Cold, dark, wet, pain, and death. Those were the last things George was to experience in his miserable life. There were plenty of beautiful things to see and experience during one's life, but unfortunately George was unable to see anything but an endless abyss. Deep down, that is what he chose instead. And so he jumped into the waters.
As he was engulfed by the freezing water, George was reminded of the times he swam in the pool as a kid. Not that it meant anything or that it made him feel better. It was just a fact that his brain presented to him at that moment. As if pushing that moment away, he exhaled all the air in his lungs and began to sink.
He began to feel warmth. Normal when you die by drowning, right? He waited for the inevitable.
And waited.
And waited...
Something wasn't right.
George felt around and discovered that he was floating around in some sort of container, and that he had some sort of cord running into his stomach from the wall. After being confused for a moment he realized that he must have been saved. Odd that there were no nurses around or anything at his time of awakening... He felt around him and discovered that the walls made a crackling sound when he pushed on them. He pushed more and the container burst open, spilling him out onto the floor and tearing the cord in half. George screamed but all that came out was water. He passed out from the pain.
When George awoke again he lay on the ground for several minutes before his eyesight distinguished anything. It was very dark, but he was able to discern his surroundings to a point. His container appeared to be made of some sort of deteriorated substance on the outside, with a thin fleshy inside. The fleshy inside extended through the top and bottom of the metal in cables, to join other cables of other compositions running along the walls, ceiling, and floor. George lay on top of a myriad of these cables running down a corridor. Along this corridor he saw other containers that were as deteriorated as his, but not yet broken. He felt very sick both in body and mind.
Suddenly he realized that gravity felt a lot less powerful than he remembered. Despite his state, George was able to crawl across the corridor on his hands and knees towards the source of the feeble light. He found the entrance to a sort of angled tube in the wall with rungs for climbing. The source of the light led through here...
After numerous rests along the way he was able to make it through an opening to a vast cylindrical chamber with countless other identical openings. There was a window at the flat end of the cylinder, and as George looked he saw a red dwarf star like a massive red eye staring back at him. He was in a space station orbiting a red dwarf star.
After feeling very sick in both body and mind, he suddenly noticed a pedestal nearby. Pulling himself up on it to stand, George found words etched deep onto a metal tablet on the surface:
"If you're reading this, it means something happened that was not supposed to. Or it may be that the life of this station is ending. Anyway, the truth is that mankind is running out of usable energy in the universe. The only stars that exist anymore are a few scattered dwarf stars, as they are the ones that live the longest. And so humanity is forced to live using the least possible amount of energy possible and storing the rest. This means we must live in simulations to conserve the most amount of energy possible. If you escaped your pod before dying of old age or planned termination, being liquidated, and reborn, you cannot re-enter the simulation. On the other side of this tablet is a map of the station where, in addition to other places, you can find a chamber containing all the collective information that humanity has ever assembled. With access to the food and water systems, of course. You have a choice: either give up your body to be turned into nutrients, or try to find a way to escape the death of the universe, however impossible it is."