When I regained consciousness, I was back inside the cave, lying on the hard, rocky ground. My body shivered as I moaned my wife’s name.

“I am sorry for your distress,” Val said to me. “Take all the time you need, Ethan.”

I almost corrected her and then remembered that was my name. My real name. I whispered it to myself and could feel it was true.

“You have been lied to, Ethan,” Val said.

If I could have found words to speak, I don’t think I could have uttered them. I was still trying to pick up the pieces of my broken self.

“The world as you now know it is not real, at least not in the way you understand it to be. When you are ready, please tell me what you saw in your memory.”

I saw the night turn into day. I saw an electric blue dome covering the sky. I saw my wife turn to dust before my own eyes.

I blinked away tears and let my shivering subside. I told Val what I had seen.

“What you saw in the sky was a sphere of energy which now encircles your entire planet. It grants a Master Control Intelligence the ability to reshape your planet along with every creature, plant, rock, and particle. It can alter the laws of nature. It can shape your memories to its will. All of your memories of your life on Erda are a fabrication.”

I understood the words she was saying, but the information was coming too fast for my heart to handle. I needed a minute.

Val seemed to sense my distress and stopped speaking. I laid back to the ground and closed my eyes.

My mind was already a bucket full of memories, and Val just dropped a stone into it. Now, it was overflowing.

I was torn between two worlds, two lives. I was Ethan Hill. I was Milton Musgrave. I had clear memories of both lives, but the life of Milton wasn’t real. I could see that now, yet the emotions ingrained in my memories as Milton felt indisputably real.

Elena, my wife, was real. I could feel the hole her absence left in my heart. I had been missing her this whole time and didn’t even know it.

Each second that passed brought forth more memories of her. I remembered when we first met. She had bumped into my car in a McDonald’s drive-through. There was no damage, but she went on and on about how sorry she was and assured me she would pay for repairs if needed. I told her not to worry and asked her to buy me a drink instead.

She had looked like a dream made reality when she walked down the aisle on our wedding day. I had never felt so much love as I had in that moment.

I knew these memories of Elena were true, but the memories of my current life on Erda, and those of whom I had loved were equally substantial.

Her name was Molly. I was only sixteen. Our first kiss was during the harvest festival, and we were both drunk on sweetwine. After that, we had stayed close, and the intimacy grew. I would have asked her to marry me had her family not insisted she move north with them to Portertown.

That’s not all. I could still feel the joy thrumming through me when my false father first allowed me to work the farm with him and my uncle. I could still feel the aching sadness from when he died. I couldn’t help but wonder if he ever even existed or if it was all a fabrication, an implanted memory, just like Molly likely was.

Stolen story; please report.

Even if he existed, he wasn’t my real father. My real dad had been quiet, disinterested, and hard to love, yet I loved him regardless. Both he and my mother had been alive when the sphere formed. Were they in this world, too? Did the master control thing keep them together? Did it replace me with a new son?

Hours before that fateful night on the porch with my wife, I had been playing softball with my friends. Rob and Jason had spent ten minutes fighting over a call before Vick finally pulled them apart. I had laughed the whole time.

I was never going to see them again, any of them. And if I did, they wouldn’t have any memory of me.

My life had been stolen. It had been ruined along with the rest of the planet.

“Your heart rate is rising again,” Val said. “Try to think happy thoughts.”

I tried to laugh at her, but it sounded more like a cough.

“There we go,” she said. “I knew you could do it.”

“How long?” I asked. She knew what I meant.

“The sphere formed around Earth four months ago.”

Four months? I’ve lived in this world for nearly thirty years. How could it have only been four months?

Because your memories aren’t real, idiot. It was going to be difficult to keep my two lives separate.

“Why?” was all I could manage to say. Once again, she knew what I was asking.

“The Triarchy, a coalition of three highly advanced alien species, has selected Earth as the host world for their games. Your species was advancing too rapidly. In a few thousand years, humans could have developed sufficient technologies to threaten the Triarchy. Instead of allowing that to happen, the Triarchy chose to seed your world with their member species. They are here to subdue the humans and eventually colonize your world, but first and foremost, they are here to play a game. A game that will likely last for decades.”

“A game? What does that even mean?”

“The Triarchy’s member species peaked thousands of years ago. They want for nothing. Outside of this world, the Kurskins, the Dalari, and the Voxals do not fear death. Their technology has made them all but immortal. But here, on your planet, they can face their mortality. They revere their ancient ancestors, just as you humans do. They worship those who adventured, explored, conquered, and united during the infancy of their empires. Your Earth equivalent would be people like Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or Charlemagne. This game is their opportunity to seek adventure, to become revered, to feel pain and power, to kill and to conquer, and above all else, to bring glory and honor to their race and family name.”

I didn’t understand. It was too absurd to be real.

Val continued, “Your planet has been designed to maximize the experience, to fully immerse the players in the world. Your people, the humans, have all been incorporated into the game as pawns.”

I looked up, imagining the voice in my head coming from above. “What do you mean by pawns?”

“Are you a soldier, Ethan?”

“No, I…” I wore armor and had a sword, but I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a farmer either. I was an engineer. I used to design wind turbines. “No. I’m not a soldier.”

“Upon creation of this world, the Master Control Intelligence blocked your former memories. However, it did not wipe everything. It kept all the parts which make you humans so very human – your strengths and weaknesses, your personalities, your desires, your fears. But false memories were implanted into your minds to create this new reality. For most of you, the Master Control simply created new histories and new relationships for you to build a life from. For others, the Master Control was more…thorough in its design.”

“So, all the other humans…” I gestured broadly. “All of them are pawns like I was? They’re living false lives just so these aliens can have a more immersive experience?”

“That is correct. There is another term for what you and the other humans have become, one from your time on Earth. It may be a more appropriate description.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked.

“Are you familiar with Earth’s video games?”

“I’ve played a few.”

“Good. Then you will understand the metaphor.”

“What metaphor?” I was growing frustrated, desperate for answers.

“All the humans that survived the creation event would be best described as NPCs or Non-Player Characters.”

I had played enough video games to know what that meant. My frustration vanished, replaced by a hollow sorrow. I closed my eyes and wept.