Heart-Shaped Prison

The worst part about the trenches was not the bullets that whizzed overhead or the yellow gas that made the lungs turn inside out, or even the threat of a mortar exploding you into a million pieces. The worst part about the trenches was the mud.

A combination of water, sweat, blood, with piss and shit added in to spice it up. It soaked through uniforms and worked its way into every part of a soldier. Even after they had left the battlefield, some would still manage to find dried flecks of it in the toe of their shoe or inside their jacket pocket. But there was one thing Ernest would not let the mud stain.

He kept it in a cigarette case made of stainless steel and only took it out when he was inside one of the bunkers. One of the few places where it was even remotely safe for fragile things. He would lay down on his cot, like he was at this particular moment, and stare at the golden heart-shaped locket as it dangled on a steel chain, winking a reflection off of its metal surface.

“You should keep that in your jacket,” A new arrival commented. “Whoever gave it to you won’t appreciate it gettin dirty.”

“What’s the point of having it then?” Ernest said. “Besides, it reminds me someone out there cares enough to have my heart.”

This was met with a chorus of laughter and the sounds of gagging from his fellow soldiers. Ernest ignored them and placed the locket back into the cigarette case and then into his jacket. “I may even write a poem about it, someday.”

“When it gets published, make sure you dedicate it to the 401st. On account of us having to listen to you for the last-”

The sound of the world ending cut off the soldier.

Something smashed straight through the top of the bunker. It was a red hot ball of fuck you, otherwise known as a Bunker Buster. Though no one had time to register it as such. They all looked in time to see an orange flash that bloomed into a great inferno that consumed all around it. So hot their nerves were overwhelmed and did not register the heat, and then there was nothing.

Ernest felt himself laying down, but had no strength in him to move. He heard nothing and managed to open his eyes just enough to see pieces of his comrades all around him. His eyes closed again and this time he was embraced by the warm nothingness of death.

Then the dead man opened his eyes and sat up.

Ernest laid in a soft padded bed with red sheets. All around him was a great expanse of nothing. A white void in every direction, safe for himself, the bed, and a single nightstand that stood next to it. Then there was the woman.

A beautiful woman with long black hair in a white dress, complete with a golden locket around her neck. When his eyes laid on her, he did not shoot up in fright but instead was filled with a sense of intimate familiarity. In the time it took him to stand up, every memory of his countless fake lives returned to him.

Ernest closed his eyes and massaged his temples. “If this is a simulation, then why is there a headache every time I wake up?” He said.

“Because you think there should be one,” Grace said. That’s right, her name is Grace. “But you know that and just feel like complaining. So, how was this Sim?”

“They all kind of blend together at this point,” Ernest took a step out onto nothing. Grace had called this place The Canvas when he first woke up here. She had told him he could turn this place into anything he wanted. To be able to play God on such a scale that he could not even imagine the complexity of what he could make. And it was true, he couldn’t.

He attempted to make a fantasy world similar to the stories he had read as a child, but after his third attempt ended with mountain-sized dwarfs, he decided to leave creation to God. Instead, he chose to live inside of pre-created worlds.

His memories wiped, he would live life as a taxi driver, a rich noble, a single mother, and everything in between. When he would die, he would wake back up in The Canvas, Grace looking down at his sleeping body.

“Did I make you?” Ernest asked Grace. “I don’t remember.”

“No,” Grace said and sat on the bed. “I am your guide. You picked me, remember?”

“During the sales pitch.”

“That’s right!” Grace clapped her hands together and brought them to her face, tilting her head into the palms.

“Can I see that? Is it possible?”

“You’ve seen it before.” Grace’s eyes narrowed into a scowl.

“I’ve seen it before?” Ernest said. “I might have. It’s been so long.” Ernest sat on the bed again and fell into the soft red sheats. He looked up at the endless space above his head. So expansive that it might as well have been a ceiling.

He felt Grace lay down next to him but he did not turn his head to look at her. “What happened this time?” She asked.

“Same thing that always does,” Ernest said. “I was born to a middle-class family in the 1920s. I had dreams of becoming a carpenter, but I didn’t have the work ethic to put any effort into it, so I just enlisted when the war broke out. I was blown apart by a bunker buster.”

Grace put her hands behind her head. “You could go in with your memories intact. You might learn something when you come out.” Grace said carefully, as she was defusing a bomb with her voice.

“I’ll know it’s fake if I don’t.” As he looked out into nothing, a thought began to form. “And when I come out of the simulation, I realize it as well.”

Grace sat up and looked down at him. “Yes, that’s how the premade worlds work. The only other alternative is to make a world here” She threw her arms out as if to show off all of the nothing around him. “And-

“Do you know why I came here?” Ernest sat up and looked at her through tears he had not realized were there.

“Ernest, don’t.”

“I was running away and the idea of spending an eternity in a world of my making was the perfect place to hide. I thought I could make something for myself here, and when that failed, I lived in the creations of others. But I’m still me. When I am supposed to be the chosen one, I end up as the stable boy. When I live the life of a superhero, I end up powering an energy plant, instead of saving the world. It’s always the same.”

“Then make a new world for yourself,” Grace said, almost begging now.

“How many lives have I lived now?”

“I am not going to answer.” Grace was the only thing in this fake space that seemed alive. Unlike anything else here, she could say no to him and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Why?”

“Because it will upset you.”

“I'm already upset.”

“Then let's go to a new reality together!” Grace waved her hands and The Canvas changed to a corral sand beach on a deserted island. Complete with rolling waves and the smell of coconuts. “Let's spend time getting sun, or I can make you feel pleasures you never thought possible.”

The beach changed to a red room with padded seats and a massive bed. On the bed was a writhing mass of people fucking each other senseless. Something he had indulged in when he had first come to The Canvas but had lost its appeal after the thirtieth time.

“Or,” the room disappeared and he stood suspended in the air, the green earth below his feet, “I can teach you how to create all of this. We can try again. Reality is whatever you want it to be.”

“Exactly and that’s the problem!” Ernest shouted and the whole of The Canvas changed back to the white void, the bed, and the nightstand. He held Grace’s hands in his and held her gaze with his eyes. “I have lived enough lifetimes to know that I can not be anything other than what I am... I want to be done, Grace.”

“You know what you are asking?” Grace said. “You signed the dotted line. Your body isn't yours anymore, and your mind has been integrated into the processing block. You can’t just-”

“I know what I am asking.”

Grace’s eyes lost the light behind them and her hands fell limp to her sides. “Fine,” she said. “It's on the nightstand. It always has been. Do whatever you want, but I don't want to see it anymore. I won't see it anymore.”

Grace evaporated from The Canvas, leaving only Ernest. He turned around and found a small red button the size of his palm resting on the edge of the nightstand.

Ernest pressed the button.

The dead man opened his eyes and sat up.

All was white around him save for the bed he lay in, the nightstand next to it, and the woman was sitting at the foot of the bed.

Grace sat with her back straight and feigned a concerned looked. She had to be perfect and though perfection was something hardcoded into her, having to act like she wasn’t failing the man she was made for was difficult.

“Are you Grace?” Ernest said. His eyes scanned up and down her body, pausing at the heart-shaped locket around her neck. “You're exactly how I imagined you.”

“It is good to see you too, Ernest,” Grace said, the phantom of a smile on her face.

She raised her hand and The Canvas changed into a forest. It was the first thing that Ernest had made when he came into The Canvas, and she hoped the place would inspire something in him.

While Ernest got second chance after second chance, she was always there. It’s what she was made for. Grace was aware of this, and despite that, she believed that there was nowhere else she would rather be. Having seen the lifetimes of Ernest, she had learned that living things were walking contradictions. To have one of her own gave a purpose beyond her programming. It gave her hope.