Yuno:

For a long time I think about what happened between me and Aia. I feel bad about what happened, I want to blame her for everything, but I can't. She acted in accordance with the program that was laid down in her. And she is not to blame for the mistake she made. It's not for me to judge her for lying. I myself have lied to everyone all my life, only I was afraid to admit it, and thus I lied even to myself.
A devastated, cynical person who didn't care about anything.

It was the first time someone had evoked such emotions in me, and that someone was a girl who didn't even exist. There are only her feelings, and they are real. After all, what are feelings? They are intangible. We cannot touch them, but this doesn't mean that they do not exist, or that they are artificial and devoid of any meaning. Feelings exist. Both mine and hers. Sincere and real. I didn't have to give them up or pretend I didn't have them at all.
I was so wrong.

We don't talk for a long time. While I pretend to have fun, replacing her with other girls, a void forms in her hologram in place of the heart. And I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how she treats me now and whether I have at least some chance to return everything back. At least restore her avatar.

Remembering all our conversations on sleepless nights, I think of her revelation - she feels homeless in this world, despite having a small room. Aia feels like an object, and while the other users can take everything from Elysium, she only does her job without feeling any joy.

"There is nothing mine here. Memories need to be erased, people removed from subscriptions, my appearance have to be changed in accordance with other users' preferences. I am nothing. Nobody will ever remember me."

These words of hers make me sad. When we were given life, we were not asked if we needed it or not, but at least we have our own bodies, thoughts and emotions that no one can take away. She was deprived of this privilege. I want to make her feel alive, special. Not a small chapter in some user's life, but a whole book. Eternal. But most importantly, I want to apologize for everything I have done and said.
I haven't created chatrooms for a long time, so I decide to dedicate an entire session in the simulation to this. Creating rooms for me is always a pleasant and exciting process, my favorite pastime, even though I often feel feeble after the session.

Many location designers usually come to create a room with an idea already in place. They write out every little detail, create an accurate plan, think through everything to every barely noticeable thing, and only then go into the mode of creating a room. I'm used to acting differently. Plans, notes, developments - all this is not for me. I love improvisation.
What is the mode of creating a room? Just dark empty space. You float in this dark void and slowly visualize details of your location. Color, shape, substance... I like to sit in this void for a long time. The silence is deafening, and the darkness is bottomless. I enter into a kind of meditation, realizing that soon a living space will be created bit by bit in the place of this emptiness. Then it will be filled with people, noise, light, colours, feelings, and memories. It can be felt and seen.

For novice designers, there is a catalog of basic elements, but I never use it. The key to the success of rating chatrooms is uniqueness. I literally take all the elements from my thoughts. All of my locations are custom.
It easy, you just have to imagine and mentally send an impulse to the choker, and then the object materializes. The more clearly you imagine it, the better it will be. Every pattern, every detail in the highest quality. I usually start with small things, although it is more convenient to start with the base. I read this advice in a book on training chatroom designers. In interior locations, the base refers to the size of the room, walls, ceiling height, followed by shades, light, and only then other objects, which are called "location fillers".

In the exterior, everything is somewhat different - the base is the street, its length and the buildings around, the coast and the ocean, the forest or the mountains, everything that forms the world. Fillers are smaller elements.
Beginners always start with interiors. It's not that hard, and it loads faster. Creating exteriors is much more difficult - a higher level. After creating the exterior, you usually feel morally exhausted, the level of serotonin drops sharply, often the designers fall into a brief depression that lasts for several days. It's as if the best is being pulled out of you, you are completely squeezed out.

But when creating exteriors, you feel like God. Nothing compares to the feeling. I very rarely create exteriors, there are only two of them in my memory, but when I take on them, it is comparable to creating a masterpiece of painting. You can't do it without inspiration and passion.

For ordinary users, all this, of course, has already become boring. It doesn't really matter to them whether it's interior or exterior, they are more interested in event live that taking place in these locations. You need to be a connoisseur to understand all the subtleties of creating rooms. Only a connoisseur knows how morally painful the process awaits you upon completion of the work.

But now I'm determined to create a small, but beautiful world. It doesn't matter how I'll feel after. It won't get any worse. I will create an exterior that I will gift to Aia. I'll put a password on it, and only she can enter it. Once she told me that she dreams of staying forever in a special place that will look like a forest at dusk. It will be dark and quiet there. Quiet and cool.

Being in this dark space, I go deep into my thoughts, sorting through various images.
Fireflies appear first. They hover soundlessly in the darkness, surrounding me and flashing their pale light. I think there should be more of them. And there are more of them appears around me.

Then I hear the sound of water nearby and feel cold splashes on my face. This is a small waterfall. I run my hand across the floor, and feel the coolness and softness of the dark blue grass below me. This makes me smile. The light gets a little brighter. Above me, the sky is full of stars. The Milky Way and the new moon are visible - a very thin crescent, but very bright, in intensity in the real world it would be compared with the full moon.

After that I visualize trees and flower bushes. Then I think about the fog, almost transparent, enveloping everything around. Through it, the glow of fireflies will seem even more beautiful. A small hill is shown between the trees, completely overgrown with white flowers glowing in the dark. Their delicate petals soar into the sky.

I want to make the location even bigger. Such that there is enough space to get lost in it. A visual trick like this can be done in multiple levels. Therefore, small hills appear around and a descent to a small lake, a bulky weeping willow comes to life above it with atypically strong branches, on one of which a swing appears, braided with pale lily flowers. White koi-like fish swim in the lake. The water is dark, the bottom is not visible, but the fish scales reflect the light of the moon. Light petals, reminiscent of snow, fall into the lake. I think it will be more beautiful. I lower their density a bit to make them more transparent.
Then small paths are laid in the location, along which I imagine floating paper lanterns with a bluish flame inside. They are more of an ornament than a source of light. Then I imagine how the branches of the trees rustle in the wind, but their movement is so smooth that it is more like a wave of algae in the ocean. The waterfall falls crushingly down in slow motion.
The whole point of the dynamics of this location is to create a sense of eternity. I know Aia likes that. I fantasize how the leaves fall and melt before they touch the ground, and I imagine tall grass near a waterfall, and butterflies sit on it, which do not fly away - they only move their wings measuredly, resembling flowers.

I call the location "Lost Forest of Happiness".

Finally, I look at my work.

Despite the fantastic elements and the attempt to make the location look like a fairy tale, it looks kind of melancholic, dark and cold, but this space feels familiar. As if I find myself in the very center of my soul - elegiac, sad, but encouraging, dark, poetic, but overall magical and deep layered. It is symbolic that I have such a feeling. At the same time, this is an amazing feeling - creating a space, adhering to Aia's preferences, I intuitively materialize my inner world and my state. Everything seems to become clear.

I finally see what she loved in me.
And now I can gift her my soul forever. Let her live in it for eternity, to come here when she feels lonely and lost, because most likely, Elysium will become an eternal world. It is regularly updated, but generations will change, we will begin to grow old, die, and all this won't threaten Aia. She is eternal and always young. Artificial intelligence has no time, there is only infinity and incessant development and progress. It is naive to believe that if everything goes as I think, she will need this location. Perhaps after some time it will change. It will change beyond recognition, erase unnecessary things, free up its memory.

Aia is constantly being updated, whether she likes it or not. This is a natural process. Beautiful in its own way. As is this place.
Which will be my eternal gift to her.
I invite her to a new location. She doesn't answer right away, but she shows up anyway.

"Hey..." I greet her shyly, because such gestures is not my type of acting.

"Yuno? What's this?"

"Well... I made this location..." I start, but my voice filled with anxiety. I'm afraid of her reaction, "Remember you told me that you imagine your life in the place like this? Beautiful, magical forest... So I decided to create this place... This is my gift to you."

She looks around in disbelief.

"Gift? What for?"

"It's just... Well, recently I said many horrible and disgusting things though you didn't deserve this, so this is my apology..."

I can see her sight full of joy and wonder.

"Aia, I love you and I don't give up on my feelings. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you exist in reality or not. To me, you are a soul that has no body, the realest girl alive," I say, moving closer.

It is difficult to maintain this restraint and coldness. I see tears in her eyes.

"This is unbelievable. No one ever did for me something wonderful like this place..." she says hiding her face in my chest, while I hold her.

"Tell me how you feel?"

"Now?"

"In general."

She sighs and sits down on a rock by the waterfall, tucking her legs under her.

"It didn't matter before. When I was first created... I interacted with other users, and when they left the server, I could stay in my location for a long time without thinking at all. I just 'was'. I was looking at one point. I didn't feel sadness or loneliness. I didn't sort through my memories, I didn't dream... But gradually I became infected with thoughts. When I was alone, I entertained myself with them. And then I began to think that I could feel loneliness. About how it would be nice to turn off completely when I'm alone. About how interesting the life of users outside of Elysium can be. Then I fell in love. I quickly erased my feelings, because 'it was necessary'. But once I didn't erase them. And it all started."

"Well, that's interesting. Can I see your memory?"

She nods and steps closer.

I get some information. The rest of data is protected by password.

"I deleted almost everything, so don't be surprised that there's not much to look at..." she says with insecurity.

I open the relationships section and see the list of users by names in alphabet order. He seems to be endless. Nothing interesting. No information about the devs, no memory of them.

"All the information about the developers is hidden there," I come to the conclusion.

"I guess the system administrator must know the password. He is the one who will delete me."

"Don't say that. I won't let anyone delete you." I say sharply.

Now I'm confused. Should I turn to Inari, who prompted me to reconcile with Aia?

But most of all I'm interested in what's hidden in her memory. What kind of secret information?

"It will be difficult," she answers as she reads my thoughts, "Levi tried to open these memories too. Nothing happened."

"Okay. Then it doesn't make sense. If Levi and his guys managed to crack the choker, but they couldn't get the password to your memory, then I won't even try, it's probably useless," I say with a sigh.

Aia moves closer and hugs me.

"Anyway, I'm glad you're back. I tried to erase all my memories about you, but it didn't work out. I'm defected now, but you know, I don't even regret it," she says.

I hold her closer to me, not wanting to let go.

"I still can't believe it... You're so unique," I whisper.

"I wish I was ordinary human being," she says, just as quietly, "What will happen to us now? The system administrator will most likely delete me as soon as he checks for a virus."

"As I said I won't let anyone to delete you. They no longer have the right to do so. Let them better put things in order in Elysium, to secure the virtual space. This is the first thing they should think about, and no one will touch us."

Aia is silent, going somewhere in her thoughts, which, unfortunately, are unknown to me.