Bearer of burning memory

I have never seen what the outside world is like with my own eyes. It remained something I only watched in films, heard in songs, and was exposed to through screens. I do not know what sunlight truly feels like. I do not know how flowers smell. I have never heard children laughing and running about; I have never witnessed such a thing directly.

The moment I opened my eyes, I found myself born inside an eerie technological facility that felt almost like an underground bunker. I did not know where or what this place exactly was, yet I remembered nothing that came before it — because there was probably no “before” to begin with. Having never lived before, I had never witnessed another world, at least not in the physical sense. I had only a screen and a room. Nothing else.

There was no one around. There was no sound except for the hum of machines, because the facility was no longer in use. I had realized this the instant I stepped out of my capsule, and it was most likely the artificial intelligence itself that had opened it. It was the one that controlled this facility.

At first, I received it coldly, but when my keen observations led me to understand that it, like me, belonged to a robotic lineage — I should note that its voice was impossible to distinguish from a human’s, though I had no idea what it would look like if it stood before me, because it was always nothing more than a voice coming through the speakers — I gradually began to get accustomed to it, though I never felt warmth towards it.

Besides, I had little choice. There were no other forms of life where I was. No plants. Not even insects. There were no windows, so I could not know what lay beyond. The walls seemed to press in on me with all their suffocating heaviness, and the only sources of light were the artificial glows cast by the devices, ranging from stark white to pale blue.

The robotic voice did not greet me. It did not say, “Good morning.” Instead, it told me that I had been deliberately kept asleep “for a very long time” as part of “certain tests and experiments.”

I asked it several questions about why the facility had been abandoned, but it always gave unsatisfying answers in its almost boring, unwaveringly calm tone, as though it were stubbornly avoiding something. It did not tell me why it had awakened me or why it had done so at this specific time, either.

The facility had power and stood perfectly intact, which struck me as strange given that there did not seem to be a single human anywhere. In time, I immersed myself in the world of the computer that sat on the metallic desk in my room, almost as though it had been arranged specially for me, its screen glowing brightly beneath the artificial light.

I sat down in the creaking chair and set about exploring the only application on the desktop. When I opened it, what appeared before me was a kind of archive resembling a documentary channel devoted to a distant civilization. It contained all sorts of videos, songs, music, photographs, and countless other records. Some were about dances, some about food, and others about animals; in the end, they encompassed everything from the atom to the cosmos.

What caught my attention, however, was that all of them seemed to belong to perhaps years ago, perhaps decades ago, perhaps hundreds of years ago. There were no dates attached to them. I did not know on what day, in what month, or in what year they had been added to the application. The computer itself contained neither a clock nor a date. That was clearly not enough for me to form any real sense of time, because I remembered nothing comprehensible at all.

More than that, the images before me were astonishing in themselves. As I witnessed the contents of that application, it felt as though I were remembering things I had forgotten long ago. I was not encountering them in an entirely new way, and I understood this the moment I saw them. It was as if a memory had stirred to life. It was as though I had remembered nothingness itself.

But that was basically all. Beyond that faint stirring, I felt nothing else. And so I began to obsessively read, watch, and listen to those images, those voices, and those recordings that, in a strange and inexplicable way, already felt familiar to me.

In this way, I became so thoroughly familiar with the way this civilization lived, functioned, and what it aspired to that I could have recited it all from memory. That was possible because, for the entire duration, I remained confined to a single room, and the only source of stimulation there was this digital encyclopedia. Naturally, I spent hours upon hours exploring it with the desperation of someone parched for water.

Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence that had awakened me began sending me meals. It delivered them through a special compartment concealed within the wall of my room, accessible by a small hatch.

The “meals,” however, were nothing like the kind consumed by organic beings. They consisted of cups and plates filled with various forms of pills, cells, and tablets. There was no bread, no meat, no salad — nothing of that sort. Strangely enough, I never felt hungry in the slightest. Perhaps they had removed my stomach and replaced it with something else: some kind of synthetic organ, entirely self-sustaining. But despite spending perhaps days, perhaps weeks, perhaps months in that cell, not a single time did I put anything into my mouth other than those chemical substances, and still I felt no visible disturbance in my body.

Indeed, the problem was not with my body. Nothing was wrong with it. But for some reason, my soul had begun to suffocate — if I had a “soul” at all.

Whenever I spoke with the artificial intelligence, I would always ask it about the outside world, pointing to the archive on the computer. It always gave answers that failed to satisfy me. Answers that seemed almost crazy. Once, for example, it said:

“The planet you are on became an inferno centuries ago when the star of the solar system to which it belonged expanded into a red giant, rendering it uninhabitable. The things contained within that application are the final evidence of what once existed on this terrestrial body. Only you know them. And if you do not know them, they will disappear, and it will be as though an entire history had never existed at all.”

I did not believe it. I told it that it was lying. Maybe it was designed to deliberately confuse me. Because… how could such a thing be possible? Nowhere in the application was there any mention of a catastrophe like that. Everyone seemed happy and cheerful to me, even in the moments when they cried or became angry. There was action and motion. The screen was overflowing with life, no matter how constrained it technically was.

Despite what it told me, I said that I wanted to go outside. In the same monotonous voice, it replied that doing so would endanger my existence because I had been designed as a “prototype meant to develop in absolute darkness, cold, and solitude.”

A prototype? Of what?

Although I had never seen them, I was certain that my organs were not made of wires. Even though there was not a single mirror in the room, I believed that my flesh was the flesh of a real biological being. Or had they planted even that belief in my mind? I could never know. The only thing I knew was terror. And if I can be terrorized, it means I’m real.

In the end, I told this feeling to it: that remnants of humanity still lingered within my soul, and that because of that, I could not spend an entire lifetime confined to such a narrow cell, staring at a computer screen.

When I insisted, it finally opened the door of my room. Slowly. But it opened only into the interior of the facility, not to the outside. Reaching the outside world seemed almost impossible.

This section was comparatively cooler, but there was no life here either. The room was filled with shelves, tables, and scattered objects that, despite their apparent disorder, possessed a strange sense of order. Because all of them were technological in nature, they gave the place the unmistakable atmosphere of a laboratory.

When I looked at the posters on the walls, I came across strange human-like figures. There were sketches of bodies that were half machine and half human, as well as others composed entirely of robots, accompanied by detailed anatomical diagrams. Among them, I saw a figure that outwardly appeared completely human, yet whose internal organs consisted entirely of wires and gears — a cyborg of some kind.

At first, I was curious. I found myself marveling at how machines could assume the functions of a liver, lungs, or even a brain.

Then the feeling of terror returned.

Because I remembered.

Why could I not be such a creature myself?

I brought my hand to my chest and took a deep breath. The breath felt real — organic. It could not simply be the result of a machine forcing air in and out. Then I placed my palm over my heart. The sensation of its beating was there. I could feel my pulse. There was life inside me. These could not be mere wires and gears.

Otherwise, it would mean that life had passed from the hands of the artist into those of the engineer, and that what had been created was not life itself, but merely something that imitated life, not its substance but its vehicle.

While these thoughts occupied my mind, the artificial intelligence remained silent. I tried speaking to it, but it gave no reply.

Where had it gone?

Was it playing a game with me?

I looked around.

There was another door in the laboratory as well, and that led me to believe that this was merely one section within some larger complex. But that heavy, opaque, metallic door was locked too, and it was impossible for me to open it. There were no buttons or controls of any kind, and it was obvious that I was entirely at the mercy of that robot ruling the facility.

Why was it keeping me here? What did it obtain from that?

Was it trying to preserve an entire civilization by preserving a single individual — as though locking an animal inside a cage could somehow save its species from extinction?

At last, I approached the door and pressed my ear against it, as though expecting to hear something on the other side. I heard nothing. Then I lay down on the floor. Beneath the door there was a tiny gap, perhaps only a few centimeters wide, and I believed I might be able to see something through it because a light had caught my attention there.

Indeed, as I strained to fix my eye upon that narrow opening, I encountered something outside whose brightness was enough to blind me. I did not know what it was. But the instant I saw it, my mind suddenly grew hazy, everything turned black, and I somehow found myself lying on the bed in my room.

Perhaps days had passed. Perhaps weeks. Perhaps months. But it felt like seconds. Indeed, it could even be no more than a few minutes. But since my memory existed beyond time, since there was nothing to measure nor prove its existence, I could not be sure.

Perhaps that robot had done this to me. It was still nowhere to be found. It had vanished completely. Consequently, the pills it used to send through the compartment were no longer arriving. Or was that the reason? Had it disappeared because I had stopped taking the medicines?

I stood up, slightly dizzy, trying to comprehend what had happened. Then I began walking out of my cell. When I reached the laboratory, I saw that the very door beneath which I had tried to look was now completely open.

It led into some kind of corridor.

It looked like heaven.

Or hell.

It radiated such an overwhelming light that I could scarcely believe it. Never in my life had I seen anything like it. This had always been something that existed only in films. Songs praised it. Plants drew their strength from it. As for me, I did not even know what it truly was. I had only researched it and read about it. But now that thing stood directly before me, casting golden beams of light inside.

In front of the doorway, a paper was on the floor. Or perhaps it had been placed there. Who could have put it there? Yet it lay with such perfect symmetry that, when I approached, I noticed it had actually been taped to the ground. Someone must have done that. Who? I can never know.

When I picked it up and read its contents, it claimed that this yellow light was the light of the devil, that I should avoid exposing myself to it, or else my internal systems would melt and my existence would come to an end. The warning was accompanied by diagrams and indicators that attempted to prove this in an almost scientific manner.

Melt?

How could a human being melt? Unless I intended to swim through lava, the idea made no sense at all.

And what did “internal systems” even mean? Why did it not call them “organs”? Was I, then, nothing more than a machine that could rust — a robot claiming to be the heir of the very nature that had been carved away and reduced to extinction?

I lifted my head from the paper and looked at the light once more. Or rather, I could barely look at it. This time it was even stronger, for now it stood before me in all its fullness.

It was coming from the end of the corridor, and I did not know what lay there. I could not even look at the horizon.

But I was determined to find out.

So I tore the paper apart and threw it aside. Then, with steady steps but aching eyes — I had to shield them with my arm — I began walking forward.

There was a profound fear inside me. My heart was pounding violently. Yes — I could feel it. That meant I had emotions. I could not be a robot. I was part of life itself. My heart was supposed to beat this frantically.

But soon my body began producing other reactions as well. Tiny droplets of water appeared on my hair, my forehead, my arms, and my legs. They call this sweating. It was happening to me too. It was an incredibly strange sensation. It was because I was truly stepping into something like a furnace, and those droplets of sweat were forming for that very reason.

By the time I had struggled my way to the middle of the corridor, I wanted to turn back for a moment. Perhaps the paper had been right. Perhaps I really would melt away. Perhaps this planet truly had become a flaming sphere incapable of sustaining life. But I put that aside, because whatever excitement I felt was outweighed by my fear.

For the first time, I was experiencing the outside world directly, and in that form it had to be dangerous. My sensors were not accustomed to it. My body had begun to struggle. I could barely understand how I was supposed to behave, even though all I had to do was keep walking.

At last, when I reached the end of the corridor, I tried to open my eyes slightly. I could not. Nothing existed before me except an overwhelming sea of yellow and white. Finally, I pulled my arm away from one eye and forced my eyelid open just a little.

By then, the heat had become maddening.

And as if determined to prove itself, it happened before I even managed to perceive anything. My eye suddenly melted and fell into my palm.

I was completely stunned. I could not even bring myself to look at what was in my hand. But I could feel something like fragments of a metallic component. My eye had broken apart and slipped from its socket like a plug being pulled from an outlet.

This could not be real.

I did not even feel pain anymore. Perhaps my pain sensors had already melted as well.

I raised my finger to where my eye had been. There was no blood — the crimson liquid that any organism ought to spill when it suffers physical injury. Instead, my finger simply entered the empty space where my eye had been as though it were sinking into a container. And at that very moment, the area around my eyebrow also began to melt, adhering itself to my finger.

I was melting like a liquid.

Yet I still did not think of fleeing.

I was determined to see the outside world — even if the outside world was this.

Finally, I lifted my foot from the last metallic surface of the facility and placed it upon the hard, earth-like ground beyond. The instant I threw my half-melted body outside, I realized that the soil was swallowing me, as though preparing a meal to be cooked.

Then, as everything came to an end, including all the fabricated history I had been told during my time in the facility, my consciousness was interrupted by a mechanical sound that seemed to originate from a chip embedded in my own head. And with it, history itself came to an end:

“Tick.”

A.