"...I literally just did."

"No, the day we met. On your birthday."

"I think I'd remember if you were acting batshit insane on my birthday, Peter."

"Really? Would you, actually?"

"Y—" He stops and tries to think back on his birthday. On... any... interactions he had.

He had interactions, right? He must've? He knows that's when he met Peter, and Tae-hwan. But, uh...

"Did I propose to Tae-hwan on a week's acquaintance?"

"You sure did, buddy."

"I am not any less confused now, Peter! You're falling down on your job of making me understand what the fuck!"

"As I was saying, 'what the fuck' is that most people are—weird. I guess, maybe try to think about how your day was going today? Up until Tae-hwan, uh, died, since that seems to be what triggered you. But before that, try to maybe remember any individual conversations you had, or introspect on your thoughts and feelings?"

"I'd love to do that for you Peter but apparently I literally cannot think of any details about my day whatsoever."

"Mm yeah. So. I think that was your entire life, wasn't it?"

"I fucking guess?"

"Everyone is like that. All the time."

"Except for you."

"And now, you."

"Why? I mean, why you and why me?"

"Do you know the names of Tae-hwan's parents? Do you know if he has siblings? Do you know any friends of his from before university?"

Eric is going to chalk up his annoyance at this method of explanation to him being confused and cranky.

Also, he'll think about the answer. "No. But we've only known each other a couple of weeks..."

"I asked him point blank. As far as I can tell, he does not have parents, or a family, or any proof that he existed prior to three Sundays ago. He has memories of having had them, vague ones just like the ones you have of your own life but without names attached, and if you prod too much he gets annoyed and wants to change the subject. He doesn't have any social media activity from before three weeks ago, doesn't have a prior address, nothing.

"I don't either. My memories are convinced I have parents and two younger siblings but I cannot recall any details about them. And the difference between Tae-hwan and me is that when I began existing I was already—like this. Awake, I guess. I don't know why.

"And we're not the only ones who began existing out of nowhere, either. It's not most people but it's actually a lot of people. I didn't check very deeply because I only realised it spread farther than just me last Saturday and didn't have time to ask a lot of people, but the people I asked down in the village seemed to have a similar distribution of having come to existence recently as the people in the frat."

"Wow that's, uh. A lot. Uh. Give me a minute."

"As many as you need."

"Okay no turns out I need to speak aloud to think through stuff. So everyone you've met acts like—how I used to act—and also separately some people just kinda come to existence out of nowhere with fake memories suggesting that they at some point had a family. And you're one of the latter but for some reason you don't understand you're not one of the former. And now neither am I."

"Basically."

"...no that's pretty straightforward, actually, okay."

"...is it? Want to enlighten me?"