OOC ❦ Memory (2)
Cloud was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a house; he could feel the grain of the wood beneath his bare feet. He could feel he was holding a cigarette in his left hand, though he couldn't smell the smoke from it. But he could see in this memory, which was something of a relief… there were two people kneeling in front of him, a woman and a half-grown boy.
"A mushi that eats memories?" the woman asked, her voice puzzled, unsure.
"Yes." His voice now. "It's known as a kagedama. It's dark, and translucent, and it has a membrane-like form. It likes to hide out in the shadows of large, old trees. There, it waits for animals and people to rest. While they sleep, the mushi enters the ear and makes its way to the brain. After that, the host rarely sleeps. And, little by little, they gradually lose their memories." Cloud's voice had remained steady throughout all that, just listing the habits and symptoms of this kagedama mushi without any real inflection or emotion creeping into his voice. The two opposite him weren't so composed, especially at his last sentence. The boy reacted with something akin to shock as he turned toward the woman, who Cloud could only suppose was his mother.
The woman turned slightly, looking out toward something Cloud couldn't see-it was on his blind side. "It lives in the shadow of that sakura in the garden?" she asked, her voice taking on the slightest hint of fear.
"Yes, most likely." He continued his explanation. "Once it consumes enough memories, the mushi divides itself. The new half is then sent out of the host's body during a brief moment of sleep, to hide in the shadows of nearby trees. That's how they reproduce. By nature, they're weak and fragile, and can vanish if they remain in the sunlight for too long. I'm sorry, but since this mushi has already embedded itself into your brain, there's nothing we can do."
The boy protested this verdict. "Wait! You mean there's no cure?"
Cloud's eye lowered a little, until he was not quite looking at them; the memory didn't exactly feel regretful, though Cloud could tell he wasn't exactly happy he had to give them this news, but more like his memory-self was thinking. "The only known weakness of the kagedama is sunlight, so we've got nothing. There's no way to shine sunlight in your brain."
He looked back up, as if thinking of something. The woman looked like she was trying to deal with a nasty shock, which wasn't surprising considering what he'd just told her… but it seemed he still wasn't done talking. "But it might still be possible to protect the memories you don't want to forget."
The woman glanced up, a soft sound of surprise and wordless questioning leaving her lips. Cloud's gaze drifted up and to the left, as if thinking very hard, and he brought his left hand up to run the thumb down his cheek. He still couldn't smell the cigarette even this close; he found himself vaguely disappointed that he couldn't. "As an example, let's say that memories are stored in the same way drawers hold things inside a closet. Your memories of dango, relatives who live far away, sneezes… they are all categorized and filed into countless different drawers. The kagedama takes the whole drawer out, one drawer at a time. The order it chooses doesn't seem to have anything to do with your interests. It appears to be completely random."
He lowered his gaze and his hand once more. "But, there's still hope. There's a set of memories the kagedama hasn't touched yet." The woman was still looking at him, expectantly, without saying a word. "The things that you do repeatedly every day. The things that you see, and think. Like how to cook, how to weave on the loom, the memories of your son." So the boy was her son, he had been right. "The husband that you set a place for every day. The mushi probably leaves the memories pertaining to the basics of daily living until last, to prolong the host's life as much as possible."
The woman smiled for the first time. "So… you're saying I won't forget…?"
As she spoke her voice grew fainter and fainter, and the scene around him grew darker as the memory started to fade. He thought that maybe he opened his mouth to answer her, but then it was gone.