s/&/\\&/g; Otherwise, safe_exit is immediately called. Also, I tend to wrap sub's similar to safe_exit in lexical blocks and prevent them from being called more than once. e.g.

use Term::ReadKey;
{
    my $called = 0;
    sub safe_exit {
        print "safe_exit called $called times before\n";
        return if $called++;
        # disconnect from DB, etc. (things that should only be done on
+ce)
        ReadMode 'normal';
        print "Exiting safely\n";
        print "exit(@_)\n" if @_;
        exit @_;
    }
}
$SIG{$_} = \&safe_exit for qw/INT QUIT __DIE__/;
END { safe_exit(); }

ReadMode 'cbreak';
print "Entering loop. Try: kill -INT $$, to see that I exit safely.\nH
+it 'x' to see me die.\n";
while (1) {
    next unless defined(my $key = ReadKey);
    print "In the loop, got: $key\n";
    last if $key eq 'q';
    die "with this error message" if $key eq 'x';
}
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