The year was 2163, but most of humanity did not know or care about it anymore. Time did not mean what it used to and death was not considered to be a tragedy by anyone. The people stopped trying to pretend to be something they were not because there was no need to save any kind of appearances anymore. In a way, these were the most honest times that the human civilization had ever experienced.

The Sun explosion of 2149 had made most people blind, and some deaf as well. The experts had initially warned about the potential hazards, but later changed their minds and announced that it was safe to watch it wearing nothing but "dark sunglasses". Some influencers who had read that the eyes could suffer no permanent damage from looking directly into the Sun, had also decided for their followers that no extra protection was needed. The governments, who were not hiding that they could control the weather, made sure that all the biggest cities of the planet would have a clear blue sky at the time of the explosion. 
The solar event had been heavily promoted for months and not even the most isolated people in the world would remain unaware of the coming event. They would ask their friends questions like "where are you going to watch it?" or declare  "I wouldn't miss it for the world". 
There was a huge debate around the coming explosion, new scientists and experts, even some cults and sun worshipers would attach a great significance to it. Some would say that it could mean the end of our solar system and of life on Earth. Life on the planet would go on, but humanity would embark on an irreversible course to damnation.  
The Sun flares were indeed the most powerful in recorded history and no one could really understand the consequences of an explosion of that magnitude. 

The show was unique, the spectrum of colors and the unbelievably bright, beautiful lights had mesmerized all the onlookers to such an extent that even when their retinas were being burnt beyond repair, they were still smiling. 

The ones who were in the right place at the time when it happened or had the instinct to hide were very few. They were now either rulers of the world or part of the Resistance, trying to protect nobody but themselves.
The most powerful and ruthless among the rulers were the prisoners of the darkest underground cells. Those were the prisons where the most heinous criminals had been incarcerated at the time of the explosion. They had been serving life sentences or were on death row*. The soon to be blind guards had left them unattended because they all wanted to watch the phenomenon. The prisoners needed very little time to break free and just over 10 years to organize and take over the world. They re-formed the gangs, reinforced them, adding more and more members, they shared the continents and countries amongst themselves, ruled through fear, abuse and violence. Their absolute power was beyond question, it would surprise no one that they were killing all who would challenge them.  

*The death penalty was a relatively new thing in 2139 and had been abolished and then reintroduced several times throughout the decades, depending on the media's shift in direction, political regime and especially when the public outrage was stirred by some particularly gruesome murders. The most significant moment in criminal criminal law history happened in the year 2055, when Pascal Tirbutiwi had become the most notorious neuroscientist on the planet. He had published and successfully promoted his studies and scientific work which proved beyond any doubt that humans could never possess free will.  Once the theory was accepted, it followed that due to the lack of free will, nobody should not be held accountable for their actions. After the whole scientific community got behind this study, it triggered an unprecedented reform in the justice system, which of course could only operate on the assumption that people are responsible for their actions.  

In the year 2160, the advancements in the field of neuroscience had allowed the scientists to capture and record what people were dreaming. The recording was an accurate motion picture of the all the dreams and it included all the characters and the events that had taken place within the oneiric realm. The dreamer could re-watch everything in VR.

Shortly after this incredible experience became available, an even more powerful one was developed and perfected by the same scientists. They managed to create a VR Set that allowed the users to live other people's dreams and later completely evade their own reality and engage in an alternative scenario which they could choose in advance.
Once the technology had been perfected, the inventors were all assassinated by the Rulers who had secured all the data and know-how. They had a group of 250 people connect their brains to the machines while they were having multiple sexual experiences in different settings, with different partners of different sexes. Whosoever would put on a VR set loaded with this " recorded reality" would have an incredibly vivid experience, exactly like the ones of the protagonist. They could feel the same pleasure, pain, the smells, the tastes, they could see, touch, hear.  Once connected to the specific experience that they had they paid for, the users' brains released adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins in the exact same way as in the "real" world. And here, they could also see again!!  Humanity now had the possibility to connect to an alternative Universe and there was no turning back.