A Mother's Farewell
The mother and daughter held each other in silence.
Chori’s small body trembled faintly in her mother’s arms, and that tremor reached straight through to Chori’s Mother’s heart. Her heartbeat grew more irregular by the moment, yet she forced it into a steady rhythm, as if determined to endure for as long as she could feel Chori’s warmth.
Chori’s Mother’s hand gently stroked her child’s back. Each time her fingertips brushed against Chori, memories surged up unbidden.
The infant who had first cried among the corpses of monsters. The moments when a lullaby made those eyelids grow heavy almost at once. The day Chori took a first step and smiled so brightly for the first time.
Every scene glittered through her mind like shards of thin glass. Reach for them and they shattered; the broken pieces threatened to cut her hands if she was not careful.
“Mom…….”
Chori’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Yes, Chori.”
“Do you have to die?”
That voice clenched around Chori’s Mother’s breath like a fist. The cold resolve for farewell she had steeled herself to maintain crumbled completely in an instant. The raw wish that left a child’s lips was as cruel as it was honest.
“Mom also…….”
Her throat closed; the rest would not come. Once more the two of them fell silent for a long while, filling the time with nothing but each other’s warmth. Yet Chori’s Mother knew. The longer this warmth lasted, the more merciless the parting would become.
“……From now on, Chori has to hold on alone.”
“No. I want to stay with Mom.”
“If you do…… I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go.”
Chori’s Mother managed a smile, but it cracked and fell away almost at once. Her eyes reddened, yet the tears never came. She held them back to the end, afraid her own weeping would only swell Chori’s.
She gathered the last of her strength and cupped Chori’s cheeks in both hands. The touch was still warm, yet it was a warmth already beginning to recede.
“I love you, Chori. You must survive. I want you to keep living with all your strength from now on.”
When the words ended, Chori’s eyes shook violently, as if something inside them had broken.
“No……!”
Chori’s voice split the air of the room.
“I can’t live without Mom. I’d rather…… die with you.”
With that, Chori buried her face in her mother’s chest. The small, hot breaths dug into Chori’s Mother. Her heart felt as if it would tear open. If this continued, Chori would never leave this room.
“Chori…….”
She held her daughter’s shoulders tightly, then slowly put distance between them.
“If we keep this up…… only you will suffer.”
Chori shook her head hard.
“Then what about you? Aren’t you suffering too, leaving me behind?”
Her breath caught in her throat. Even so, Chori’s Mother forced a smile.
“I want to see you live, laugh, love someone…… and be loved in return. That…… is the last dream I have left.”
“But…….”
“You surviving…… is what keeps my life going.”
Her voice was low, but firm. At those words Chori’s eyes rippled again. The mother cupped that small face in both hands and pressed their foreheads together.
“You have to live. That is how Mom lives.”
Chori could not answer. She only swallowed a breath.
Just then Minel took one step forward. Looking at his expressionless face, Chori’s Mother understood her own condition. Any further delay and the Wildness would break through her control and rise.
She carefully pushed Chori away. The child kept reaching for her mother to the very end, but Minel stepped in and gently gathered her into his arms.
“No! No! You can’t!”
Chori thrashed. Arms and legs flailed as she tried to break free of Minel’s hold, yet he held her with a firmness that was still careful.
“Let me go! Please……! Let me go! I said let me go! Let…… please let me go. Please. Let me go.”
Small fists hammered against Minel’s chest in rapid succession, but he said nothing. He simply tightened his arms quietly, waiting for the struggle to subside.
Over Minel’s chest, Chori still stretched out her hands. Her fingertips clawed at empty air. Chori’s Mother only watched in silence. An invisible wall already seemed to stand between the two of them.
“Chori.”
Minel spoke the name low. The voice was resolute, yet a subtle warmth lived inside it.
“Let’s send her off now.”
Chori shook her head hard through her tears, but strength had already left her body. Minel went down on one knee and met her eyes. A face streaked with tears and mucus—yet within it was a surprisingly settled light, the resolute gleam found in someone who has long feared this moment and, at the same time, prepared for it deep in the heart.
Chori stared at Minel, then nodded. She turned. At once her shoulders heaved and a choked sound escaped, yet she forced out the final farewell.
“I love you, Mom…….”
“I love you too, Chori.”
Short as it was, the single exchange made the air in the room heavy. After that, Chori never looked at her mother again. The moment their eyes met, she would surely have turned back.
Minel quietly wrapped an arm around Chori’s back and guided her toward the door. In the instant the air of the room mixed with the air of the corridor, Chori’s Mother let out a long, very long breath.
Thud.
With a single door between them, the worlds of mother and child split completely. From the corridor side, Chori’s weeping faded into the distance, and a dense stillness settled over the room.
Chori’s Mother closed her eyes. The lingering attachment and fear that had coiled through her chest slowly sank beneath the blue light of Silence. The Wildness that had bared its teeth recovered a measure of calm for a short while. But it would explode before long.
“Thank you. Because of you…… I was able to show a good face right to the end.”
Only then did Chori’s Mother draw a long breath. A yellow light flickered in both eyes, yet it remained utterly stable.
“I’m glad.”
“It’s thanks to you. Without you I never could have held down the rising Wildness. I’m truly sorry, but…… may I ask one more favor?”
Chori’s Mother could not bear Minel’s gaze and finally lowered her eyes. Yet only for a moment. When she thought of the harsh life Chori would have to live from now on in the Backrooms, neither pride nor shame mattered at all. She clenched her teeth, swallowed dryly, and lifted her head again with resolve to look at Minel once more.
“From now on…… I want to entrust Chori to you.”
“I intend to escape from the seventh floor.”
Chori’s Mother answered at once.
“Just until then…… stay with her. You’re strong…… so by the time you reach the seventh floor, she’ll have learned enough from you about how to survive in the Backrooms.”
An ordinary child would not even be worth considering. But Chori was no ordinary girl. She was a non-combatant who possessed outstanding skills.
Minel sorted his thoughts carefully, then spoke as if murmuring to himself.
“There is a condition.”
A voice from which not even a scrap of emotion remained. Chori’s Mother realized that every kindness Minel had shown until now had been for the sake of that condition. Indifferent and cold. And precisely for that reason, all the more trustworthy.
Every survivor living in the Backrooms gradually lost their humanity. Almost all who climbed to the upper floors fell so far that one could no longer tell who was human and who was monster. Deceive, rob, betray, kill. In a Backrooms where such things became everyday, those who kept their word fell into exactly two types: those who kept it because they did not know reality, and those who kept it even though they did.
Chori’s Mother sensed that Minel was the latter. That was why she could entrust Chori to him all the more.
“Right now there is almost nothing I can offer as a condition. Coming down the floors, surviving all this time, I disposed of every good item I had.”
“There is something best of all.”
Chori’s Mother tilted her head.
“The best of all?”
“Information.”
The second truth of the Backrooms. In the Backrooms the most precious thing was first information, second information, and last of all information.
Chori’s Mother was someone who had come down from the upper floors. There was a high probability she knew things even the Backrooms Chronicles could not reveal. But her face darkened a little.
“I’m sorry…… but my memories aren’t whole. Ever since I became half-human, half-beast like this…… even my memories have grown fainter and fainter…… and with the things I do remember, I can’t tell how much is real.”
Minel already knew that. Even if she had remembered perfectly, he would not have trusted her words as they stood. In the end one had to verify everything by experiencing it with one’s own body. Even so, even fragmented information was a great help to him now.
“How did that body come about?”
Chori’s Mother answered as if murmuring.
“It started when I was carrying Chori.”
Minel’s brow drew slightly together.
“When you were pregnant, you mean?”
“I didn’t know at the time. I’d taken an irreversible wound and was about to die before I turned into a monster, and that was when I realized. That a life was stirring inside me…….”
“…….”
“I fought desperately to keep my sanity. To protect my child I suppressed the Wildness that kept rising without end. And then something amazing happened. The body that had been turning into a monster stopped at some point.”
“…….”
“Truly a mystery. One of the few things that can be called a mystery even in the Backrooms.”
It seemed to be a phenomenon she herself did not understand. Minel opened his mouth again.
“Seeing how you make food and houses, Chori’s non-combat skill rank seems high. Specifically, what can Chori do?”
If he was going to accept her as a party member, he needed to know exactly what she was capable of. That was why he asked—yet the answer was unexpected.
“All Chori has learned are normal non-combat skills. Why did you think the rank was high?”
Minel tilted his head. The food skill was far better than Sky’s. The house skill could create as many as forty-two entrances anywhere. Far too powerful to call normal grade. Yet Chori’s Mother did not seem to be lying. In the first place she had no reason to lie from her position.
“Are there other skills as well?”
“There’s one more. Erasing marks.”
She could erase marks? That would also have been one of the reasons they had been able to survive the Miller Party all this time.
“I have a pursuit mark on me.”
“Good. If you ask Chori, she’ll erase it for you right away.”
So she could even erase another person’s mark. The range of non-combat skills seemed broader than he had thought.
Minel asked several more questions after that, hoping some remaining clue or memory might surface.
“Gho…… ghosts…….”
Chori’s Mother trailed off for a long while before carefully opening her mouth.
“Well…… I think I remember something vaguely, but I’m not sure. It might be a monster…… I’m sorry.”
Minel shook his head.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Yet as the conversation continued, Minel noticed the change. Chori’s Mother’s eyes were slowly, yet unmistakably, filling with a deep yellow light. That color was cold and sharp, like the eyes of a wild beast flashing in a deep forest. The harder she struggled to hold onto memories, the rougher her breathing became. Words and shapes that had floated up in her mind were soon swept away by the sharp waves of instinct. It was as if the Wildness was gradually devouring a person’s thoughts.
Before long Chori’s Mother moved her lips, but no sound came out. Something inside her had already begun to raise its head, and it was too late to speak.
“…….”
Minel looked at her for a moment, then asked nothing more. He knew the moment when conversation could no longer continue had arrived.
“Don’t worry about Chori. I’ll take responsibility until we escape from the seventh floor.”
Silence sliced through the air and descended slowly. Blue light flowed gently along the blade, quietly pushing back the shadows in the room. That light was less sharp than it was still, less cold than it was deeply settled.
Chori’s Mother’s eyes wavered for a moment as they reflected that light. Inside them, for a brief, very brief instant, a human expression returned. In the gap where the Wildness held its breath, she smiled.
“Thank you…….”
The voice was faint as wind, yet it was clearly heard.
Shing—!
The tip of Silence quietly brushed across her chest. Blue light spread outward like ripples, wrapping Chori’s Mother’s body. Within that light her expression grew softer and softer, her breathing calmer. As if sinking into a deep dream, the muscles that had been rigid with tension loosened one by one.
And then.
The last breath flowed out in quiet.
Minel stood for a moment and watched Chori’s Mother’s body take on a yellow glow. The faded light of Silence. The peaceful silence that followed. Only Minel remained in the room.