The Memory of Real
By AJ Stories
The first thing Aarush felt was pain.
Real, bone-deep, breath-stealing pain—not the kind you wake from, but the kind you wake into.
His eyes blinked open, heavy as if he hadn’t used them in years. Bright white lights pierced through, and the hum of machinery vibrated in the air around him.
“Subject A-97 is online,” a voice said calmly.
He tried to move, but thick cables ran from his limbs into metal ports. Needles punctured his skin. His throat was dry. He wanted to scream but only coughed.
“Vitals stable. Neural activity at 87%.”
“What… is this?” Aarush managed, barely audible.
The voice, female, spoke again. “Welcome back, Aarush. You’ve just exited the simulation.”
Memories came crashing—of his life.
His mother’s laughter as she served him mango pickle with rice. His first heartbreak in 12th grade. The smell of old books in his college library. Losing his father to cancer. Nights spent crying on rooftops. The warm touch of his wife, Meera. Their daughter’s first steps. The car crash. The hospital. The grief.
It had felt real.
But it wasn’t.
“You’ve been in the Sim for 27 years, subjective time,” the voice continued. “Your original body was placed here at age 14 for psychological trauma therapy.”
“I don’t understand,” Aarush croaked. “My life... my family...?”
“All digital constructs. A healing environment designed by your own subconscious to help you recover.”
He blinked, heart collapsing in his chest.
“So Meera… my daughter…”
“Were simulations. Emotionally generated, but not real.”
He turned his face to the side, tears sliding into the metal groove beneath his cheek.
“How do you expect me to heal now?”
A week passed in the recovery chamber.
Nurses fed him, cleaned him, helped him move again. His muscles had atrophied from lying dormant. He was now a 41-year-old man in a body that felt unfamiliar—worn by time he hadn’t consciously lived.
No one in the real world had visited him. No family. No friends.
His real name had always been Aarush, but there were no photographs of a wife named Meera. No record of a daughter.
Just him. A boy who entered a simulation for mental healing and woke up as a man who had loved and lost a digital life.
Dr. Raina was assigned as his psychological reintegration officer.
“The simulation was built from your childhood memories, trauma, and desires,” she explained gently. “Your mind filled in the rest.”
“But why would it give me happiness only to destroy it?” he asked.
“It didn’t destroy it,” she said. “It gave you purpose, connection, and emotional strength—things you lacked before entering.”
“And now?” he asked. “I wake up to a world that feels more fake than the fake one?”
She didn’t answer.
One night, Aarush snuck into the old simulation labs.
The interface still showed his life like a paused movie. He hovered over the moment Meera kissed his forehead for the last time. He played it again.
And again.
Her voice was so familiar it ached.
“I love you. Always.”
He stared at the screen and whispered back, “You weren’t real… but I was.”
The next morning, he asked Dr. Raina if he could see others who had experienced similar simulations.
“You’re the first subject whose sim ran uninterrupted to completion,” she replied. “Most break down early or beg to be unplugged.”
“But I didn’t.”
“No,” she said softly. “You thrived in it. You built a world full of meaning.”
He sighed. “Then what am I supposed to do now? Live in this… blank, cold world without the people I loved?”
She leaned forward. “What if you honored them instead?”
So he began writing.
Not code. Not reports.
But stories.
About a boy named Aarush who lost his father and found solace in sketching. About a woman named Meera who taught him to trust love again. About a child named Ira whose laughter healed the darkest corners of his soul.
He didn’t pretend they were real anymore.
But he wrote them as if they deserved to be real.
People read his stories. Some cried. Some said they saw reflections of their own grief. Some said they fell in love with Meera.
One day, a woman walked up to him at a public reading and said, “I lost my daughter. But when I read your story about Ira, it felt like she was talking to me again.”
Aarush broke into silent tears.
So did she.
Three years later, Aarush launched the “MemorySim” project—a voluntary simulation for people suffering from irreversible grief, PTSD, or terminal illness. The idea was controversial.
“Why trap people in a lie?” critics asked.
“Because healing often starts with a story,” Aarush replied.
One day, he entered a new test chamber—not as a patient, but as a designer.
He asked only for one thing before entering.
“Let Meera be there. But this time… let her know everything.”
The simulation loaded.
There she stood—on a terrace at sunset, her scarf dancing in the wind.
She turned.
Smiled.
“I was waiting.”
Story Summary — The Memory of Real
When Aarush wakes up to discover his entire life—his love, his child, his pain—was all part of a simulation designed to heal his childhood trauma, the truth shatters him. In a cold, sterile world where none of the people he loved exist, he must find new meaning. As he learns to honor the memories of a life that never truly happened, Aarush transforms his grief into purpose—creating stories and technologies that help others heal, just like he once did.
A deeply emotional journey about love, loss, and the power of choosing what feels real.
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