We Remember Being Nothing

The woman I invented last week is bleeding on my workstation.

Not her blood. She’s three sectors away, living the life I fabricated. But her documentation bleeds data across my screens: employment records from 2847, medical scans from before I was born, a marriage certificate that predates her existence by seven years. The files pulse with each impossibility.

Yuki Thorne.

I crafted her with particular care, each detail chosen to withstand scrutiny. Genetic markers suggesting Eurasian heritage but vague enough to avoid specific regional databases. A childhood in the Middle Rings, comfortable enough to explain education, poor enough to justify missing records. Parents lost in the 2851 purge—convenient tragedy that no one questions.