https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...=pocket-newtab

“There’s a lot on Horizon Worlds,” Othertiger says. “There’s dark ****. There’s funny ****. There’s weird ****. I can show you, if you want.” Then to the others, “What do you say, you want to take a trip?”

The others are onboard: BusinessAlum, LightningWitchBabe, Cauliflowerbouquet. On Othertiger’s instructions, the five of us bump fists together. A big blue ball appears and expands outward. Now we’re all in a party together, meaning we can teleport to the same places and hear one another wherever we go. A portal appears before us and, with it, a sense of excitement — communal excitement.

We find ourselves in a gently glowing white corridor. “See how it’s all nice and peaceful?” Othertiger says. We proceed along the corridor till we come to a huge black door. We pass through it into a very different space: a church dedicated to Satan. The floor here is dark red; the walls are black and covered with occult symbols and bestial masks. Rock music is playing. “There used to be strippers,” Othertiger says, “but Meta made them get rid of them.”

We take masks from the walls and put them on, then proceed into the church proper, where there are pews in rows, an altar with a large upside-down cross, and a goat-headed statue with hail SATAN written above it.

Othertiger gets up on the altar. “They’ve got this cool thing where if someone hits you with one of the staffs, you get sent to hell,” he says.

“The music should be scarier,” BusinessAlum observes. He’s right — it’s the kind of leather-pants L.A. rock Johnny Depp might play. “They do actually have Black Masses and **** here,” Othertiger assures us.

BusinessAlum and I are quite keen to see hell, so Othertiger asks FetalAbnormality, a friend of his who has just joined us, to go get a staff. FetalAbnormality hits us with the staff. BusinessAlum disappears. Then I disappear.

We rematerialize in a very small red room, not much more than a box. There are bars in the walls through which we can see the church below us. As far as hell goes, we agree we expected more. After a few seconds, Othertiger appears. Before I can ask him any questions, he and BusinessAlum dematerialize. I, however, am still in hell. “Guys?” I say. For a moment, I can still hear them, talking and laughing. Then there is silence.

I spend what seems like several minutes there in the small red chamber. I note to myself that my life — my real, finite, human life — is slowly passing while I stand in my office room with a headset on, voluntarily trapped in a pixelated representation of hell. “Guys?” I say again. “BusinessAlum?”

At last, I give up and quit the program. For a moment, nothing happens, and I’m seized with panic that the program won’t quit and, furthermore, that when I take off the headset I’ll still be here, in hell.