Reality Time Renters

In the year 2145, escapism had reached its final frontier. Virtual reality, augmented consciousness, neural linking-they were outdated novelties compared to ChronoLease, the company that changed everything.

ChronoLease didn’t just simulate experiences. It rented people time in alternate realities. Not illusions. Not projections. But fully lived experiences in dimensions where different choices had been made, different histories played out, and different versions of “you” thrived—or failed.

For the right price, you could live as a rock star in a world where you never gave up music, or as a peaceful farmer in a version of Earth that had never discovered war. You could spend a weekend as a famous athlete, an ancient monk, or even as a creature in a world where humans never evolved. All without ever leaving the comfort of your recliner.

And when your time expired, you’d wake up in your own timeline-no worse for wear. Just poorer. And often, lonelier.

Kara Liang, a former physicist turned ChronoLease technician, had seen it all. Clients returned either glowing with awe or broken by regret.

But today was different. Today, she was going to use the system herself.

Kara had saved a year’s salary for just six hours in a world where she hadn’t walked away from her scientific career, where she hadn’t abandoned Project ECHO-the original prototype for reality traversal. The one that ChronoLease’s founders had bought from the government and turned into luxury entertainment.

She sat alone in Chamber 11. The room smelled sterile and cold. A nurse attached the neural latches to her temples and spine. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

Kara nodded. “I need to see what I became.”

“Six hours in, six minutes out,” the nurse reminded her. “Reality displacement can trigger psychological discontinuity. You might forget things temporarily. But don’t worry-it fades.”

Kara’s heart pounded as the interface activated. Her vision blurred, static filled her ears, and her thoughts slipped through the cracks of her consciousness like water through fingers.

Then, everything stopped.

And restarted.

She opened her eyes in a sleek laboratory made of glass and chrome. Screens floated in the air, showing models of wormholes and tachyon interference patterns. She was wearing a white coat, standing beside a younger version of herself-still brilliant-eyed, still ambitious.

But she wasn’t just watching. She was her.

“Dr. Liang,” someone called. “The Nobel Committee’s on the line again. They want a comment on your latest paper.”

Kara smiled. Here, she’d stayed. Here, she’d built the ChronoBridge herself-not sold it. She’d won awards, not watched others claim her dream.

In the six hours that followed, Kara walked the halls of her alternate life. Her name was engraved on the side of a scientific campus. She had students who idolized her. A partner who understood her need for solitude. She even met her parents-still alive, still proud.

This world was better.

When the timer in her head began to count down the last thirty seconds, Kara panicked.

“I’m not ready,” she whispered. “I can’t leave this.”

But her protest echoed into silence as reality collapsed.

Back in Chamber 11, Kara gasped awake.

She cried. Not out of sadness, but out of longing. That version of her was everything she’d dreamed. And yet, it wasn’t hers.

Later that night, in her small, dusty apartment, Kara stood by her window and watched the blinking neon signs advertising ChronoLease.

“YOUR BEST LIFE IS JUST A DIMENSION AWAY.”

She knew now why people became addicted. Not just to fantasy, but to themselves-the better versions they saw. The ones who hadn’t made the wrong turn, said the wrong thing, or let fear win.

Kara returned to work the next day. She smiled at clients. Calibrated devices. Kept her grief folded neatly inside.

But her mind was different now.

She started building something-quietly, at home. Not another bridge to another world, but a recorder. A memory container that would save her alternate experiences. Let her revisit them without paying. Without permission.

Two months later, she activated the prototype.

And this time, she didn’t come back.

People noticed her absence, of course. A few coworkers whispered about burnout. Her manager filed a missing person report. But inside Chamber 11, Kara’s neural signature simply... drifted.

In her alternate world, Kara Liang lived on. She taught, discovered, loved, and aged. And one day, she sat on a mountain ledge with her partner and whispered a truth she had hidden for years.

“This isn’t my world,” she said. “I rented it. But I chose to stay.”

He looked at her, quiet for a long time.

“And would you ever go back?”

“No,” she said. “I found the version of me I always wanted. I just had to become her.”

Back in Prime Earth, ChronoLease was growing.

A new subscription model launched: Infinite Lease -lifetime access to an alternate version of yourself, sustained indefinitely.

No refunds. No returns.

Just the life you wished you had.

And the people you left behind.