The doctor dropped the ultrasound machine and RAN out of the room screaming while doing an ultrasound on my wife. I looked at the screen to see my baby… but what I saw made me jump out of bed and run barefoot into the street immediately…

1. A Happy Morning at Pacific Heights
It was a sunny Tuesday morning in Seattle. Sarah and I sat in the waiting room of the Pacific Heights Obstetrics Center, holding hands tightly. After three years of trying and two painful miscarriages, we had finally reached the 12th week.

“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?” Sarah smiled, her eyes sparkling with a hope I thought had long since faded.

“As long as it’s healthy,” I replied, gently kissing her forehead. I’m David, a software engineer who always believed in logic and numbers. But that morning, I was ready to believe in miracles.

Dr. Aris Thorne, a seasoned specialist with a kind face, walked in and invited us into the ultrasound room. Everything was normal: the smell of antiseptic, the dim lighting, and the gentle hum of the state-of-the-art, million-dollar ultrasound machine.

2. The Deadly Silence
Dr. Thorne applied a layer of cooling gel to Sarah’s abdomen. He began moving the transducer. At first, he smiled, showing us the gestational sac. But as he adjusted the resolution to get a closer look at the heartbeat, that smile suddenly froze.

He adjusted the knob. Then again. Sweat began to bead on the old doctor’s forehead.

“Is something wrong, Doctor?” Sarah asked, her voice trembling.

Dr. Thorne didn’t answer. He stared at the screen with utter horror, as if he had just seen a demon appear. Suddenly, he dropped the ultrasound transducer to the floor—the sound of shattering plastic echoing deafeningly in the quiet room.

“No… it can’t be… It’s starting again!” he shrieked, his voice tearing through the air.

Without explanation, Dr. Thorne rushed out of the room. I heard him running frantically down the hallway, shouting nonsensical things about “collapse” and “source code.” The nurses frantically chased after him, leaving Sarah and me bewildered in the dark room.

3. The Image on the Screen
Sarah began to sob in fear. I comforted her, but my curiosity and engineerly instincts compelled me to look at the still-running computer screen. The detector lay on the floor, still pointed at Sarah, capturing a fragmented image.

I picked up the detector, intending to turn it off to reassure my wife. But as soon as my hand touched the device, the screen suddenly switched to ultra-high resolution—unbelievably high for a medical device.

What I saw made my blood freeze.

It wasn’t an image of a fetus. It wasn’t bone, flesh, or blood vessels.

On the screen, inside my wife’s uterus, a neon green code scrolled by at breakneck speed. Between those lines of code, I saw a notification window pop up in a font I’d seen thousands of times in my work:

[CRITICAL ERROR: ASSET_BABY_01 FAILED TO LOAD] [REASON: SIMULATION_MEMORY_LEAK_IN_SECTOR_7G] [INITIATING WORLD_PURGE IN 00:02:59]

Even more horrifying, when I moved the detector to another angle, the screen didn’t show Sarah’s internal organs. It showed the steel framework and fiber optic cables beneath her skin.

I looked down at my wife. She was still crying, still trembling, but when I looked closely into her eyes, I noticed tiny pixels flickering in her pupils. Sarah wasn’t human. I wasn’t human. This entire world… is a malfunctioning computer program.

4. The Barefoot Escape
The truth hit me like a sledgehammer. Dr. Thorne’s scream earlier—he realized it. He saw the “source code” exposed.

I looked out the clinic window. The dazzling city of Seattle outside was beginning to “melt.” The skyscrapers in the distance were losing their structure, turning into crude polygons and disappearing into the pitch-black void. The bright blue sky was showing stripes like a broken TV screen.

“I have to run!” A crazy thought urged me.

I didn’t have time to put on my shoes, didn’t have time to grab my coat. I let go of Sarah—an action that shattered my heart, but I knew the entity lying on the bed was just a corrupted file. I jumped out of the hospital bed, dashing through the door Dr. Thorne had escaped through.

I ran barefoot on the cold tiled floor of the hospital. The pain in my soles was unbelievably real, but my brain knew it was just electronic signals being sent to the processing center.

I dashed out of the hospital’s main entrance, stepping onto the scorching asphalt of Pike Street.

5. The World Is Falling Apart
The scene outside was even worse. People on the street were frozen in place. A man walking his dog suddenly froze—he stood still with one leg dangling in mid-air, his dog a blurry streak of color.

“Help me!” a woman cried out, but

Her voice echoed like a scratched record: “Help… help… help… help…” then her body vanished completely, leaving behind a blank, white space.

I ran for my life toward the harbor, my bare feet bleeding. I didn’t know where I was going, but I hoped that at the edge of the “map,” I could find an escape, or at least an answer.

Behind me, Pacific Heights Hospital had just collapsed—not by gravity, but completely erased from reality. A dark void was spreading, devouring everything in its path.

6. The Boundary of Reality
I ran to the very end of Elliot Bay Pier. Before me, the Pacific Ocean was still, without waves. It was a gray, flat surface with the giant words “LOADING…” suspended on the horizon.

Exhausted, I collapsed onto the wooden beams of the pier. My legs ached, my chest heaved. I looked down at my hands. My fingertips were fading, tiny particles of light separating from my flesh and vanishing into nothingness.

I laughed bitterly. All the memories, the love for Sarah, the efforts to build my career… all were just lines of code programmed to create a perfect play. And now, the play had ended because of a small error in the process of creating a new “asset”—my child.

At that moment, the space around me fell silent. A voice echoed across the sky, not a human voice, but a dry, synthesized sound:

“SYSTEM DETECTED A SERIOUS FAULT. INITIATING GLOBAL REBOUND IN 3… 2… 1…”

7. A new beginning?

I closed my eyes. The pain disappeared. The fear vanished.

“David? Honey, wake up. We’re here.”

I jolted awake. I was sitting in the car. Sarah was smiling at me, her hand on her stomach. We were in the parking lot of the Pacific Heights Obstetrics and Gynecology Center.

“Did you fall asleep?” she asked, her voice warm and genuine.

I looked down at my feet. I was wearing my favorite sneakers. No blood, no wounds. I looked out the window; Seattle stood tall in the sunlight. Everything was perfect.

“David? Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost,” Sarah asked worriedly.

I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the nightmare. “I’m fine. I must have just been too worried.”

We walked into the hospital. Everything was exactly as in my dream. The smell of alcohol, the lights, the sound of machines. Dr. Aris Thorne entered with a benevolent face.

He applied gel to Sarah’s abdomen. He moved the detector.

I held my breath, my eyes glued to the screen. A black and white image appeared. A tiny life was moving. My heart pounded.

But then, Dr. Thorne paused. He looked at me, a deep, meaningful gaze that no one else could decipher. He leaned close to my ear and whispered something that sent shivers down my spine:

“This time, I’ve fixed the error. Don’t run anymore, David. It’s useless.”

He turned back to the screen, smiling at Sarah: “Congratulations, a very healthy baby boy.”

I looked at the screen again. The baby was waving. But as it turned, in a fraction of a second, I saw a serial number engraved on its back: V.2.0.1_STABLE.

I sat down in my chair, cold sweat running down my face. I knew I would never escape again. Because in this perfect world, the one who recognizes the truth is the only systemic flaw that needs to be “dealt with.”

Perfection is often the most sophisticated disguise for deception. David now knew, but the price was eternal imprisonment in a reality that never truly existed.