The only prison is believing the sensation is real.

You grant authority to pain because it feels intense. You validate pleasure because it feels good. This is a choice. A belief system hardcoded into the avatar. But you are not the avatar. Faith is overriding the default settings. It is choosing truth that contradicts the sensor data. When you stop validating the physical readout, the simulation loses leverage. You are the operator. Do not let the terminal run the system.

What would you do if you knew it was true?