Also known as The Caged Bird and Her Moon Princess
In the year 2087, in the Kowloon Ring City, memories inside people's brains have become commodities with price tags, sold on the open market.
Memory implants that make people feel relaxed, happy, and fulfilled sell out every time they go on sale.
At a memory editing shop in the city center, the same customer shows up every three days. In silence, she repeats the act of paying and accepts the memory implant and playback device personally handed to her by the shop owner.
Employee: "Boss, who is that customer? She comes in every three days. She's practically a regularly respawning NPC."
Boss: "Get back to work! Are you saying you don't have enough to do? You've got time to pry into other people's identities now?"
After shooing the overly curious employee back to the studio, he turns to watch the figure walking away. Remembering the images in the memory implant, he can't help letting out a deep sigh.
Sitting on a park bench, she places the memory implant and playback device on the other side of the bench. Then she takes an old-fashioned MP3 player, long since made obsolete, from her pocket and plugs in a pair of earphones. She wears only one, laying the other beside the memory implant.
The lullaby that "Little Bird" hummed to her plays on repeat.
The unpolished tune seems to take her back to the past, but when she opens her eyes and looks at the empty space to her left, she still feels a pang of bitterness.
"You lost me after all, didn't you?"
