Save Corrupted

“Where are you going, Dad?” Kasumi asks, her voice small and vision hazy. She looks down the hall, where her father wears a strange robe and sandals. He looks back at her, eyes hidden by shadow and mouth expressionless. “No, wait!” Kasumi cries, running toward him as fast as her little legs can carry her. Despite her running, the air around her falls like jelly, and the hall extends, making it impossible to make any progress. “Don’t go!” she wails, stumbling just as the door closes behind him.

When she picks herself up, Kasumi is lying in front of her mother, who is yelling on the phone. Her words are incoherent, but her rage is evident in the scowl on her face and the force with which she slams the phone down. Her mother remains silent for a moment, then notices Kasumi and kneels to draw her into a hug. “It’ll be okay, Kasumi,” her mother says, stroking her hair. “We’ll get through this. You need to be brave, just like the heroes we play as.”

Kasumi looks up to find that, somehow, her mother has moved to hug her from behind. Kasumi sits in her lap, playing a game with a controller in hand.

“Make your choice,” the screen reads, with options for either hero or villain. Kasumi looks down at the controller in her hand, noting that it has only two large buttons corresponding to the two options on the screen.

“Well, that’s a stupid controller design,” she thinks. “What kind of crazy dream were the designers having when they—” Kasumi’s thoughts are cut short as her eyes open. Breath fills her lungs, and she sits up in bed, nearly waking her still-sleeping mother.

“The pearl!” she thinks, clutching her fingers down with both hands. She feels a smooth sphere in her left hand and pulls it close to her chest. She looks down, barely opening her hand to see the faint violet glow, and sighs in relief.

“What’s got you spooked, dear?” Kasumi’s mother asks as she wakes up. Kasumi looks down, noticing that her other hand is clamped down on her mother’s wrist. “Bad dream?”

“Uh…” Kasumi stammers, the dream’s details already draining like water through a strainer. “Something like that.” She releases her mother’s wrist and excuses herself to the bathroom, never loosening her grip on the pearl. She takes her time at the sink, splashing water on her face as if trying to wash away the memory-laden dream. Even as the details fade from her mind, the emotions tied to the stirred-up memories refuse to fade, remaining like gaciar carved grooves. Only the binary choice remains clear in her mind, like an essential quest item that can’t be dropped, stored, or sold.

On the way out, Kasumi passes her mother’s room, catching a glimpse of what might’ve stirred up said memories. “Missing man found dead in Daisetsuzan National Park. Thought to be recreating the life of Siddhartha Gautama,” reads the newspaper Kasumi’s mother has pinned above her bed. Kasumi shakes her head and passes by the door, heading to the kitchen where her mother is already preparing breakfast. Kasumi doesn’t join her mother in the kitchen; instead, she heads to the table just outside.

“Not going to help today?” her mother asks, eyes focused on whisking eggs.

“I’d only slow you down,” Kasumi says, pulling out a seat. “I mean, I almost burnt dinner yesterday, so there’s no use repeating past mistakes.”

“Maybe, but you’ll never progress a skill tree if you don’t grind.” The words flow from her mother’s mouth like eggs onto the pan. Despite having similar personalities and aptitudes, cooking is the one skill that separates them the most. Despite her daughter’s inability to even fry eggs, Kasumi’s mother finds cooking not just easy but enjoyable. She insists on shopping and meal-prepping over eating out, even with her job’s grueling hours. “I’d think you would’ve improved a little over the last year since you’ve been making your own lunches.”

“Guess not,” Kasumi says, pulling out her phone. She tries to open her favorite game, dreading the long line of notifications about missed special events and daily quests, but resolves to fix the issue nonetheless. Disaster strikes when the game is locked behind a password she doesn’t recognize.

“What’s this?” Kasumi whispers, looking at the password request.

“Discipline and punishment,” her mother says, placing down a plate of rolled omelets, miso soup, salad, and rice. “Maybe now you’ll remember to ask permission and send me updates before you fall off the face of the earth.”

“But, Mom, this—”

“Isn’t fair? Well, if you say so, now that I think about it, that may be far too lenient considering what you’ve done.” Her mother looks up as she taps her chin. “Hmm, let’s see… What else should you be grounded from?”

“Ahh, alright, alright. Thank you for the food!” Kasumi panics, slapping her hands together to bless the meal and change the subject before her mother continues.

The pair eats in mild tension, her mother trying to get details on where Kasumi has been for the last few days, and Kasumi being as vague and deflective as possible. Even if she wants to tell the truth, Kasumi knows her mother will never believe she’s gone to Mt. Fuji to retrieve a pearl that has once been the core of an arch-devil after staking out the Dviner’s shrine for days. And even if she did, sharing details about Maiden activities with outsiders is strictly forbidden; at best, she’d be reprimanded and dropped to the very bottom of the rankings. At worst, she could face immediate decommissioning, losing all her memories of Maiden activities. Kasumi isn’t sure if that includes all her memories of Momo, but the possibility is enough to seal Kasumi’s lips tighter than a welder.

As Kasumi washes the dishes, she feels the pearl in her pocket. The violet light emanating from it comes and goes, giving her a constant reminder that it has to be returned, and soon. She is also reminded of the compass, potion, and money still in her bag that she has to ditch. The potion and compass can go in the trash, but the money would only be fertilizer for her mother’s suspicions if she finds it.

Kasumi considers waiting until tomorrow, sneaking out while her mother is at work. She could leave her phone at home to avoid being tracked, but that would leave the possibility that she’d call, and Kasumi would be found out.

“Best to do it today, right under her nose when she least expects it,” Kasumi thinks, racking her brain for a solution.

Her opportunity comes when her mother’s about to go shopping. Kasumi seizes her chance. Just as her mother is about to walk out the door, Kasumi says goodbye, then follows it with, “Glad I’m not making you do that too,” in a voice just loud enough to be heard. Her plan works like a charm; she watches her mother’s expression change from the corner of her eye and laments when told to go instead.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on your location, so no pit stops at the arcade, you hear me?”

“Yes, Mom,” Kasumi laments, sliding on her shoes. As the door closes, she lets her barely suppressed smile erupt across her face.

“Works every time,” Kasumi thinks, walking to the usual grocery store. On her way there, she looks up other stores near the shrine. Her plan is simple: choose the heaviest item on the list, say the first store is out of stock, and that she needs to head to the second store to pick it up. On her way back, she just so happens to see the shrine and stops to make an offering. “Simple, easy, efficient,” Kasumi thinks, doing just that. It’s a pain carrying the full eco bag from the first store to the second, but it is unavoidable.

When she finally reaches the shrine, she looks in, half expecting the Diviner to be waiting for her at the torii gate. When the Diviner is nowhere to be found, Kasumi steps in, feeling the pearl radiate heat like a hand warmer and glow brighter than before. She walks to the main building, knocks, but no one comes. With no time to waste, she places the pearl, compass, and bottle into the offering box, slipping them through the wooden grate.

*THUNK*

Her heart seems to drop with the stone, falling into the pit of her stomach. Her whole body begins trembling as she is filled with an irresistible urge to get as far away from the shrine as possible.

“Return on the 4th,” whispers a voice from behind as Kasumi exits the torii gates. She looks back, clutching the ear the voice has whispered in, but there is no one there.

Kasumi looks back while she runs, feeling the paranoia of being watched well up twofold from her trip home from Mt. Fuji the previous day. Even when she arrives home, she is so shaken that her mother isn’t even cross about the missing item. She embraces Kasumi, telling her she is safe. Her words fall on deaf ears. Kasumi trembles, unwilling to leave her mother’s side.

They remain together, just as they have yesterday, but it is different. The relaxed, joyful air has been replaced by a paranoid tension that seems to permeate the whole apartment. Kasumi can’t stand for her mother to be out of sight, clinging to her like a frightened toddler. All the while, she drowns in the feeling that she’s made the wrong choice, wishing to go back, only to discover all her previous saves have become like her, corrupted.