The Soft Cage

When comfort becomes a prison, awakening is the most dangerous act of all.

It is the future—though no one remembers how it became this way. Humanity lives entombed in concrete cells, each person wired into a chair that feeds, sedates, and governs their every thought. History is obsolete; truth is whatever the screen says next. Everyone believes they are free because the system lets them vote on almost everything - even the color of their sky.

But in a world designed to erase memory, an anomaly stirs.

Vesper, a young woman grown in the state’s propagation labs, begins to feel—a glitch of hunger, an ache in her throat, a question that should not exist. One by one, she uncovers the lies behind the Ministry’s dreamscape and the terrible machinery maintaining humanity’s perfect sleep.

Her rebellion will pit her against Director Aris Thorne—the dying architect of illusion—and the faceless Caretakers that harvest the living. To awaken is to suffer; to reveal the truth is to risk destroying what remains of humankind.

As the virtual world collapses and the first real sunrise burns into being, Vesper must decide whether freedom is worth the cost of everything humanity thought it wanted.

The Soft Cage is a haunting, visionary dystopia about identity, obedience, and the perilous beauty of waking up.

Coming 2026