Prompt 1:

Once you unplug yourself from the matrix, there's no going back. No matter how hard you try. Darnell woke up one day with the certainty that his life was just a simulation. The classic brain in a vat scenario - essentially, the very essence of solipsism, nothing but the mind can ever truly be considered real, all else could be external stimulus to simulate reality. And once he'd discovered that, well, it's pretty easy to come to terms with, isn't it? If he really is just a brain in a jar, part of a simulation, then what choice does he have but to continue participating in the only life he's ever known? And if there are outside forces pulling on the threads of fate, then his actions aren't his own, and he's following a predetermined path already and the desires and drives he feels day to day are parts of that very same fate. In essence, it doesn't really change anything. Just gotta keep going.