I wake up to the sounds of chirping birds. Yup, I'm still here. Opening my eyes, I see this beautiful morning light shine over the city below. It's almost surreal.

I decide to check the time. It is 7AM on Thursday. Most schools begin classes at 8 or 9, right? I should probably get going if I want to catch whatever breakfast they serve before class. What if that's not a thing here? What if I have to pay for it? What if the lunches cost money? I honestly don't even want to think about that possibility.

As I approach the school I came from yesterday, I start to notice it's grandeur. This place looks a lot more like a college campus than just a high school. I better stop by their main office and get a map or something. I also need to find out what classes I have here.

I enter the office. There is a secretary there who looks busy, but not busy enough to answer a student's questions.

"Hey, could I get a copy of my school schedule? I kinda lost mine."

…

"Hey…"

…

"Hello?"

No response. She doesn't seem like she's even noticed my presence. I wait a little while longer before I go behind the desk. I tap her on the shoulder. Nothing. I'm sorry, I say in my mind for what I'm about to do. I slap her across the face, then I flinch. I would, never, do something like this. To my surprise, there was no retaliation. In fact, nothing really happened at all. She was still just typing away, as if nothing ever happened. I do it again, harder this time. Nothing. Not even any mark or sign that I'd slapped her in the first place.

I then hear the door handle turn. Instinctively, I dive under the desk of the other secretary who hadn't arrived yet. I hope they didn't notice me, though it's unlikely they would since the secretary still doesn't know I'm here, even after all that.

"Hey, Ms. Randren," I hear Monika's voice say.

"Hey Monika, what's up?" the secretary responds.

"I'm looking for someone. I didn't catch their name though. He looks kind of like-"

Monika then goes on to describe someone that looks like me. Why would she be looking for me? More importantly, why didn't Ms. Randren respond to me when I asked my question? She can't be scripted, because the conversation they're having right now is about me. There's no way this happened in the original game… wait, I'm not in the original game. Maybe the script rewrites itself for them to sustain their belief in this world… and the game wouldn't have to rewrite the script for my interactions on my own because I'm not supposed to exist. I'm like a ghost that only Monika can see, that she believes is real. Does that mean I only become real to the rest of the world when I'm around her? What about the other girls? Would they be able to see me on their own?

"Alright, I'll tell him to go find you if I see him."

"Thanks Ms. Randren," Monika says on her way out.

Crap. I was so lost in thought that I didn't hear what she wanted from me. Does she know what's going on after all? I stand up and return to the front of the desks to try one last time.

"Ms. Randren?"

Still nothing. I look around for a copy of the school bell schedule and a map. Everything that looks like an official school paper is written in Japanese though. I guess should have expected that. I leave the office. So much for breakfast…

I find myself walking toward the only classroom I know, their clubroom. On my way, a room catches my eye. I stop at an empty classroom where the lights are dimmed and the door is left open. Inside, they've pulled a clever trick where instead of normal glass windows they appear to have bezel-less 4K HDR TVs in their place that are displaying stars in space with some fiery border animations. Other than that the walls are pretty empty. There is a single desk in the center of the room. This must be what Monika called her space classroom.

I sit down at the desk. I don't really know why the school would have a room like this in the first place. It seems kind of impractical. It's the perfect place for me to hang out until club time though. Now that I know the script isn't acknowledging my existence when it doesn't have to, it's safe to assume I don't actually have any classes. I just have to wait for them to be over.

I think classes are over now. It is now 3PM, and I've seen Monika, Natsuki, Yuri, and Sayori all pass by this room in the direction of the clubroom. I'm starting to get really hungry, but I can't really do anything about that right now. Once the hallway quiets down I make my way out of the space classroom.

As I open the door to the clubroom Monika turns around to see who's there.

"Hey, you're back!" she says cheerfully, "You forgot your stuff yesterday."

Now that I've calmed my mind, I am immediately struck by how beautiful she is. She's basically completely out of my league. Now's not the time to be thinking like that though.

"My stuff?"

I look over to where Monika gestured, and sure enough, there's a school bag sitting near where I was yesterday. I guess it wasn't one of theirs after all.

"Is that not yours?"

"No, no your right. It looks like it's mine," I say hoping her judgement was right, "That isn't the only reason I came back though."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I wanted to join your club!"

As I say this, the other girl's heads perk up. They must have been listening in on our conversation. At least they acknowledged my presence.

"Really? You'd join the club?!" Sayori says unable to contain her excitement.

I'm surprised. I wasn't expecting this level of enthusiasm, but I guess new members are hard to come by when the club's topic is something like literature. It makes me wonder how long the club existed before the main character got there.

"Of course!"

"Well," Sayori says, pausing for a second to read Monika's expression for her approval, "Welcome to the club!"

"I'm Sayori and this is Yuri, the smartest in the club."

"D-Don't say things like that…" Yuri says, embarrassment quickly growing on her face.

Once she calms down, she eventually says "What's your name?"

"I'm Chris."

"It's a pleasure meeting you."

I look around the for the voice I hadn't heard yet. Natsuki looks annoyed that I'll be joining. She slowly walks up to us.

"What? If you want to say something, just say it."

As I say this I start to notice this overwhelming sense of déjà vu that's been building for a while now. Were these the lines from the original script? Am I replacing the main character after all?

Natsuki turns toward Monika and says "Really, you invited a boy? Way to kill the atmosphere."

"Natsuki, he wanted to join on his own. I didn't push him to," Monika says in my defense.

"Hmph…"

"You can just ignore her when she gets moody," Sayori whispers to me.

While the girls have their backs turned on the rest of the room, the desks silently shuffle around. Eventually they get into a position where six of them are put together front and center in the room to make one long desk. It's hard to do, but I try my best to keep my facial expression from indicating anything strange is happening behind them.

Monika glances around the room to see that the desks have moved. She looks a little startled by this, but quickly regains her composure. I guess she isn't the one behind the magical self-moving desks after all.

"Come have a seat at the table, Chris," Monika says.

The girls sit down so that there is one seat next to Monika and one seat next to Sayori. I choose to sit by Monika.

"So, what made you consider the literature club?"

Wrong choice. Obviously I can't tell her the real reason I'm here, and since I'm not supposed to know Sayori, so I can't use her as an excuse either. They didn't know I was here yesterday until Monika started talking to me though, so maybe I can pretend like I was here the whole time yesterday?

"Well you guys seemed like you were having a lot of fun here yesterday, and I'm kinda new to the school, and well um…" I trail off nervously.

"That's okay! Don't feel embarrassed! We'll make sure you feel right at home okay?" Monika reassures.

As they talk amongst themselves, I begin to get lost in thought again. Why do these conversations feel so familiar? Am I really going to replace the main character or is the script just really unoriginal in the way it rewrites itself? It's even taken to having the desks move themselves to make this narrative work.

"Chris, what kinds of things do you like to read?" I barely hear Yuri say.

I really hope they stop asking me questions. I read from time to time, but there's no way they would know the books or even the writers who wrote them. Would they accuse me of making it all up? Maybe I can just be really broad instead of pointing to specific examples.

"I usually read things where there's a heavy focus on character building and the interaction between characters. I find it really interesting what inspired writers can do with existing characters," I say after pausing to think for a bit, "What about you, Yuri?"

Yuri's demeanor quickly shifts from shy and timid to confident and knowledgeable as she explains what types of books she likes to read. She is clearly passionate about her reading.

After a while the conversation dies down and everyone goes back to doing whatever they were doing before I got here. I guess we're not doing the poem writing thing after all.

I end up following Sayori back to the desk she was originally working at. It caught my interest because she was drawing something. It looks like of poster for a festival of some sort.

"What are you drawing Sayori?"

"I'm getting started on drawing our posters for the Festival," she says.

"The Festival?"

That's right, their school has a festival that they were going to use to promote their club. Unfortunately, they never got around to actually doing that though. If I can find out when the festival is, then I'll know where I am in the game.

"When's the Festival?"

"It's next next Monday."

"Next next Monday? You mean like a week from now?"

"Mmhm! We still need to decide what we're going to do for it though."

So I'm here the week before the game's story starts. Interesting.

After a little bit longer Monika decides to call the meeting to a close. The other girls gathered their things and left one by one until it was just me helping her cleanup for tomorrows classes.

"You know you don't have to stay and help me clean, right?" Monika eventually says.

"It's alright, I don't really have anywhere to be or anything to be doing right now…"

As I say this I am reminded of my situation outside of school. I didn't really get much sleep last night and I haven't had anything to eat since I got here. I could ask her for help, but there's no way she would take me in. I've only just met her yesterday. That would be ridiculous... I still have to try though. I'd have to tell someone eventually.

"Hey, Monika?"

"Yeah?"

"I know we just met and this is a lot to ask, but… " I say as I take a breath to calm myself, "Can I stay with at your place for a while?"

"Why?" she asks, turning to look at me.

Now I've cornered myself. I've got to tell her the truth here or I'll be screwed either way.

"I don't have anywhere to stay."

"You're homeless?"

"Yeah."

…

"You don't look homeless…" she says. It doesn't look like she believes me.

She's right, I do still look too good to be homeless. I can't really tell her that I just popped into her reality though.

"It might be hard to believe, but I promise it's true. I understand if you don't want to though. We only just met." I say dejectedly. I kind of knew this would happen though.

"I'll think about it." she eventually says.

We return the room to the state it was originally in and say our goodbyes for the day. I take the bag that I had claimed since nobody else recognized it as theirs today. There's no real identifying information about who's it actually is. It has a few empty notebooks, pencils, and other basic school supplies inside. No food or money though, that's a shame.

On my way back to my park bench I begin to shiver. It's a bit colder outside than it was yesterday. I still think I'll be okay, but that'll only get worse once It gets dark. Even though I didn't really do all that much today I still feel exhausted. At least I feel a little safer knowing that no one was actually able to see me sleeping on that bench last night.

By only 6PM I can barely stay awake. I decide to surrender to my senses and just try to go to sleep, but that's easier said than done. How much longer will I be able to go on like this?