy at all.”
Yeah Shawn. We could have told you that but, GREG, aka, the Global Reality Execution Governor wouldn't let us. Sorry man.