Hello everyone.

I honestly didn't expect this much support from everyone, thank you all SO much for your support and understanding.

I can honestly say that this must be the nicest community out there, and I've had experience with a lot of communities (most of them consist of quite toxic fanbases). However, this community must be the best one yet.

Again, thank you all so, SO much for all your reviews, follows and favourites. Thank you! I thank all of you for giving me this opportunity.

As I said, I love you all, onto the chapter.

-Luke


What...?

What the hell?

My mind swirled with a mixture of thoughts, some enigmatic, and some plain fearful, for I had no idea what to make of this harrowing message on the screen before me.

Was this some sort of twisted glitch, or some sort of spirit lurking within the files of my PC?

I turned to Monika, who had an almost identical face to me: one which had been petrified in fear.

We stared for a moment at each other, before I spoke up.

"Monika, I… I don't know… What..." I mumbled, fear and confusion etched within each word I muttered.

I struggled to speak.

I couldn't.

I had nothing I could say.

There was nothing to say.

We simply stared at the screen, attempting to find some sense in these files, but neither of us could.

These files being mysteriously created weren't even the most unexplainable events to occur today.

My survival of a bullet shot straight through my skull.

The static and deja vu.

How no sign of the men even entering my house had even been left behind…

It's all unfathomable.

Where did the men even go? Did they run away? Or did they simply disappear?

These questions filled my mind as I began to space out and fall into a state of reflection.

"Hey Luke," I heard a soft voice coo, that exact voice belong to Monika.

"Huh… Oh! Sorry, what were you saying, I spaced out there..." I replied, instantaneously snapping out of my trance-like state to avert my attention to the girl that had just called my name.

I felt a comforting hand rest against my shoulder whilst a head lay atop my other shoulder.

"Luke, I don't know anything about what happened, or anything about the static, but I promise you, we'll make it through this," She reassured. Her voice was soft, extremely soothing, calming my nerves and washing away all the fear that I previously held.

She brought both of her hands to my cheeks, cupping them, leaning in and placing a kiss on my lips briefly, before pulling away to stare into my eyes.

I exhaled deeply, closing my eyes to relieve any tension, and turned my head the screen of my monitor.

The files were still there, they hadn't been magically deleted or anything, even if they had been, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Then an unmistakable noise came. One which was perceived by both me and Monika.

The static.

It became increasingly louder, except, we were unaffected. We remained unhindered, neither of us flinched even at the peak of the static's loudness.

What the hell could this even mean?

Is this even reality anymore?

This continued on for a minute, before the sound ceased to continue, and nothing but silence overwhelmed us.

We were both anticipating something to occur, anything abnormal that would fulfil this glitchy reality I now lived in, augment the eeriness.

But nothing occurred.

It was just the static.

There was no climax to the static like there always had been, nothing.

I pondered on this thought for a couple of minutes, within my room of pensive silence.

However, this thought had been proven wrong, since there was an occurrence, one that was more enigmatic than all the other occurrences.

Then, again came the static, louder than it were previously.

But, we heard… Something.

Something within the static.

A voice.

"Hello?"

The voice called though the mass of noise, however, to us, it seemed glitched, distorted, as if it were muffled.

My eyes widened, and I turned towards Monika, who seemed to be just as unnerved as me.

The static lowered in intensity, thus, causing the room to become more quiet.

Then we heard the voice again.

"Hello?"

It was far more decipherable this time, and we could make out the voice of someone… Something actually, considering the voice was far from human, and indeed, somewhat robotic, bizarre even.

Neither of us could even tell whether the voice belonged to a male or female.

"Hello?"

By now, the static had completely gone, and we were only left with that same voice calling out to us.

And there was only one thing we could do: answer the voice.

"Hello? Who and what are you?" I called out to this entity seemingly lurking within my PC. We waited, anticipating an answer from this voice.

A few seconds of silence passed, then the voice spoke up again.

"Hello Luke, quite frankly, I don't know who I am, I guess I'm just a glitch," The tone wasn't harsh or violent, in fact, it was quite soft and almost humorous.

Although I was nervous and in utter disbelief at this 'glitch', it didn't scare me as much as it should have, thanks to both the previous events that occurred and also the laid back tone this voice held.

I sighed in annoyance and furrowed my eyebrows.

"Look, all I want to know is who you are, why all this is happening to me and why you're talking to me," I stated sternly, my point coming across quite boldly, something that I had always been incapable of since I was young.

"Alright, alright, calm down! As I said before, I don't know who I am, and I don't have a name either, but I do know how I was created."

"Tell me, and are you sure you're not just some virus that has infected my PC?"

"I'm not a virus, in fact, I was created by you."

This statement had caught me off guard, causing me to become more confused than I had been before.

"W-what do you mean I created you?" I asked, my once daring demeanour fading, leaving my default, shy and cowardly one to dictate actions.

"Hey, no need to stutter! Don't be afraid of me, I'm only here to help you. I know that you created Monika into a gnt file, and 'printed' her off into your world, well, while you were running the python program that converted Monika to a gnt file, I, a corrupted file of yours, happened to be converted as well."

Even though this all seemed completely unfathomable to me, it was logical.

"So how are you communicating to me then? I didn't print you off, I didn't even know you existed up until now."

"You did print me off, it's just that you didn't notice though. Here's a question, did you happen to hear static when you printed off Monika?"

My mind journeyed to the past, reminiscing on that moment. That scene was as clear as a blue sky, and the static also was.

"Yes, I did,"

"That was me being, let's say, 'created' I guess. To know if I'm around, all you have to hear is static."

Static…

Then, what does all this mean then, the spontaneous moments where the static appeared, the way how I survived the gunshot, was this all because of this, thing?

This glitch?

"What? Are you the one responsible then? Are you responsible for all the static, mine and Monika's survival from the gunshots, everything?"

No, there's no way this glitch could possibly cause all this to occur, it's not real, nothing is.

But no matter how hard I convince myself that this isn't real, I will always end up realising that everything that has occurred is real.

"I would be lying if I said it wasn't caused by me. If you're wondering how the static even works, unfortunately, I don't even know myself, all I know is that I can protect you with this, and that it only works in the most extreme situations."

In the most extreme situations… That would explain why in situations where I'm feeling extreme anger, or fear, I hear the static.

But the real question is, what does this static even do?

"What about the men who tried to kill us, what happened to them?"

"They were… They… Well, they were sent to a place I like to call, 'the void'. It's as dark as it sounds, there's nothing, just complete darkness. It's where those who wrong you are taken, the static that can be heard is simply saying that 'you are going to the void', in other words: 'You fucked up',"

Monika and I were both rendered speechless at this point, neither of us knew what to say, or even remembered how to speak.

I wanted to desperately ask more questions, I needed answers, yet the shock had disabled me from speaking.

I could only stand and listen to what our friend over hear had to say.

"Well, this is enough for today, I'm sure you two would like to regain at least some of your sanity back, so I'll leave you two for now. Goodbye, Luke, you too Monika."

"Wait! I just want to know if you want a name or not"

"Sure, just call me Void I guess,"

And with this last statement, he vanished.