Simulation

I don’t know when it first became obvious to me. Maybe it was just the little things. Stuff going missing, various small objects being moved without me touching them. Honestly, I never thought of it as something so much bigger than any of us could even comprehend.

Then, things quickly became more and more... bizarre. A pen I dropped at work completely disappeared. I looked for that thing for ages, in between each and every desk in the entire damn room, every nook and cranny, and I never found it. My computer would stop working for no apparent reason. I found a book in my bookshelf that I had no recollection of buying. It was especially difficult to explain how my furniture would move on its own.

I thought it was just a combination of stress and not remembering stuff when I got drunk. That had to be it.

One of my co-workers, Anna. Lovely girl. Enjoyed her job and was nice to people. I only knew her because she worked at the desk across from me, and didn’t mind lending me a hand or two when I needed it. She’s gone. Not dead, at least, not as far as I know of, but one day, she just never came in. I initially dismissed it as her just being sick or on vacation or something, but after a week had passed and I didn’t hear from her or see her at work, I decided to ask my boss about Anna, if she’d left the job or what.

And he gave me a weird look, like I’d grown a second head. He told me there was never a worker here by that name.

It was hard to believe he’d forgotten her like that. Between his terrifyingly good memory and Anna being a Russian immigrant, it was next to impossible for someone like her to be forgotten so easily. And my boss was always a stick in the mud, as well, so he wouldn’t joke around like that.

I asked around the office. Someone had to know where Anna was. But every single person I asked, down to the last janitor, never heard of her or saw her. Anna completely vanished, erased from existence.

I tried my damndest to get the terror I felt out of my memory. I continued doing my job, albeit knowing everyone thought I was losing my mind. Enough time passed that, eventually, the whole thing slipped my mind. I had much more important things to worry about, reports, deadlines, projects, et cetera.

But then it was me being forgotten about. Not a single damn person recognized me. I might have been your everyday office worker, but I still had friends! A few coworkers I could have an easy chat with, some people I went to school with, I even was regularly meeting up with a girl I'd met at my gym! And they all just... forgot me! Just like that!

Even my own family. It completely broke my heart when my own mother and father only ever remembered raising my sister. All the good times of me and her messing around as kids, fighting over toys, annoying each other, sharing our experiences. She didn't remember any of it with me. And my parents. They don't remember attending my graduation, me moving away from home, them surprising me with my first car. It tore me apart to know that the lifetime of memories I'd made with my family was just nonexistent to them.

At work, not even my boss recognized me. Even had security called on me with the ruckus I caused. I managed to convince him to search up my name on the employee file in his computer, and my name wasn't on there. I was working there for 3 and a half years, and in just one day, it was all reduced to nothing. All I'd made of myself was reduced to nothing.

My entire life was just gone.

I don't know what happened. That's the worst part about it. I will likely never know for sure how things ended up like this.

But I do know one thing.

I do know that you're watching me.

Yes, you. I don't know if you're some kind of god, or an alien, or what, but you're watching me, you're dictating what goes on in my life, you're controlling exactly what happens to me. I don't know if I did something wrong, or if I pissed you off on the wrong day, but I know you're able to command every single aspect of everything around me, down to the smallest details. When something happens, you're always behind it. There is no reasonable explanation for anything that's happening in my life. You're controlling all of it. That's the only way that it makes sense, you have to be the one making people forget me.

It's absolutely terrifying how you're able to do that with no repercussions or anything. No consequences to manipulating the lives of innocent people just for your own amusement.

Therefore, I refuse to bow down. I will not do anything, no matter how compelled I feel. I’d rather die than let you take away what little self-control I still have. I won't go to work, no matter how badly I need the money. I won't go back to school. I won't find a new job. I won’t talk to anyone. I don’t care if it kills me, or drives me insane.

I refuse to play along with this little life game you have set up for me.