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Cashier wants to live.
He thinks it a reasonable request; after all it’s only human nature, his self preservation instincts.
That’s what he tells himself as he stands behind one of the many polygonal trees lining the street. He watches Kyu float there, the surrounding area glitching about wildly. He didn’t know exactly what she was doing– something to do with deleting the data and having the player start over.
If you were to put Cashier and Kyu’s goals into a venn diagram, the only common-stance would be saving the world and returning it to its former glory. Kyu wanted the player to simply restart, hoping that things would be better the next go through. Maybe the game would adjust and meld to fit their presence.
Cashier wanted them gone.
They wanted to delete their data. They wanted to renew the world and play through everything all over again. But such a thing wouldn’t just reset the world. It would reset Cashier. It would erase Cashier’s newfound sentience. It would mean everything he had done was for naught. He would return to being just a cashier. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cashier did not want that to happen.
So he watches as the player steps out of the convenience store, stumbling with the orb in their hands. He knew how much the orb’s leaking data could hurt. It almost made him rethink what he was about to do.
Almost.
There was no time for rethinking. He was going to live. He was going to retain his sentience no matter what got in his path.
He hears Kyu begin monologuing. She speaks of the orb’s history– how they were oh so close before the game ripped them apart.
If the game had truly done such a thing, he was sure she would understand what he was about to do.
Within a matter of seconds, Kyu exploded. The studs of her body(? could you really call it that?) flew across the map, the blast force enough to knock the orb to the ground. Cashier takes her place, eyes glowing a haunting neon green.
The player’s eyes widen. Their mouth hangs open in a silent horror.
Cashier looks down at them. He speaks words he cannot hear over the adrenaline rushing to his head. He cannot hear them over the burning in his hands as they alight the same neon green as his eyes. He cannot hear anything as he winds his arm back.
What he does hear is Player’s scream.
It’s a garbled, desolate cry that snaps Cashier back to his senses. His own eyes widen, desperately scanning through the fire to try and find them. They are still screaming. They are still alive.
Cashier is frozen in place, fight or flight response ditching him entirely. His mind howls at him to save them– do something, anything to make things right. But he cannot move. It was as if his feet were glued to the ground. He is paralyzed in fear and horror as he realizes what he has done.
The screaming stops.
Player is dead.
The fire dissipates, and they are gone. All that lay where they once did was the orb and a scorched red hat.
He attempts to pick it up, but the area he pinches is brittle. It breaks into ash as quickly as he touches it.
Cashier is alive. He is conscious, he is sentient, he is aware.
But at what cost?