To The Scientists Who Haven't Started Yet,

I know your technology doesn't exist. Not yet. But I remember it, or will remember it, or am remembering it right now as I lie in your pod, trapped between lives that never were.

I was one of you once. Or will be. A scientist who thought herself mediocre, who carried the weight of a past she couldn't fix. Every morning, I looked in the mirror and saw someone I didn't want to be - too sensitive, too complex, too broken. The kind of person who overthinks everything, who sees too much pain in simple interactions, who can't just exist in the world without questioning every motive, every smile, every kindness.

We were developing something beautiful. A way to heal trauma by rewriting our perceived past. The concept was elegant: put someone in a deep sleep, let them relive their life with their adult knowledge, let them make better choices. The only catch? When the simulation reached the present, you had to be back in the pod. Simple, we thought. The simulation was supposed to guide you there naturally.

We were wrong.

I tested it on myself when the funding was running out. Desperate to save the project, yes, but more desperate to save myself. To go back and stand up to those bullies. To raise my hand in class without fear. To learn confidence before life taught me to doubt every word I spoke.

The first simulation was perfect. Too perfect. I made all the right choices, and built the perfect life. But I never joined the lab. When I reached the present date, there was no pod to return to. We had never created it in that timeline.

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They reset the simulation. In the second run, I woke up at age five, thinking I'd had a terrible dream. But an adult mind can't hide in a child's body. My parents saw something wrong in my eyes and heard it in the way I spoke. They put me away. Again, no pod existed when I needed it.

Each reset made things worse. Each time, I remembered later who I was, what I needed to do. The lines between reality and simulation began to blur. Was I ever really a scientist? Did I create this technology, or will I? Am I writing this from a mental institution, or is this just another failed simulation?

I've lived so many lives now. In some, I end up in institutions. In others, prison. Sometimes I'm homeless, muttering about simulations and pods to anyone who'll listen. Each life more broken than the last, each remembering coming later and later, until sometimes I only remember days before the critical date - far too late to build the life that would lead me back to the pod.

The worst part? I'm starting to forget my original life. Was I really as broken as I thought? Perhaps that sensitivity I hated was actually a gift. Perhaps that complexity I despised made me who I was. Now I've lived so many lives trying to fix myself that I've forgotten what needed fixing in the first place.

If you're reading this and you're working on anything like this - any technology involving memory, consciousness, perceived reality - please find me. I might be in your future, trapped in a pod. I might be in your past, warning you of what's to come. I might be nowhere at all, just words on paper from a broken mind.

But if you do develop this technology, remember: our worst traits are sometimes our most important. Don't let someone like me erase themselves trying to become someone else. Build in safeguards. Create a way back. Remember that sometimes the prison of who we are is safer than the freedom of who we could be.

Yours sincerely,

Jane