My family likes to sit at the coast of the bay and make grand plans for the future. We drink wine, and we smoke. We talk about the multibillion-dollar inheritance we’ll someday get when an attorney informs us the last member of my great-great grandfather’s secret, second family has died, and my father is their closest relative.

We’ve unanimously decided when that happens, we’ll buy the entire bay. No more tourists, we say, looking at one of the two monstrosities anchored in our tiny bay. Each city-ship that comes in daily has more passengers than the bay’s biggest town has residents.

We’ll sink one right outside the bay entrance, and leave its corpse as a warning to all the others.

We will only allow water travel by sail within our borders. No more waiting for hours, trying to pass the single road in town when the foreigners pour out of their gigantic metal tubs. We conclude outsiders will have access to the bay exclusively on weekends.

Suddenly, the lights on the opposite coast go out. This is a somewhat frequent occurrence, but it earns a standing ovation from our corner of the bay nonetheless. “That’s another thing,” says my mother. “We will enforce a curfew on certain days. Only candlelight will be allowed, so we can watch the stars without all this light pollution.”

She’s got a point I think as I shield my eyes from the neighbor’s floodlight.

“But on other, rarer days,” Mom continues. “We will have a festival of light. Think about it, fireworks and holograms in the sky!”

“Drones,” My brother chimes in.

“Projections on the water,” I say.

Dad’s best friend perks up, “And movies you can watch from the sea!” he sweeps a hand to indicate the mountains rising all around us.

“We should instate new religious holidays,” my adopted aunt contemplates. “We’ll introduce the cult of Machina Abramovich. The matron saint of clean dishes and soft hands.”

“Oh yes,” Dad agrees. “We’ll build her a grand cathedral, halfway up the mountain. People will make pilgrimages just to get a glimpse of her.” My brother and I can’t help but laugh.

I have my own suggestion, “I think Conchetina also deserves her own holiday.”

“Absolutely,” my aunt approves, adjusting her companion’s chubby plastic legs to sit more securely on her little handmade beach chair. “She’s a worldly woman! My daughter’s birthday deserves to be celebrated by the masses!”

“I’ll drink to that!” Dad cheers, and we all raise our glasses in Conchetina’s name.

I met the Witch of the Route 34 Gas-N-Go at three a.m. on a Tuesday in a particularly dusty part of Pennsylvania. I didn’t quite need gas, but there was a big hand-painted sign by the side of the highway that said Come See the Witch: Gas, Diesel, Coffee, Spells. My thermos was stone cold, so I thought I could refresh it, and that would be as good an excuse as any to see the Witch.

She was about twenty years younger than I thought she’d be, sitting in the gas station right next to the coffee bar, so close there were little splashes of flavor syrup on the edge of her table. It was a little folding table and she sat in a little folding chair. She looked me in the eyes as I turned away from the dark roast and said, “You missed your turn off five exits ago.”

And I said, “Shit.”

She said, “Go pay for your coffee.”

“Can I come back after?”

“Sure.”

I grabbed a sleeve of powdered donuts too, because it would be breakfast soon and I wouldn’t be stopping again.

“Do you want cards, or can I just tell you?” said the Witch as I sat down in the second little folding chair in front of her table.

“You can just tell me. How much?”

“Free. Who has time to care about money these days?” She had a paper cup with a cardboard sleeve and no lid by her elbow. She took a sip from it. I wondered if the Gas-N-Go gave her free coffee for being their witch, since I guess they weren’t paying her. “I used to be one of those Wiccany influencer types online, you know. Did tarot streams. The money was okay, but now I just don’t have the time to worry about it. I just don’t have the time.”

“I’m glad you’re still open,” I said.

“Lots of places are still open,” she said.

“I guess that’s true.”

“You’re heading in the right direction, but you don’t have enough time to get there.”

“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “Do you know a quicker route?”

She tapped her finger in the center of her bottom lip thoughtfully. “No.”

“Right. Can you tell me something useful?”

“Not really,” she said, and she sounded honestly sorry for it. “There isn’t such a thing as useful anymore. It’s all just little distractions. Coffee and fortune tellers. I can give you a charm, though, hang on.” She leaned over sideways, reaching into her bag where it was squished up against the coffee bar. She handed me a length of blue yarn with two soda tabs and some kind of bone tied at the end. “Hang this on your mirror, if you want.”

“Will it do anything?”

“It’ll make you think of me before you die. I’ll think of you too. It’s free, obviously.”

“Thanks.” It wasn’t a bad deal, all said. I was glad I’d stopped for coffee.

“Grandmother, look!” Off to the side of the path they walked every morning loomed a large, white tent. It stood in stark contrast against the bleak, gray landscape ravaged by years of weather extremes that fueled famines, pandemics, and wars. “Let’s go inside.”

The woman held the child back.

Spying the pair, a man hollered, “Step right up! A world of possibility awaits.”

“I want to see!” declared the child, mesmerized by a poster of a hummingbird.

The woman covered the child’s ears. “There are no possibilities, only death,” she snapped. “You know that.”

“Yes.” The man nodded. “Still, we’re not dead yet. We have three days.”

The woman scoffed. “Some choice: die a slow death along with this world, or visit the Center in three days, and . . .” She sighed. “An ignoble end to what’s left of humankind, either way.”

He pointed to the child. “She doesn’t know?”

“No. I can’t find the words. She’s so full of life—so inquisitive, caring, optimistic, kind. She’s a force of nature, this one, and she deserves better, but we can’t survive on her will to live alone.”

“Why not allow our simple sideshow acts to entertain you until then?”

“Your distractions will change nothing.”

“No, but perhaps you should let her have this.”

The child pulled away, tugging her grandmother toward the entrance. “Come on!”

“Alright, alright.”

Inside, the tent was enormous. The center corridor extended farther than they could see, with openings lining each side. People were coming and going, chattering among themselves about the marvels they had witnessed, things adults barely remembered and children knew only from stories.

In the first room, they watched in awe as spiders wove their webs. In another, seeds sprouted from rich, dark soil. They grew into plants that produced fragrant flowers, delicious vegetables, and luscious fruits. The child liked daisies and peaches the best but didn’t care for broccoli. In the next room, bees pollinated flowers and produced honey. “This is good!” the child squealed, when offered a taste. Further on, they saw birds build nests, hatch eggs, and teach their young to fly and sing.

They wound their way through the tent, and in each room were given glimpses of nature as it was, before it was spoiled by recklessness and greed. The grandmother wondered how it could be that everything appeared as if it was happening in real time; the child absorbed it all.

When they reached the end, the child asked, “Can we go again?”

“I’m afraid not,” the attendant said. “It’s time for you to go home.”

Hand in hand, they emerged with the other explorers—into a lush, welcoming world teeming with possibilities.

“How can this be?” the grandmother inquired. “How long were we inside?”

“Long enough for the world to heal.”

“Why us?”

“Them.” The attendant nodded at the children. “You’re right. They deserve better, and they need you to help them build a future. Teach them to do things right this time.”

We stand under the air-conditioned vents and watch from our enclosed bubbles as the most powerful human stands outside among the sun’s hellfire, hand-like rays punching him.

“Give it up for the Great, the Spectacular Titus,” Lew Graham screams through the speakers. He emerges from his broadcast booth in yellow coveralls with a radiation shield strapped to his head. Hands raised in the air, he prances around the arena. We throw our heads back and chant, “Titus, Titus.” The vents send an echo across the sheltered arena.

The timer above Titus displays the nine minutes he’s stood with us, muscles taut. A record. Even Oil Can Harry, dubbed the great Helios by his stans, can’t withstand the unfiltered sun for more than eight minutes and forty-five seconds. And that’s because of his mutant abilities from surviving an exploding oil catch can. Titus doesn’t need his armor of patchwork skin and scar tissue.

Myra leans in forward until her nose presses against the insulated glass. I yank her back by her shirt’s collar. While we’re safe inside, the glass isn’t foolproof. I’ve seen parents throw their howling children over their shoulders and carry them to the medical tent, palms cinched from pressing on the glass for too long.

When he hits ten minutes, a chirp sounds, and Titus bounces his pecs. Left, right, left. White flecks of skin fall off. His black skin now pockmarked and maroon. Surrounded by nothing except the glass ring filled with spectators, he shines under the light like an organism under a stethoscope. Beads of sweat drip down his forehead, past his chin, and onto the cracked earth. I see his eyes squint against the sun’s glare. We all do and crane our necks forward, faces inches away from the glass.

We watch him bend his shoulder blades inward and turn his head away from the eye of our monster. He bites his blistered lips, shriveled and purple from the sun, and clenches his hands into fists. Parents cover their children’s eyes with their hands and press them close to their bodies.

Inside the tinted announcer box, Lew holds fast to the doorknob. Head tilted to the side, he waits for his earpiece to give him the signal. Lew’s the closest to Titus, and the first to see him start to shake— his body spasming from the heat—tears prickling in the corner of his  eyes.

Finally, he gets the okay and flings open the door. But before it swings shut behind him, Titus’s knees buckle. We suck in a breath. I grab Myra and pull her toward the exit.

When we reach the tunnels, I hear the audience roar behind us. We turn. Titus stands tall, hands clasped in victory. The sun basks him in a halo of light.

Dear Beloved Sister,

I write from the center of attention at the 136th show of our Cirqueau, with my 136th letter to you.

I’m sitting in a new booth, marked a sideshow just yesterday. Upper Command thought it best that no one observe an abomination of a girl like me for too long.

Yet the spectators stare, eyes mesmerized by the reflection of ink on paper. The shapes of my letters are foreign, so different from the standardized typeface the rest are required to use, often with the assistance of aI-WRiTe.

There is a lost art in each stroke of my pen. The spectators see it too. Their longing reaches through the glass and nearly takes hold of my words: I wish to tell my story, too. I wish to write like you do. The Cirqueau offers them a place for such imaginations, but as you know a coveted spot in our show is only reserved for those who pass the TEST—the talent examination.

As I have done for the past 135 letters, I will describe the most interesting of the spectators.

Tonight, there is a girl around your age who reminds me of a young woman I once saw in an old photograph from the Archives. Under this photograph was her last letter. The political climate of the Polar Era caused the writer much psychological distress. She could not determine who she was, as she was always trying to appease others, especially those with radically different viewpoints. She became all those views and lost herself within them. She wrote, “I feel like the greatest liar on Earth.” At this stage, what is Earth anymore? She is a lie herself.

The girl is pounding on the glass now. I cannot hear her through the soundproofed booth. She should leave soon, intermission is ending.

She speaks, her mouth forming the same words in circles. The other spectators head back to the Cirqueau tent, occasionally looking over their shoulders at this funny girl’s commotion.

She continues to hit the glass, sending a quiver down my booth. She might break in. Something is not quite right. Hold on, Sister.

She is saying, “I am the greatest liar on Earth.” This is fitting, at the greatest show on Earth. I believe her.

Two officers have just come up behind her. Their presence makes her bang on the glass more furiously. The ground is shaking beneath me, yet there is not a crack to be seen.

The officers steal her hands. The Earth rumbles.

Do you feel the end coming up on you?

The spectators outside fall, and the ground opens up to swallow them.

At least there is water below. I hope there is, anyhow. It may be all dried up.

Now, I will fall too.

It’s funny what people don’t mind when they know they’ve only got so much time left.

Normally, when I swallow swords and hook wires through my nose and out my mouth, they gag. Or they puke on my shoes. Which makes sense. Most people don’t think about swallowing dangerous objects, let alone see it happen. Under normal circumstances, their reaction is a combination of horror and curiosity. Mainly horror.

The day the Sondering Circus went to the Splinter Dimension, there was almost none of that.

We didn’t have time to set up our usual big-top tent, because the dimension was going to collapse in less than twelve hours. But we set our caravan of fancy wagons into a semicircle and drew a nice bonfire. It was enough for the locals who’d braved the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado to see our show.

The rest was up to us.

After our leader, the faceless Magician, did a small act with roses and doves, Celia juggled alongside Benny and Belial, our clown duo. Joseph, our tattooed strongman, lifted our wagons one by one over his head, which impressed the crowd. He was followed by our contortionists, The Medusa Sisters, who were then followed by Dax, our slackline walker.

Then there was me.

No crowd were as wonderstruck as the Splinter folks. They never averted their eyes, as if they couldn’t get enough. It didn’t matter what I swallowed or what I threaded through me. Each daring act was a miracle.

In the Sondering Circus, we have an unspoken rule that whoever gets the most applause does the encore. That evening, the encore was mine. Ordinarily, I swallow an unusual object. I’ve got a whole bag of fun stuff for such a performance. But before I could reach for it, the Magician stopped me.

“What is it?” I asked.

He pulled something out of his red robe— a ball painted to resemble Earth.

“This? You sure?”

A nod was his only response. He rarely ever spoke and he never unmasked himself. It didn’t matter, I always trusted his judgement.

I held out the Earth for all to see. Every heart in the crowd seemed to stop when they realized what would happen next.

The Earth slid down my throat.

My gulp might as well have been a gunshot. Every person jolted, as if the world had ended right then and there. Before they could fret too much, I regurgitated the Earth and presented it to them, intact and unchanged. It reflected the sun’s dying light as their bittersweet smiles tore at my heart.

Our eyes were blinded by their annihilation as we transported back to our dimension.

That same annihilation will find us one of these days. When it does, I’ll swallow and bring back the Earth one last time. If nothing else, to tell the universe that life is as inevitable as death.

I don’t believe in what the circus is trying to peddle. It’s always been smoke and mirrors, even when wonder and joy weren’t part of the charade. It’s obscene to spend any money on pleasure these days, but it’s Ivory’s birthday and she wanted to see the elephant. I try not to flinch when the animal emerges, all bones and sinew held together by piles of falling flesh. She squeals with high-pitched joy when the beast totters. I hoist her up in my arms and try to pretend this is the world I wanted to bring a daughter into.

When the showman pulls the elephant away, the crowds dissipate, trailing into the sideshow tents. “Mommy!” Ivory cries, squirming in my arms. I grab her hand right before she darts off, and she huffs, but pulls me at a more sedated pace.

“…than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” intones another showman, as we join a small cluster of people. The man steps to the side to raucous applause, and behind him, a curtain parts to reveal a dazzling and disturbing woman. Her eyes are the color of slate by a river, and her dark hair is braided down to her knees. But what stops my gaze are the rivulets of scar tissue, starting at the line of her lips and cascading down her front like a gauzy veil.

“I present,” the man announces, “Claudia! The woman who can drink rainwater!”

I frown. Smoke and mirrors, I remind myself. No one can drink rainwater, not anymore. The man hefts a bucket up by the handle, hauling it onto a platform.

“This water was collected during the last monsoon.” He plucks his glove off to show four fingers, the scarred joints stiff and unmoving. With no hesitation, he dips his index finger into the bucket. The crowd stands at attention. When he pulls the appendage out, the skin is red and raw, already weeping and starting to blister.

He smiles, though his lips are tight. “And now, Claudia will demonstrate her undeniable talent.”

Claudia’s smile pulls at the scar tissue on her face. She grabs the bucket between slender hands and hauls it up to her lips. I can’t stop my sharp inhale when she tips the bucket, thin trails of corrosive water pouring down her gullet and falling down her front. Even Ivory is stock-still against me.

The skin around her mouth begins to steam, as though she were hot metal and not flesh. She swallows, and when she opens her mouth wider, I spot the angry flesh inside, scoured and pockmarked.

When she finishes, she throws the bucket to the side like a plaything. And then she turns to face us, her slate gray eyes stark against the devastation of her skin. I want to scream. I want to cover Ivory’s eyes. But I can’t look away.

Smoke and mirrors, I remind myself.

She pauses the advertisement on a picture of a couple smiling atop a mountain overlooking a scenic valley. Their teeth are as reflective as the sunglasses they wear, and their clothing is free from any wear or tear. “Turn your memory into money!” is suspended in a cyan box to the left of the couple. She’s seen social media charging people to use their platforms, but this is the first time she’s seen one willing to pay people to post pictures of themselves. It feels invasive, as if companies are no longer buying people’s data discretely but opting to buy it directly from its users instead. She feels disgusted with the idea, as if she’s becoming a type of product for sale.

But she needs money for groceries, and it seems easy enough to sign up.

She’s swiping through pictures, trying to find something to post. The first picture she took was from a few years ago when she got a new phone. Maybe with a nice little timeline photo dump, she could afford something besides instant ramen.

Swiping through her old photos fills her with instant regret. The camera roll is filled with pictures of people she no longer has contact with—old friends, family members, and partners fly across her phone screen. Memories of the painful goodbyes that led to their departures occupy her mind, and she briefly forgets why she’s looking through them to begin with.

She notices one face among the pictures that seems out of place and unrecognizable. The person is smiling, but there’s something lacking behind it, as if someone else is trapped inside. With every swipe, every change of scenery and crowd, the person’s face also starts to change. Their eyes begin to light up, and their smile grows wider, but their face becomes softer and rounder. Their hair changes with it, from short and brushed over with an undercut, to grown longer all around, and then with cut bangs.

The face shifts and morphs with each passing picture until she recognizes them.

 Looking at the most recent picture, with a time stamp from last week, she sees herself and a couple of close friends in her apartment. It’s a candid shot of her eating pizza, desperately trying not to laugh while extending the slice as far as she can, with the cheese stretching along. Her friends are sitting next to her, staring awestruck at the scene.

She looks up from the phone and back to the computer screen. The ad reads, “Turn your memory into money!”

She takes a moment to study the phrase, the trademark symbol at the end burning through her eyes, causing a pulsating headache in the front of her skull. Glancing once more at the picture on her phone, she guides the mouse to the top right of the screen and exits the webpage.

She gets up from her chair, hungry for cheap ramen.

Just beyond the safety of our village, there was a dense thicket of trees and a mountain so tall they said no one had seen the top of it. Of course, no one had really tried. Only a few kids dared to come close to the forest’s edge. Most gave up, but I’d been coming here for years.

My last day was like any other. I dipped underneath an archway of branches that led to a winding path. Cocoa chirped on my shoulder when his head got a little too close to a thorny limb.

“You know you could just fly over the trees,” I said, but I didn’t actually mind.

He hopped back and forth as I walked, singing to himself. The only other noise was the rustle of leaves swept up by the breeze. No other birds sung with Cocoa, and no critters scurried by. There weren’t even buzzing bugs whizzing by my ear. Only the oaks hummed. I felt the quiet that today, as always, but I didn’t hesitate on my way forward.

Cocoa sung and the leaves shuttered until I came to our spot, a pond lit up by golden rays of sunlight. Beneath the water’s shimmering surface, moss grew in miniature mountains and valleys. They created a lush village for the fish below. It was so clear I could see how each school and family moved in and away from each other. But there was one dark spot some yards away from its edge. There, the water turned like a lazy whirlpool, circling something unseen.

“I asked the Seer if she’d ever heard of a pond like this,” I said to Cocoa. With one flap of his wings, he landed beside me. He didn’t move as I took off my shoes and socks.

“She said she heard of a pond with a creature that would give you whatever you wished for,” I stepped one foot into the cool water, wincing as I broke its apparent streak of purity.

“For a price,” I remembered before delving into the deep.

The pond released bubbles all around me as I swam, fizzling like sparkling wine. It was only still by the dark figure who sat comfortably beside a pack of fluttering fish. She smiled when I came to her and, while I couldn’t open my lips, she heard me speak.

“What do you wish for?” she asked

Freedom.

“It will cost you.”

I floated up to the edge of a lovely pond, feeling light despite the way the water tugged on my clothes. A little sparrow the color of oak and almond watched me swim and sang a song that sounded almost familiar. For some reason I couldn’t know, I felt a great untamable grief.

My mother was one of those too famous people that gets a museum dedicated to them after they die. It’s nice. Fancy. Big. A bit much really, but she would’ve liked that.

I never understood her work, but other people did. Or if they didn’t, they liked to pretend they did. People, so many people, would come up to me when she was alive and say how lucky I was to have access to an incredible woman every day. What do you say to that? I never knew. I would flip-flop between awkward but polite smiles or ambiguous shrugs. It’s easier now that she’s dead. A blank face isn’t rude, now that she’s dead.

I suppose I’m a bit boring compared to her. A bit plain. Bland. Bleh. People seem disappointed when they meet me. I can’t tell them anything about her they would want to hear. I’m not interesting enough to talk about anything else.

I like to think I’m nicer than she was. But is being passive the same as being nice? If I don’t do anything and hurt no one, is that better than doing everything while hurting myself and others along the way? I don’t know. I’m nothing like her. I’m nothing at all. I have no siblings, so I don’t know whether that’s my fault or hers.

Sometimes I feel like the only impact I’ll ever have on the world is this museum. I didn’t design it or build it. It wasn’t even my idea to have it in the first place. But I did one thing: I got to choose the piece that would be featured the most. As “the person closest to her,” I got to pick her masterpiece.

So, I chose the only one she did about me.

I don’t understand it. At least, I don’t understand why people love it. It’s mainly white, untouched. You notice the red splattering across from two opposite corners before you catch the watermarks dotted around. Okay. Interesting enough. She called it Motherhood. Ah. The blood, sweat, and tears that go into being a mother. Suddenly a piece that could be recreated by a child becomes an ingenious work of art.

Except that it’s her blood. This bit is public knowledge. She used her actual blood. In one go. It’s a big canvas. She went to the hospital. Caused quite a stir at the time. Started a cult following that eventually led to critical acclaim. 

What isn’t public knowledge is that the two corners of blood splatter are not the same person’s blood. See, my mother thought for Motherhood she needed a piece of the thing that made her a mother. So, the top corner of red spraying down is her. The bottom corner spraying up is me.

I go to the museum sometimes to watch people watch Motherhood. I want to see if the truth ever crosses their mind. But they just stare in awe.

At least I charged them for their ignorance.

The year is 2200 where money is valueless, and memories are priceless. They have become the most valuable currency, traded and exchanged in markets, auctions, and more. People own and carry devices allowing them to store and capture memories, changing and upgrading them into tangible assets—the richer the memories, the wealthier the individual is.

Sasha, a young woman living with five other roommates in her New York City apartment, depressed, finds herself intrigued by this system. When she was little, she had always been fascinated by the idea of sharing experiences. Memories were the ultimate form of connection. Now she rolls her eyes when the silly memory comes to her. She’s walking through the Memory Market on an early Sunday afternoon, and as she approaches one of the booths, she notices a distant figure in a dark coat. The figure seems to radiate an aura of mystery, one that scents the air with forgotten tales and hidden recollections. She goes to approach the figure. As she gets closer, Sasha realizes that it‘s an older man with more warts on his face than features. He has something tucked away under his coat, and when she approaches him, he cautiously reveals it. The man tells her that what he holds in his hands is a device that able to extract memories from the deepest parts of someone’s mind.

Intrigued, Sasha decides to trade some of her most cherished memories for the strange device. She watches as the man clicks on the machine and sees shimmering memories transfer from her mind to the device. The man then transfers those memories to himself before handing her the device and walking away.

With her newly found and totally safe device, Sasha goes around exploring the market, carelessly trading tales of love, adventure, and heartbreak. She loves immersing herself in the lives of complete strangers, which is probably why she’s gullible enough to approach one and give away significant parts of herself. The market has become a garden of shared experiences to her, where she values each memory not just for its richness, but because it gives her new connections. She also learns of the system’s fragility.

She learns while some people hoard their memories for wealth, others cling to the past, grasping onto nostalgia and ignoring the present. Despite what others will think of her and the deal with the strange, ugly man, Sasha believes in the value of shared memories over the wealth of richer ones. In a world where memories are currency, Sasha makes every exchange of human connection valuable, receiving a wealth of diverse experiences that are priceless.

Money made the world go round, but memories make the world a sphere. 

When they first were able to exchange memories for currency, everyone was excited. How could they not be? Trade in a traumatic memory and get paid for it? People couldn’t wait! Every single person was cashing out, especially with traumatic memories, or Traumemories. The adrenaline rush of hyper-awareness was the world’s new cup of coffee. The wealthy got addicted to the rush that came with the fight-or-flight reactions from a Traumemory—without having to actually be in a dangerous situation. What they didn’t tell you about were the side effects; they only told you about the substantial checks. 

---

Alice was born with the eye and mind of a creative, and she had the hand, ear, and eye coordination to create anything. She was able to make any of her thoughts into something beautiful: poetry, short stories, drawing, painting, sculpting, music—if it had anything to do with creativity, she would do it.

When memories became the new currency, Alice felt a sense of urgency to learn how to earn a decent wage without giving up her memorable moments. More and more stores and businesses were quickly switching to monetization of the mind. Fortunately, people started paying Alice with their memories. She became quite successful despite the lack of cash flow in the world; people would pay her to own a piece of her visions and to hear her play music and serenade them. Each new memory was an interestingly different perception of life, and Alice would create art from every memory that society would supply.

Life was great until the day she almost died in a car accident and was trapped in critical condition. The doctors gave Alice her options: live out the rest of her days on life support or be put in a Med-Bay and walk out of the hospital that day. A no-brainer, right? She chose the Med-Bay, but she had insufficient funds to pay—unless she exchanged some of her memories away. 

“Traumemories pay the best,” the doctor said.

So that’s what she chose. Unable to remember her accident, Alice went all the way back to her most traumatic experience as a kid and exchanged it.

A few hours later, Alice was healed and back home in her studio, wanting to create something—anything—but she didn’t feel that spark like before. 

“I’ll just wait; it’s probably a side effect of the Med-Bay.”

Days, weeks, then months passed… 

The creative seed seemed to be gone.

Alice forgot how her most traumatic memory was the catalyst that had her crafting and creating in the first place. 

“There has to be a way to get my memory back!” 

Or was it too late?