Chapter 4

I woke up. Or rather, I didn’t really wake up, I just opened my eyes. I lazily stretched my arm to check the time. I had slept way too much, but still somehow felt tired. I hated this feeling. What was the point of sleep if it didn’t relieve the tiredness?

I stood up and walked into the kitchen. The apartment was empty. Liz must have already left for work.

I turned on the tea machine and sat at the table. There was a decision to be made. I rested my head on my hand, fingers covering my mouth. What should I do next? I had several options. The first was to continue my fake life, knowing I lived in a simulation. The second was to wipe my memory. There were probably other solutions, but I couldn’t think of any at that moment.

The first option was out of the question. The last two days had probably been the worst days of my life. I still felt terrible. Even now, sitting in my apartment, I felt this constant, annoying uneasiness. I hated the kitchen, the table I was sitting at, even the sound of the tea machine. Coming back home every day to a wife I didn’t love. Pretending that everything was okay. Going to a job I knew had no meaning. There was no way I could continue like this.

The real problem was that I hated the second option almost as much as the first. I knew that I had agreed to memory wipes many times in the past, but this time it was different. These memories belonged to me, not to the simulation machine like all the previous ones. I didn’t want to do it, but I saw no other choice.

There was still some time before my scheduled memory erasure procedure. During the next few days, I would continue my experiments. I still had that lingering hope. If I could find any proof that this world wasn’t a simulation, I could cancel the procedure. That was obviously impossible, but hope is a strange thing. Even the most rational people hold on to it for no reason.

So that was how my plan for the next few days was decided. I stood up, got dressed, and left the apartment.

Oh, I forgot about my tea. I only realized it after I had already left the building.

The day passed very similarly to the previous one, even though my activities were different. This time I went to a casino and spent almost the entire day there. I tried playing every game I could find. Some people would say that going to a casino isn’t the best way to test whether the world is real. But those people probably never experienced utter hopelessness. You know there is no way to prove anything. You also know that what you are trying to prove is wrong. And yet you keep trying.

I came back home as late as the day before. This time, Liz was already sleeping. I was glad.

I spent the next few days in a similar way. I would wake up exhausted. I would make myself some tea while thinking about new foolish ideas to prove that the world was real. Then I would drink the tea, or on some days forget to drink it at all, and go outside with the hope of experiencing something.

During those days, I tried more things than most people do in a year. Maybe even in a lifetime. I visited a zoo, an aqua park, took the hottest sauna I could find, went to the most crowded gym I could find and took a martial arts class, got a tattoo, went to a dentist even though I didn’t need to, visited a jail, a police station, a university lecture. I went to a forest, bathed in a river, tried to catch a fish, went to an empty field and spent the whole night there. On top of all that, I visited countless shops and cafes I encountered along the way.

I didn’t limit myself only to testing sensations. I wanted to feel something. I texted and met with an old friend, went to a random wedding, visited my parents’ old home, went on a date. I didn’t really like talking to people, but during those days I had more conversations than I had in the entire year before. The conversations were all kinds. Sometimes I asked uncomfortable questions. Sometimes I told bizarre lies. Sometimes I shared something deeply personal that I would never tell anyone under normal circumstances. I kept trying. Everything felt exactly as I expected it to feel. Exactly the same way it had felt in the simulation.

It was raining that day. The rain was heavy. There were no other people outside. I was standing alone. The raindrops were hitting my skin with force. My clothes quickly became soaked, and I clearly felt the cold water against my body. I didn’t flinch. I just stood there, looking up.

Even rain feels the same.

There was one day left before the memory erasure procedure. Of course, I could reschedule it at any time. But I didn’t want to. There was no reason to, and I couldn’t endure all of this much longer.

When I returned home, Liz immediately appeared in front of me.

“What are you doing? Where is your umbrella?”

“I didn’t check the weather.”

“You’re crazy. You’re going to get sick.” Her voice was a little higher than usual.

While I was undressing, she brought me a dry towel.

“Dry yourself. Your tea is ready. Drink it,” she said in her usual commanding tone.

“Thank you.”

We sat in the kitchen. I slowly sipped my tea. Liz was staring at me. It felt like she was expecting something, though I had no idea what it was. I wanted to get away from her somehow, so I started drinking my tea a little faster.

She sighed. “Did you forget?”

I went through every possible thing I could have forgotten. In my current condition, it could have been anything, from something trivial like groceries to something important like her birthday. I saw no way to lie my way out of this.

“Sorry. I’ve been really exhausted lately.”

She sighed again. “I thought you’d want to hear this. You’re usually interested in my simulation trips.”

“You visited a simulation?” I looked at her in surprise. I hadn’t expected that at all.

“Yes. I told you.”

“Oh. I remember now.” I didn’t actually remember her telling me, but I assumed she had mentioned it after my last simulation, which would explain why I didn’t recall it. I hadn’t been listening much during the last few days. “Tell me.”

She hesitated, gauging whether I was genuinely interested. When she seemed satisfied, she started her story.

She lived in a coastal city. It was a small one. Not a capital, not even among the ten largest cities in the country. She was an artist there. She wasn’t really Liz in that world. She had a strange name I couldn’t understand, so I kept calling her Liz in my head. She loved painting. She lived a quiet life. She had a small studio and taught at an art school.

“I wasn’t particularly happy,” she said after a pause. “But I wasn’t unhappy either.”

What surprised me most was how little she remembered. Usually, people retained at least some key details from their simulated lives. Family. Spouses. Friends. Important achievements. She remembered none of that. She didn’t even know whether she had been married.

The only things she remembered clearly were her paintings. She described many of them in detail. She mostly painted landscapes. The sea, forests, busy city streets. She remembered dozens of them. The one she remembered most vividly was her favorite.

It depicted a man near the sea. A single human figure, small, dressed in dark clothes, standing with his back turned to the viewer. He was so small that at first you might not even notice him. The sea occupied most of the canvas. It was dark and heavy. Above it, the sky was even larger. Gray and pale, stretching endlessly upward. There was no clear horizon separating the sea from the sky. They almost dissolved into one another.

She described it so vividly that I could picture it clearly in front of my eyes.

“I wish I could show them to you,” she said. That marked the end of her story.

“Have you already forgotten most of your paintings?” I asked.

“Yes. I painted hundreds of them. Maybe more.”

“Don’t you regret forgetting them?”

She looked puzzled. She clearly hadn’t expected the question.

“I wish I remembered them,” she said. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s no reason to feel sad.”

“But they were your paintings.”

“Now they’re just memories from a simulated reality. They were never real. I had an interesting experience there, but I have no reason to get attached to it.”

I understood her completely.

I finished my tea. Liz stood up to make me another cup.

I noticed something strange. Listening to her story was less unpleasant than all my other interactions with her. She still felt distant, the same way everything else in this simulation felt distant. But she was still closer to me than the rest of the world. If the world was as far from me as the sun, then she was as far as the moon.

Liz returned with a fresh cup of tea and some biscuits.

“Liz, can I ask you something strange?”

She raised her eyebrows slightly. “Sure.”

“Suppose that during your life in a simulation, you suddenly realized it was a simulation.”

“How would I know?” she asked.

“That doesn’t matter. Suppose you just remembered entering it. What would you do?”

She thought for a long time.

“I would leave it,” she finally said. “I’ve never enjoyed video games or movies as much as simulations. The whole point is that you don’t know you’re inside one. If I knew, it would become boring and meaningless. I’d leave as soon as possible.”

I thought about what she said. It seemed obvious. Now another option appeared. Until that moment, memory wipe had been the only choice. One erased the unbearable world. The other erased me.

The thought made a shiver run through my body.

“Is everything okay?” Liz had definitely noticed it.

“Do you want to sleep?”

“Not really. Why do you ask?”

“Maybe we could stay awake tonight?”

“I can’t stay up all night. I have to wake up early tomorrow.”

“Please. Just today.” I couldn’t explain to her that tomorrow wouldn’t exist for me.

She hesitated. “I can go to bed a little later. But not the whole night.”

“That’s fine.”

It was ironic. I had tried to avoid Liz as much as possible during the last few days, but now I didn’t want to let her go. I still didn’t feel love for her, as it would have been impossible to feel something as sacred as love for a simulated NPC. She wasn’t real, and I knew it. But I still had so many warm memories with her. I wanted to spend my last night in this world with her, even if she wasn't a real human.

We lay in bed, talking about nothing and everything. We remembered our favorite moments together, we laughed at small, stupid things. Time moved fast, much faster than it had during the previous days. At some point she suggested watching a movie, but I refused, as there was too little time left to waste it on something meaningless. We kept talking until, eventually, I heard her soft, almost silent snoring.

She was lying on my stomach. I carefully moved her onto the pillow, kissed her forehead, and left the room.

There were a few things to prepare for tomorrow. First, I made myself my last cup of tea, I made sure not to forget it this time. Then while I was getting dressed, I realized something.

I should leave a note for Liz.

I found a piece of paper and a pen. The blank sheet lay in front of me. I couldn’t think of anything to write. Leaving a note felt ridiculous. She wouldn’t be able to read it anyway. Still, I wanted to leave something. There was a chance that I was wrong, a chance that she would read it.

In the end, I wrote:

Liz,

I hope this note never reaches you.

If it does, I’m sorry.

I wanted to write “I love you” at the end, but I decided against it.

When the note was done, I finished getting dressed. It was still dark when I left the apartment. I took out my phone to find the information on farmacy location.

There was a reminder. My memory erasure procedure was scheduled for today at 15:00. A completely useless reminder.

In the end, I couldn’t live the lie.

I found what I needed, went to a pharmacy, and bought it. Everything was ready. I wandered aimlessly through the city. The heavy rain from the day before had stopped. There were no people outside and the complete calmness felt terrifying. You could have thought I was walking through a forest or somewhere in the mountains rather than through a large city. The only thing that reminded me where I was were the occasional cars, producing a brief splash followed by a long hiss as they passed through puddles.

Eventually, I reached a familiar place. A small area with a few benches and several lonely trees, where I chose a random bench and sat down.

Nothing happened. I was just sitting. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. I wasn’t listening to anything or looking at anything specific. I was just sitting. Time almost stopped. I thought I was ready, but no one is ever ready. I was stretching my last moments in this world.

The sun began to rise. Its light touched the buildings without changing them. My eyes landed on a nearby tree. Without really noticing it, I stood up and walked toward it. My hand touched the bark. I slowly ran my fingers over it.

It felt exactly as I expected. Exactly the same as in my previous simulation.

The sun continued to rise.

Liz will wake up soon.

The thought didn’t really make sense, but for some irrational reason I didn’t want her to read the note.

It was time.

I went back to the bench and sat down. I took a small bottle from my pocket and took a few pills.

My hands were cold. They shook slightly. I checked my pulse, expecting it to be fast, but it wasn’t. It was slower than usual. I was scared but calm at the same time. My thoughts drifted from one thing to another. I didn’t try to control them. I let them wander.

They grew quieter and quieter.

Then they stopped.