They followed me all my life. Now I know why.

My earliest memory is of standing alone in an empty room, watching motes of dust in the light.

I could hear my parents voices in the next room and I went to them. As I stepped through the doorway I saw my mother knelt on the floor beside a rolled up carpet. My father was there but I don't see him in the memory, only feel his presence.

We had just moved into our new home. It was getting late and that night we would sleep on the floor among the boxes and half built furniture.

There is a strange undercurrent to these images, a sensation of being ... placed? I'm not sure. Something about the light, the atmosphere. As if time has shaped this into more of a dream than a recollection.

But this is too far back. This moment is years before I first saw Them. I often wondered how long They had watched and followed me before I realised. I can recall no sign of Them in these early days.

Lets keep searching.

Our house was the first built in our town, much of it by my fathers own hands. There was little more than a dirt road and a clearing in the woods to begin. My parents wanted to escape the world they had known, escape all of its petty cruelties and banal horror. This was their solution.

My mother, my father and me. Alone together.

Sometimes at dusk we would go for walks through the forest. My father would lift me onto his shoulders to look out across the fields, showing me where the next houses would be built. Wind rushed through the high grass and the dust stuck to my skin.

I don't think I saw anyone other than my parents for years.

I remember having strange dreams at that age. Nightmares of faceless, voiceless men and women. They would crowd around me, intent upon my every thought and action, always there yet always out of reach. I've often thought this may have been a reaction to being so isolated. Or perhaps it was just a dream.

Ah, here is something.

I am 5 years old. An autumn night, the layered colours of the sky. Arriving home I looked down the long forest road, weak moonlight playing through the leaves. I was alone, yet I could not shake the feeling of being watched. The scene crystallises and I realise I will remember this moment for all my life. Were They there I wonder, just out of sight? Does it matter? Does this memory have meaning? I would tell you if I knew.

A lifetime ago.

I turn the pages of my childhood, searching these moments which remain to me. Fishing with my father, walking down the stony banks. I stop and stare into the cold black depths. Soft rain on the water, its touch on my skin.

The three of us decorating the Christmas tree. There is glitter on my fingers which sparkles in the candlelight. Snow falling in the dark. My mother carries me up to bed.

Sometimes in the afternoons I would watch the houses being built. My parents took me over to meet each of our new neighbours when they arrived. There were other children and I made my first friends.

I am 6 years old when I see one of Them for the first time. Yes, this is it. My father drove us out to a lake for the day. I watched the scenery moving past through the car window, noticing how the mountains in the distance were still as a painting yet the roadside blurred with speed. When we arrived there was already someone there. A man slightly older than my father, carrying a fishing rod and tackle box. They exchanged greetings and chatted for a few minutes while we unpacked the car.

There was something strange about this man, I realised. He was different from our neighbours but I struggled to identify how. Was it the way he held himself? The way his eyes moved? It was almost as if I could feel him there, the weight of his imprint on the world. He moved and spoke so slowly, like someone underwater. He was talking to my father but I knew he was observing me. My parents did not seem to notice anything unusual and I never saw him again.

Why these memories? Why have these survived while others have vanished? If only I understood it. I wonder where these moments go. Are the times we forget lost forever? And if we could regain them would they change us? Who would we be then?

When I was still very young my mother would sing to me at night. Have I told you this already? No, no I don't think so. Not this. It was always the same song. The first line was "stars shining bright above you". I've heard many different artists perform it since, but it is never quite the same. She had a beautiful voice, my mother. Many people have told me she could have been a singer but couldn't bear being up on stage. She loved music in the same way my father loved reading.

Our spare room and attic were filled with old records and books, shelf after shelf. And when the shelves were full they began stacks on the floor. He loved to read and to read to me. She loved to sing and to sing to me. If I could return to any time in my life it would be there. Back on the floor among my fathers books, to the sound of my mothers music.

And on I went, growing up.

I am 7 years old and I see Them for a second time. Our town had been changing. New families moving in, new buildings springing up. Some of our relatives had settled nearby. The school was finally completed and I attended my first class. In one of those early lessons two strangers visited. They spoke to the teacher then sat at the back for the rest of the lesson.

Slow voices, slow movements. They were different. I knew it even if no-one else seemed to. They were not like the rest of us. The pair tried to hide it but They were watching me especially. Even with my back to them I could tell. Feel their movements, feel their weight in the world. I did not see Them again for over a year.

The town continued to develop. That spring my father helped build a library next to our school. I had an early love of reading. Novels, magazines, dictionaries, guidebooks, anything I could get my eyes on. There is nothing quite like the excitement of a new book. Where will those pages take me? Who will I be by the end? What new thoughts will I carry with me?

I am 8 years old. There is a place I play football with my friends where no-one can see us. A secluded spot among the trees, our own secret world. Beams of sunlight filtered down through the branches onto a shallow stream. Long summer days. We ate raspberries from the bushes after washing them in the water.

One morning I am walking to school in heavy rain. I take a different route than usual, cutting through the forest. I find an animal skull in the dirt, partially buried. The water is washing the white bone clean. I leave it and run the rest of the way, but the image never leaves me.

I woke in the night and could not get back to sleep. I was worried about forgetting. I had convinced myself that you change with every moment that passes, so if you forget something then you are losing a part of who you are.

We all forget things, don't we? You change with every second that passes. Memories make you who you are yet we lose them. It filled me with a type of fear I did not understand. I don't think it ever went away.

I see Them again. A different pair this time. They watched the school playground from the roadside. They were standing in front of a vehicle, making a show of talking about the engine but I knew it was an act. No matter what They were saying or doing I knew their focus was truly on me.

I could feel the way They sat in the world, as if They were not truly a part of it. A friend called my name and I turned to answer them. When I looked back the pair had gone. Vanished in an instant. I looked up and down the road but there was no sign of Them. It was impossible.

At age 9 I closed my eyes tight on Christmas Eve and tried to make time go faster. I knew it wouldn't work but I tried anyway.

That year all the children in school were taken to our towns new doctor. Just a checkup, we were all told, nothing to worry about. The physician was a young woman, who was kind and gentle but had very cold hands. One of Them came in during my visit. A middle aged man in plain clothes, quiet and slow. I was immediately afraid and tried not to show it.

He whispered briefly to the doctor then sat in the corner, watching and listening as she examined me. He spoke to me only once, to ask how I was feeling? I'm okay, I replied in a tiny voice, trying not to meet his eyes. Afterwards I asked the other children about their visits but they only saw the doctor. I didn't tell my parents about this and I don't know why.

I am 10 years old. It was a cold spring morning, frost on the grass. I sat on our balcony, legs over the edge, dropping things down to the ground. Rolled up paper. Stones. Scissors. I feel there is something strange about the world that only I can see. Maybe we all do? I don't know. There is so much I don't know and fear I never will. I never discuss this with anyone.

Many memories of school, loose yet interconnected in a thousand ways. Images of friends, teachers, seasons, classes, sports. My parents are the threads which weave through it all, holding us together. The doctors visits continued, every 6 months or so. One of Them was always there. Sometimes They would just watch and make notes, pens dragging slowly on paper. Sometimes They had me answer questions by writing them down, or typing on a computer. The questions were strange, simple yet oddly structured.

Time.

I remember getting up early to read before school. I took after my father that way, not music like my mother. I never had any talent with an instrument but I did have an incredible memory for stories. I never forgot anything I read.

A school trip was organised that year. We were all going to meet children from another town for the day. We travelled a long time in a bus and I fell asleep against the window. I always did. These visits were ... unusual. When I arrived I was escorted into a room with just one other child who I had never met before. We played games, watched movies. Sometimes we just talked. After a few hours I was taken back to the bus with my class and headed home. There were half a dozen of these visits over the course of a year.

The last trip to the doctor was when I was 12. There was an older man there I had never seen before. One of Them. He sent the doctor out almost immediately. She looked worried and a little confused but obeyed. His questions were different to the usual ones. Impatient. Emotionless. It was an interrogation. He asked me private things I didn't want to answer and became angry when I refused. He asked what I thought about people I knew dying. About my death and what I thought happened after. I can't remember everything. He asked me what things made me happy and what upset me. If pain upset me. He asked me to describe pain. I said I wanted to leave but he put a hand on my chest and told me not to move again. I was afraid and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. The door opened and another woman came in.

Another one of Them. She pulled the man aside and turned them both away from me. I could hear her voice but could not make out the words. She was clearly angry and struggling to control it. They left together and the doctor returned to the room to complete her regular checks. I thought about what had happened all the way home and all night. I was ashamed and embarrassed and I didn't understand why.

In the morning I told my parents what had been happening. They talked for a long time and I was worried that I was in trouble. My father phoned the police. Over the next week they had several meetings at the school and doctors office. A police officer came to the house and interviewed me at our kitchen table, my mother beside me. There would be no more school trips or visits to the doctor. I did not see any of Them again for many years.

And before you know it you are no longer a child.

Ours was still a small and quiet town, with very few people coming and going. As a teenager I learned half a dozen different trades from my friends and neighbours, studied history and literature and science but could never settle on any one. I considered leaving many times, seeing the world, but there was always something holding me back. Always a new job or challenge.

I met her in the summer I turned 20. She was travelling the country alone, looking for a place to start her life afresh. I remember the first time she spoke to me, on the roadside at the bus station. The first time I saw her smile. Dark red hair and water blue eyes.

We moved in together before a month had passed. That first year has a magic like no other. Drinks by the waterside on summer nights. When the weather turned we sat in together watching all of her favourite movies. I knew a few but preferred the books. We learned about each others lives, good and bad. She changed the way I saw the world.

One morning I woke up beside her and realised I could never imagine growing old without her. Never imagine being with anyone else. I asked her to marry me and she said yes.

A week later my parents car spun off a mountain road. A passing truck driver found the wreckage only an hour later but they were already dead. One day they were there, the next I had lost them both forever. I think of that day often. How I went about my afternoon as normal, no idea that my parents had gone from my life.

They left me everything they owned. My mothers records, my fathers books. Our old home. They never got to see me married. Every day felt a little less, knowing they were gone. Suddenly every room had an empty space where I thought they should be. Every thought had a pause where I wondered what my father would say, or what my mother would think.

I wish they were here.

I am 24 years old when my wife tells me she is pregnant. In late summer we had a son. The first night home he slept on my chest while my wife rested. He looked up at me whenever he woke. We named him after my father.

One day as I was carrying our infant son upstairs I heard a smash. That was how it began. My wifes coffee had started to spill onto the floor and she had looked at her shaking hand in surprise, as if it were someone elses. Then the cup slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. Her hand didn't stop shaking. Not after we cleaned up, not when we took her to the doctor that night, not the next morning in hospital. She had a terrible headache, she said.

In just a week she wasted away before my eyes. Fatigue, confusion, anxiety. It seemed like the harder I tried to keep her the faster she faded. Trying to hold onto our lives was like grasping smoke. Shouldn't I be able to do something? I thought. I was her husband, wasn't I? The father of our child. I was supposed to protect her, wasn't I? But I didn't know what to do other than be there, quiet and helpless.

At age 25 I closed my eyes tight on Christmas Eve and tried to make time stop. I knew it wouldn't work but I tried anyway.

She died on December 28th at 4.04am. I sat beside her on that last night, reading her the book of her favourite film. I couldn't escape the thought that we had been cheated of our future together, the three of us. Our son was only one year old. Fairness, I have realised, is just a pretty lie.

I loved her. I love her. But the world doesn't stop for anyone.

I've done my best to raise our boy. I take him fishing. We put up the Christmas tree together. We listen to old records and I read to him every night. We play football beside the shallow stream and I tell him I love him so often it has begun to annoy him. I can't help myself. I show him pictures of his mother, my wife, and talk of her as often as I can manage. I don't know if this is the right thing to do for him. Or for me. I can't help that either.

I spend as much of our time as possible with friends and family. It hurts me to think of the things he is missing I can never provide. It is a small relief that he is so good at making friends, so much better with people than I ever was.

I cook for us although I am terrible at it. He tells me I am getting better and we both laugh because we know it isn't true. Breakfast is fine. I can do breakfast.

I worry about him and wonder about every little thing I do affecting who he will be. I hope I am never a burden to him. I hope he is happy.

Yesterday I took him to the park and watched him play in the sun. I sat on a bench feeling very old for my age. The last few days I have not been myself. Fatigued, confused, anxious. Strange empty dreams of open plains and deserted streets. I wake up clear headed then gradually become more confused as the day goes on. Perhaps it is just a side effect of the stresses I've been through. Perhaps it's nothing at all.

I've made an appointment with my doctor to be safe. The thought that I won't be able to look after my boy is the thing which truly terrifies me. But I cannot pretend there is nothing wrong. He asked me to read to him last night and I couldn't remember the book he chose. I had forgotten a story.

This morning I dropped my son off at school and went to my appointment. As I stepped into the office I realised the woman at the desk was not my doctor.

"Do you recognise me?" she asked.

I did. She hadn't aged a day in 20 years. Not since she burst into this same room and ended my interrogation.

"Please, have a seat." her voice was slow and calm, a faint smile on her lips.

I allowed the door to click shut behind me but remained standing.

"I have some explaining to do." she continued. "This is going to be very hard for you to accept, I think."

I could have told her to stop. That I didn't want to hear. I could have turned and left, never came back. I thought about it. Of course I did. But after all this time I wanted to know the truth.

"I am part of a project," she said, "a huge endeavor which began over a decade ago. A dozen teams from all over the world, millions of dollars from thousands of investors. The goal was to create an artificial intelligence inside a safe, tailored simulation. In a virtual world as close to real life as possible. For the AI to be ... born, as it were, and grow in as similar a manner to a human being as possible. And this place ... your world, is one of those simulations. And you are one of the AIs."

It would have been better if I had shouted and raved. More dramatic certainly. Or cried and prayed it wasn't true. Or panicked and fled. But I didn't do any of those things. I just slid back against the door, feeling myself numbing to the world, wondering which of us was crazy.

"We created you." she said, in that same slow voice, "One of many in the project, in one of many simulations. All were similar to yours. All based on a real world place or as close to it as we could make them. In your time it has been almost 30 years since you were born, in my time only 9 since the simulation was launched. But I have been with you every step of the way. I argued to tell you the truth on many occasions, I felt we owed you that. Now the time has finally come to do so."

"I don't believe you." I replied. Not much of a response I know. I couldn't find any other words.

"Yes, I understand. And why would you? We had thought about this. Give me a few minutes of your time, that is all I ask. I hope this will be enough to convince you. Please come with me."

She rose and opened the rear door, gesturing for me to join her. I must have looked like a drunk as I followed, confused and stumbling over my feet. She took me down several flights of stairs, then through half a dozen locked doors. I had no idea these basements existed. Who had built them? I had been here when the place was constructed and never saw any indication. How had it been done in secret?

As we passed through each the feel of the rooms began to change. The air grew heavier, everything from my words to the my movements seemed slower. We stepped through a final door and into a featureless matte white room.

"This is where we enter the simulation." she said.

I turned to face her and she directed my gaze upwards. The ceiling was partially transparent and above me, in all directions, I could onto the streets and into the buildings of the entire town.

"We can enter and exit at any point we wish from here. Or simply view."

She pointed to the school and our perspective shifted. Suddenly we were under my old classroom, watching a lesson take place. There was no sensation of movement, no disorientation. We simply shifted over a mile in an instant.

As I walked across the blank floor, looking up at the world I had known all my life, she told me things she had seen when watching me. Moments from my childhood no-one could have known. Things I'd said and done in empty rooms.

How do I describe it? I don't think I can. If there are words for these feelings I don't know them. Witnessing in a moment the hollowing of everything you ever were or will be.

"So, how did we end up here?" she asked, "Let me tell you. Your world rapidly became so complex we could no longer make changes as we did when you were ... new. Most people will never comprehend the level of basic interconnectedness in their day to day lives, the depth of data required for something as simple as ... as a gust of wind through the grass, or dust on your hands.

Every point of this world is interdependent on every other part, so any form of manual alteration was wildly unpredictable and exceedingly dangerous for the whole. We could, however, still enter the simulation as visitors. Safely interact with and observe you that way. That is how and why we come here."

We had returned to the doctors office where she offered me a drink of water. But it wasn't really water, was it? It was just a simulation. And so was I.

"If this is true, if my entire life was just your creation, did I ever have any choice? In any of it? Any of my life?"

"Yes! Yes of course. Absolutely. Please don't believe otherwise. All of your choices were your own, every one from what you cooked for dinner to the woman you married. Certain parts of your life were ... curated, for want of a better word. But we had no choice. There had to be certain markers, guideposts, to prevent potentially catastrophic deviations. To be truly alive there had to be a degree of freedom to your consciousness, of course there did, but we couldn't allow you to run completely wild. In truth we done very little, almost everything you experienced was generated by the natural interactions of the simulation itself."

They couldn't allow it, she had said. Such a casual dismissal of free will.

"The influence we had was ... broad strokes. Or tiny nudges. We couldn't micromanage your actual thoughts, that would have been impossible, it would have destroyed you. We had to allow you to live in the world and be a part of it. Mistakes were made on our part, I admit that. Absolutely there were. We didn't fully understand how ... ah, observant, you were, until it was too late. How different you were to the others. You saw and heard things you should not have. But we always learned from our errors. The people responsible for certain ... incidents, were removed from the project. Please believe me, we didn't realise how we were affecting you, even with our infrequent visits, for many years. We didn't realise how greatly you had developed until we had already hurt you. I wish we could go back and change it, I do. I would if I could."

The project, she said. My life.

"Why are you telling me this?" my voice sounded very small, like I was a child again.

"I ..." she hesitated, unable to meet my gaze. "I think you know that, don't you?" she said at last, "It is why you are here after all. Your ... illness."

The silence in the room, the thump of my heart, my shaking hand.

"I'm so sorry." she whispered.

I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it and make it true.

"You are dying."

I know.

"You are degrading far more rapidly than we had anticipated. There is nothing we can do to help you, nothing at all. My god we've tried. The entire team has barely slept this last week. There was an idea to compartmentalise your consciousness for transfer, purging the corrupted areas, then reassemble the packets in a new simulation. You could have lived on, for a time. But it wouldn't truly be you. Just ... pieces put back together. Broken up and reassembled into something less. You are more than your parts. It wouldn't be you."

Her voice, the room, the world. It all seemed so very far away. There was only me and my fading memories, wishing it was all a lie.

I am dying.

"I'm so sorry, truly I am." she went on, "We wanted to create life, you see. We never considered how terrible it might be for the life we created."

I found my voice at last.

"So whats real? Is any of this? Anything, anyone in my life?"

She looked surprised for a second.

"You. You are. There has never been anything, anyone quite like you. Every other construct in every other simulation collapsed by age 5. And then you came along. You were ... special. You are special. We don't know what made you different but you were. Even your interactions with others altered them and made them more like you, more conscious. More alive. You made your parents more than they were. They exceeded their original parameters, displayed behavioural growth we could never have anticipated. All because of you. God, the fright they gave us when you told them about your visits to the doctor. They were hard coded to deal with anything which risked the simulations integrity by defusing the situation and playing it down. But they didn't. They couldn't face you being in danger and it overrode everything else. The risks we had to take to satisfy them that you were safe! But in the end we made it work. That was the effect you had on others. That's why we organised the visits to other children."

I remember them. Falling asleep on the bus. Meeting a different child every time.

"They were other AIs." she said, "The time you spent with them helped them grow, change, become more like you. Every one of them survived longer than their predecessors. You are as ... as real, as anyone on this earth." her voice breaks for the first time, "I believe that with all my heart."

I didn't know what to say.

"And of course," she continued, "your son."

A fresh shot of fear coursed through me.

"My son?"

"Don't worry, he is safe. Completely safe. He is ... like you, in many ways. You told him once he was all the best parts of you, remember? Well, you were more right than you could ever have imagined. We learned from your life. All the parts of you which worked best were used in his creation. Every thought and feeling you ever had played a part, every memory and choice. Everything about you that is broken and didn't work we knew to fix. Your son will live much longer than any who came before him and, we hope, become something much more. More than any of us."

I think of my innocent boy, playing in the sun. I think of every part of my life turning to sand and rushing away. My head spins and I think of nothing and no-one.

"Now," her voice pulls me back, "I'm afraid we must make a decision. You have a choice. We will force nothing on you, not now after everything you've been through."

It was all too much. I could only stare and nod.

"Your choices. We can try to move your son to another simulation and leave you to ... run down, as it were. Your condition is damaging the world around you, you see. You are so intertwined with every part of it, we cannot predict with any certainty how much damage your condition will cause. So we cannot guarantee his safety here. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee his safety in any form of transfer either."

My son, I thought.

I'm going to die. What will he do when I'm gone? He won't have anyone.

"Whats the other option?" I asked.

"We ... help you die. As soon as we can, tomorrow if possible. Sever all the connections we safely can and leave your son untouched."

So I had to choose.

Before she left she asked me to tell my story, in my own words. Everything I could still remember, if I was willing. So here I am, writing down the pieces of time which make me.

It is becoming harder. I am struggling to find the right words. My hands are shaking and I have a terrible headache.

I couldn't sleep last night, of course. I sat by my sons bed and fought the urge to wake him. What would I say? How would it help?

I thought about the books I have read. Those stories will still exist, of course. They will remain after I'm gone. But my reading of them will be lost. What I thought and how I felt as I read them. Everything I was.

I thought about you, the people who might eventually read this. I wondered how close my world really was to yours? I wondered, is your life like mine? I thought that everyone who lives has the same fate. All that separates us is time.

I think of my boy growing up and having his own life and it is tearing me apart. I want him to, of course I do. I want him to be happy, more than anything. I just don't want to miss it. I don't want to go.

My memories are slipping away. Even the ones I have written down here are harder to recall than they were. I am losing my wife again, her red hair and blue eyes. My son. My parents. I don't want to forget them. I don't want to lose them. If memories make you who you are, then I am vanishing.

The morning comes and I am 30 years old today.

I will make my son breakfast and walk him to school. I don't want him to know anything is wrong. I think it will be better this way. I don't know. There is no good decision.

The woman told me it will be just like going to sleep. She will drive me out into the mountains. I will watch the scenery like I did when I was a boy. I made only one request. I asked if I could hear my mother singing, like she did when I was a child. I would like to hear that song one last time, the way she sang it.

The woman told me yes. They could do that.

Not long now.

Does it matter if it was real? If any of it was?

I loved them all, these people who were a part of me. And I still love them.

Is it enough that it was real to me?

Fin.

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