Renting a Stranger’s Memories

Renting a Stranger’s Memories

By [Hubaib Ullah]

I didn’t think much of the ad when I saw it plastered on the side of the subway train.

“Earn cash by hosting someone else’s memories! Emotionally safe. Ethically certified. 100% temporary.”

Next to it was a photo of a serene young woman, eyes closed, floating in a pool of blue light.

It sounded like a bad sci-fi plot. But I’d spent the last three days eating stale bread, my rent was overdue, and my canvas had been blank for weeks. So, I clicked the link. A few background checks and neural tests later, I was walking into MemoDive headquarters with a racing heart and exactly $18.27 in my bank account.

“Package 48B,” I told the tech. He looked up, a flicker of something—concern, maybe?—briefly touching his features. Then it was gone.

“Strong choice,” he said. “High payout.”

I signed the waiver with trembling fingers. No names were shared. No explanations given. Just a sleek black recliner, a skullcap of neural threads, and the cold sting of antiseptic against the base of my neck.

Then darkness.

The memory hit like a heartbeat.

I was small. Maybe six. The air was thick with smoke.

“Mom?” I called out, my voice tinny and weak.

Flames licked the doorframe. Shadows danced on the hallway walls.

I ran barefoot down the corridor, the floor hot, splinters pricking my feet.

She wasn’t there. No one was.

And then—

I turned, and the ceiling gave way.

I woke up with a scream stuck in my throat and the scent of burnt wood clinging to my hair.

The tech handed me a bottle of water and said, “You’re done. The memory will fade in 72 hours. Maybe less.”

I walked home. Or maybe drifted. It was hard to tell the difference.

That night, I dreamed of fire again. Not as a memory—this time, as me. My own bed was burning. My walls bubbled with heat. My mother’s voice, distorted and distant, calling for help I couldn’t give.

I jolted awake drenched in sweat. My hands were shaking. I reached for my sketchpad. For the first time in weeks, the pencil moved. I didn’t even look at what I was drawing until morning.

A house. On fire.

A child at the window, eyes wide.

And a woman, watching from across the street.

On day two, I began hearing things. Whispers. Footsteps. A soft whimper behind me in the grocery aisle. I turned and saw a flash of a girl’s face in the freezer door reflection. Blonde. Freckles. Tears streaking soot on her cheeks.

I blinked and she was gone.

I stopped painting. I started remembering—things that weren’t mine.

I began walking past a redbrick house every day on my way to the studio. I didn’t know why until the third time: it was the house from the memory.

It was real.

I returned to MemoDive.

“This isn’t supposed to happen,” I said. “Why is it still in me?”

The receptionist smiled like a wax doll. “Some overlap is natural. The brain adapts to sensory implants. It’ll fade.”

I leaned in. “Where did 48B come from?”

A pause.

She lowered her voice. “We’re not supposed to say. But between you and me—those memories weren’t archived. They were streamed. Live.”

My mouth went dry. “What does that mean?”

“It means…” She hesitated. “Someone didn’t donate their past. You saw what they’re living right now.”

I didn’t sleep that night. Or the night after.

The child began to speak to me. At first in dreams, then in waking thoughts.

“She left me.”

“Why didn’t she come back?”

“I don’t want to die alone.”

I painted obsessively. Pages and pages. Smoke and flames. A girl hiding under a bed. A mother running away. A streetlight flickering through ash.

I wasn’t sure if I was remembering, imagining, or becoming.

I called MemoDive again.

I begged. Pleaded. “Let me talk to her,” I said. “The girl. She’s still in it.”

“No,” they said. “That’s not how it works.”

So I waited. Outside the redbrick house. One night, the door creaked open. A woman stepped out, cigarette trembling in her hand.

I recognized her.

She was the woman from the drawing. The one who watched the fire and didn’t run in.

I approached slowly. “She’s still in there,” I whispered.

Her eyes widened.

“How do you know that?” she asked, voice breaking.

I didn’t answer.

I just handed her the sketch of the girl looking out the burning window.

And I walked away.

It’s been a month.

The memory hasn’t faded. Not entirely. I think it’s mine now, in some strange, awful way.

But I’ve sold every painting. Galleries call me “the fire prophet.”

They say I’ve captured something untouchable. A scream wrapped in color.

They don’t know it’s real. That she’s real.

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still hear her.

And sometimes…

I answer back.