1. A Declaration Against Nature

On June 15, 2030, Elon Musk appeared on the stage of the “Neuralink Night” event looking unnervingly alert. He drank no coffee and had no dark circles under his eyes, despite having just completed a grueling 120-hour work week.

“Humanity is an obsolete machine,” Musk began, his voice echoing through the pin-drop silent hall. “We waste one-third of our lives lying motionless in the dark. Sleep is a horrific waste of biological resources. Today, we end that waste.”

On the giant screen, the logo for the service package “The 25th Hour” flashed. It was a neckband as thin as a silk thread, integrated with millions of biosensors. Musk claimed: with just 10 minutes of wearing this device, the brain would be placed into a “super-rest” state, regenerating energy equivalent to 8 hours of deep sleep. The world exploded. Tesla and Neuralink stocks hit the ceiling. Humanity believed they had finally found the key to becoming gods.

2. A World Without Sleep

Within just three months, “The 25th Hour” became an inseparable part of every social class. Corporations began requiring 20-hour workdays. Students studied for exams without needing rest. Cities that “never sleep” like New York or Tokyo were now truly ablaze 24/7, with labor productivity skyrocketing by 300%.

David, a top-tier programmer, was among the first to experience the “VIP Platinum” package. Every night, instead of reclining on a soft bed, he simply sat in his chair, strapped the band around his neck, and pressed “Sync.” Ten minutes passed like a blink of an eye, and he awoke with a burst of explosive energy, ready for the next 23 hours and 50 minutes of work.

But after a month, David began to notice a vast void in his mind. He no longer dreamed. The dreams of beaches, of his late mother, or even strange, vivid nightmares—all had vanished. His mind was clean and arid, like a hard drive that had just been formatted.

3. The Vault of Stolen Dreams

Curiosity led David to hack into the cloud database of “The 25th Hour.” He discovered that the device did not “eliminate” the need for sleep. It simply compressed the brain’s data processing and… extracted all the brainwaves associated with Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep to a central server at Musk’s secret headquarters in Texas.

David managed to infiltrate the facility under the guise of a maintenance engineer. At the operations center, he stood frozen before a gargantuan room filled with tens of thousands of glowing crystal spheres. Each sphere vibrated with ethereal colors.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A voice echoed from behind. It was Elon Musk. He stood before a massive screen where millions of flickering images of humanity’s dreams were being projected: first kisses, secret terrors, and the wildest creative ideas.

“What are you doing?” David asked, trembling. “Why are you taking their dreams?”

4. The Ultimate Metaverse

Musk turned around, his eyes showing no malice, only a cold, clinical fanaticism.

“David, humans cannot live without dreams, but they also cannot conquer the universe if they spend half their time sleeping. I have separated the two. In the real world, they are efficient workers, tireless warriors. But here…” Musk pointed to the screen, “…I am using the combined ‘dream energy’ of 8 billion people to build the ultimate metaverse. A place where we can live eternally within the most beautiful illusions the human brain has ever created.”

Musk revealed this was the final plan. Earth was depleting. Mars was a harsh, unforgiving planet. The only way for humanity to survive in the long term was to leave their biological bodies behind, upload their consciousness into “The 25th Hour,” and live forever inside this collective dream vault.

“I am not stealing their dreams,” Musk said softly. “I am preserving them before the real world fades away.”

5. The Price of Awakening

David saw his own name on a crystal sphere. He touched it and instantly, a flood of memories rushed back: he saw himself running through a green field, smelled the rain, felt the warmth of the woman he loved. Those things could not be found in the 23 hours and 50 minutes of high-productivity work outside.

He realized that without dreams, humans were merely machines made of flesh and bone. Musk’s efficiency was a prison without bars.

That night, David sought to destroy the central processor. But as his hand hovered over the kill switch, he hesitated. He looked out the window: millions of people out there were happy because they had more time. They had money, they had careers, they were building skyscrapers. If he destroyed the system, billions would collapse from exhaustion instantly. Their bodies no longer remembered how to sleep naturally.

6. The Aftermath of a Sleepless Kingdom

A year later, Elon Musk officially launched the “Eternal Dream” service. Humans no longer needed to wake up. They lay in Tesla pods, wearing “The 25th Hour” devices forever.

The Earth grew silent. Tesla robots automatically operated the factories to maintain power for the servers. Elon Musk was the only one left awake. He sat on the balcony of the tallest tower, looking down at the silent planet, the silver band still around his neck.

He had given humanity time, but he had taken away their reality. He had won the race against time, only to become the lone king of a kingdom of sleepers.

In his final digital journal entry, Musk wrote: “I gave them the 25th hour so they could reach the stars. But it turns out the most beautiful stars were in the very dreams they discarded for the sake of staying awake.”

Out in space, the Starlink satellites continued to shimmer, silently transmitting billions of gigabytes of brilliant dreams into the void, where time no longer held any meaning.