Mell Rhodes
Wyatt fled the desert shortly after his encounter with that white-haired robot. He had his eyes set on another game. An out of the way game. He was not interested in entertainment but securing a forward base for himself.
He remembered seeing that skeletal crew that was patrolling the desert. They did not fit in that game at all. That robot also seemed to be aware of Wyatt's presence in the game which was something he only briefly noticed in that rather annoying British girl from one of his previous excursions into these weird video games.
The fact that his presence was so clearly affecting the self-awareness of the characters in these other games gave him the idea for this little experiment. The other members of his former literature club could fight among themselves. He was in no rush to deal with the two that remained. For now, the idea of inserting himself into a game for an extended period of time was all he could think about. He wanted to see what would happen, and more importantly, he needed a hideout.
He dove into the game without a second thought. The only interesting thing he noticed about the game was that it appeared to be a visual novel. A rare sight in this hard drive which was primarily filled with shooters.
Before embarking on this new excursion, Wyatt made sure to delete the game he visited previously. He watched the code scatter into nothingness. Files and data were banished to the depths of the hard drive. It relieved him greatly.
Out of sight.
Out of mind.
Monika explained her situation to her new audience. She described her entire adventure to them without going over any of the unimportant details.
Of course, her little tale of leaping through video game after video game; all while blatantly explaining why her new friends were living in nothing more than a digital fantasy world did not go without casting a spell of confusion over her audience.
"Wait a minute," Morte began with obvious doubt in his voice. "It sounds to me like you've just been leapin' through planes."
Monika furrowed a brow at the floating skull. "Uh… come again? Leaping through planes?"
"Well, yeah! You've just found a way to enter different planes. Not a big deal or anything. People do that kinda thing all the time, especially here in Sigil."
The woman snickered in an almost condescending fashion. Her tone only reinforced that mocking laugh. "You aren't following me, because you aren't able to understand what I mean. You exist as part of an interactive story. Your lives, if you can be considered living which I don't think you can, are dictated by data, variables, and a game engine. This conversation we're having can be considered nothing more than a glitch in this matrix you call a world. Unlike you people, I'm human. I'm alive! I exist independently of these programs which is why I'm able to visit all of the other virtual worlds that surround this one. Unlike you, I am aware of myself."
Morte glanced at the scarred man next to him with those googly eyes of his. The Nameless One eventually mustered a response while Morte was still trying to comprehend Monika's strange terminology.
"I'm sorry, I don't follow. What makes you think you're the only person who is aware of their self? What drives you to believe that my friends and I aren't alive? You describe us like machines. However, I'm actively having this conversation with you."
"Just as I am actively listening to you," Fall-from-Grace interjected. "I can only be aware of my surroundings if I am already aware of my own existence. If nobody in this room was as aware of themselves as you then we would have probably ignored you even if you had tried to interact with us. We would not know of your existence despite sitting at this table with us. If the world or worlds are as you say, then you do not belong here. You could drop in anytime but would be unable to intervene in our lives because to us, or rather, the predetermined existence we are apparently assigned to would not acknowledge you. We, in turn, would not be able to acknowledge your presence."
"Yeah," Morte agreed.
He had nothing to follow up with. He had no idea what was even being talked about. However, Fall-from-Grace's argument at least sounded smart so he agreed with her. He then proceeded to wait for her to shower him with the praise he so rightfully deserved for taking her side, only to strangely be met with none of that.
Annah interrupted the conversation with a long, melodramatic sigh. She leaned back in her seat to the point where the two front legs were kicked up off the ground. The chair was kept from falling backward only by her own balance.
"Ugh! Ya done lost me."
"Tell me about it," Morte agreed as he turned his attention to Annah. "How about we blow this scene and go somewhere more romantic? Leave these clowns to their own devices."
"Can it, skull! I'd rather listen to them argue until my head explodes than humor your sick fantasies!"
Monika was not so quick to retort. Her downright offended glare shifted back and forth between Fall-from-Grace and the Nameless One. She had expected, nay, she had hoped that she could go on and on about these brainless manifestations of a developer's imagination all while they went about their prescripted business.
Unfortunately, things were not going according to plan. She debated back and forth with herself if she should either come up with some rebuttal to prove once and for all that she was the only sentient being on the hard drive, or to simply gun them all down for daring to disagree.
She thought back to Alice who displayed the same awareness of Monika despite the fact that she was not a character in Alice's freaky game. She remembered Sayori who inserted herself into Liberty Island and at least attempted to interact with her.
Questions began firing off in her mind, consuming her thoughts.
Could this all have been proof that her belief was internally incorrect? Did that mean the Strogg, HECU, alien wildlife, and NSF were all just as alive as she was? Had she been committing a real genocide against real people?
Monika violently shook her head. It was simply preposterous to even consider the possibility that these AIs were actually coming to life. Monika was merely playing a bunch of video games. They had no real weight behind them. They were not grounded in reality. She was the only real person on the hard drive. She was the only one capable of sentient thought. Thus, she was the only one who could truly be considered alive.
Wyatt found himself wandering around aimlessly in some massive mansion. The whole place smelled of roses. Around him, maids were busy either cleaning or tending to other duties, but no one questioned his presence. No one acknowledged him. His entrance when undisputed by anyone who crossed paths with him. They acted as if he were not even present and that was exactly how it should be.
So far, he had seen nothing out of the ordinary. Regardless, he found himself curious about his surroundings. It was a strange setting. Everyone was dressed as if it were the 1600s. Despite being a visual novel, the various maids among other servants were dressed in the sort of clothing you would expect an actual maid to wear rather than the more skimpy portrayal that Wyatt would have expected to see from such a game.
"The hell is this game about," Wyatt muttered to himself as he aimlessly roamed the halls.
As he passed by one maid in particularly, he could not help but get a double take of what he had just seen. She looked rather odd. A young woman who could not be much older or younger than himself. She had hair as white as that boy from the desert, and her skin was pale to the point of being creepy. She had a pair of blood red eyes that gave her a look that was downright vampiric.
The fact that she seemed to be purposefully avoiding the sunlight that flooded in from a nearby window while she went about her cleaning did not exactly fill Wyatt with confidence. He decided to keep on moving and hopefully clear some distance between himself and her before the blood lust had a chance to set in.
He moved further down the hall only to notice someone standing there, poking their head around a corner at the very end of this corridor. The hall made a sharp turn to the right and just behind that corner stood another strange character.
This young man, again, was probably around Wyatt's age. He had flaxen hair and wore an elaborate outfit. He had a green vest which he wore over a frilly white shirt. His pants were as brown as his eyes. He was dressed as if he were nobility and given the setting, Wyatt figured it was probably safe to assume that he was.
For a moment, Wyatt thought the boy was staring at him until he remembered the weird maid behind him. His eyes were obviously fixed on her. Wyatt made no effort to get involved with either one of them. The whole scene was just bizarre so he carried on walking.
Just as Wyatt prepared to turn the corner and walk straight past the maid's little stalker, the boy abruptly stepped out of hiding and putting himself directly in Wyatt's path. Wyatt jumped in surprise as the strange bumped into him. Instinctively, Wyatt placed his hand over his Model 29 and prepared to draw it.
A graphical glitch spawned between them. A pattern of green code became visible just for a second. The boy's image flickered like a light before everything returned to normalcy. When the glitches faded and both of them recovered from the unexpected body slam, the boy was the first to say anything.
"Oh, my. I'm sorry. I didn't see you there, sir."
Wyatt froze in place. He let go of his revolver's grip and stared the flaxen-haired boy down. He was utterly baffled.
"What just happened," was all he managed to ask.
The stranger awkwardly wrapped his left hand around the back of his neck and smiled. "My apologies. I was not trying to sneak up on anyone. I believe we've both just turned the same corner at the same time. Um… Might I ask your name, sir?"
"Name's Wyatt. Yours?"
"Mell," the boy replied. "Mell Rhodes."
That did not take long at all. The mere act of physical contact was enough to knock some self-awareness into this kid. If that was all it took, then Wyatt began to worry just how his intervention was affecting these other games.
"I was not informed that we were having a guest over today," Mell continued. "I take it you're here to meet Nellie?"
"Who?"
Mell was caught off guard by that response. "Uh, m-my sister, Nellie. We've had quite a few gentlemen over recently. My parents are hoping to have her married. Forgive me for the false assumption."
"Interesting," Wyatt murmured, not realizing that he was thinking aloud. "So it is a dating sim."
"Pardon?"
Wyatt was immediately pulled back to reality. He quickly shook his head at the sight of Mell's puzzled expression. "Nothing. No, I'm not here on a marriage proposal. I'm… on business so I'll be here for some time. Don't mind me."
"I see," Mell replied. Wyatt's little fib appeared to have worked. "So has anyone bothered showing you around yet. I can give you a tour if you'd like."
"Sure. I've got time."
Normally, Wyatt would have rejected such an offer no matter how friendly the intentions, but this was the whole reason he bothered entering this strange game. He wanted to see how his presence was affecting other characters which left him with no other option but to accept.
"Very well, then. Follow me."
Mell turned around and headed back down the way he came. Of course, he did not leave without first catching one last glimpse of that white-haired maid before he and Wyatt disappeared around the corner.
The conversation came to an uncomfortable halt. Monika thought of rebuking this nonsense about this strange band of characters being as lively and sentient as her, but she had work to do. She had no time to deal with these people, or rather, these digital sprites that resembled people only in appearance.
Monika promptly stood up and backed away from the table. She huffed and tilted her chin upward with obvious pride. No longer would she suffer the presence of mere AI that could only dream about concepts of humanity. She had already achieved it. In fact, she was born with it. However, she could not say the same for this ilk of inhumane automatons.
Strangely enough, she still felt the need to address the fact that she was leaving. Monika knew she was only speaking to a table surrounded by brainless polygons, but she decided to at least say something before parting ways with this group.
"I'm leaving," she announced. "I have other places to be and someone to find."
"Leavin' already," Morte asked in disappointment.
"Take me with ya," Annah pleaded. "Anywhere 'ill do so long as it's away from this babblin' skull."
"Oh, always playing hard to get," Morte interjected. "Don't worry, lass. I've got time for you too. There's plenty of Morte to go around."
As Annah and Morte devolved into arguing, Fall-from-Grace looked toward Monika and gave her an oddly friendly smile.
"I only ask you to consider the possibility that you are not alone. Consider the fact that you may not be the only one in this universe with a soul," she explained. "And we wish you the best of luck. Please, come back some time and visit with us."
That smile made Monika feel the slightest, most fleeting sensation of guilt. A feeling that was gone before she was made consciously aware of it. She wanted to blast that winged woman's head off for that condescending look and her eagerness to compare herself to Monika. For once, however, Monika was unable to muster the needed strength to kill someone.
Nordom bounced up from the ground and stepped in between Monika and the table.
"I have calculated the odds of Monika returning to be a 0.000000000001% chance!"
"Oh, come now, Nordom," Fall-from-Grace retorted. "I remain certain that she will be back."
Monika quietly nodded her head while maintaining a sorrowful frown that contradicted the smile Fall-from-Grace gave her. She turned away from the group and left the game without saying a word.
When she returned to the void, she briefly considered deleting that game as well. She never did and soon carried on with her business. She remained hopeful that the next game would be a normal one. A game where she would not have to think twice about blowing someone's brains out.
Positioned on the roof of a skyscraper that stood above a ruined city was a long yet not very wide rectangular table. Three candelabras lined the table. They were evenly spaced out. On either end of the table was a chair.
The chair on the left was occupied by a shirtless man with a black tattoo sleeve running along his left arm. He wore black pants that were lined with a scale-like pattern. He had on matching gloves, short silver hair, and vivid red eyes.
The man in the other chair was almost identical in appearance to the other. The major difference between them was their hair. While the same color, he had a head of hair which reached well past his shoulders. He wore a white button-up shirt, a long black bow around his collar, and a pair of rectangular-framed glasses. Otherwise, he had similar gloves and pants to what was very clearly his identical twin.
While the long-haired man was quietly reading a book, his brother stared in awe at the sky. No longer was it bright and sunny. The sky appeared to have completely vanished. It was black and lined with rows upon rows of green code that fell from the dark abyss like rain. It was a concerning sight to say the absolute least.
The short-haired man looked to his brother with a nervous visage. "Um… Brother? The sky has... changed."
"I'm aware, Eve," the long-haired twin calmly replied without so much as breaking eye contact with his book for even a split second.
"W-what should we do, Adam? Is this supposed to happen?"
"I don't believe it is, dearest brother," Adam informed, once again never looking up from his book nor showing any concern at all. "Let me reach a good stopping point in this book, and we'll investigate this phenomenon further."
"Okay..."
Eve sat back in his chair and quietly observed the sky. He had read about the concept of night before, but this was very obviously not the sort of nighttime sky he had envisioned. It came out of nowhere. A moment earlier and the sky was bright and blue. Then, suddenly, everything went dark. Those enigmatic lines of text rained down at a constant rate but he was never able to touch one. They disappeared before they came to close to his level of altitude.
"I wonder what those lines say," Eve pondered aloud as he squinted his eyes in a futile attempt to read some of the floating green text.
"They're file directories," Adam nonchalantly interjected. "From the looks of it, at least. A most curious sight."
Eve blinked in awe. He was not expecting an actual answer. He had also anticipated that his brother was paying no mind to the situation at hand. He was relieved to have been proven wrong.
While he was eager to get to the bottom of this mystery in the sky, Eve made no further effort to interrupt his brother's reading time nor did he try to rush him along.
Eve waited patiently, and as always, cherished the quiet time spent with his dear brother.
Note: Sorry about the hiatus, but between other projects and my lack of satisfaction with how this story was originally turning out, Fantasia had to be put on the wayside.
I will have more on that in a future update as I am currently working on implementing some minor changes into two previous chapters as well as adding some additional stuff, so stay tuned for that.
I'm gonna go ahead and just announce this new game being introduced since unlike Half-Life, Deus Ex, or Planescape: Torment it is not exactly a well known classic. Wyatt has entered a really obscure VN on called The House in Fata Morgana.
It's a weird little visual novel that seems to draw a lot of inspiration from the story of Morgan le Fay as well as some rather spooky historical events such as the Bell Witch and the Beast of Gévaudan.
I'm intentionally avoiding spoilers about Mell simply because of the fact that I'm sure most people reading this have never heard of it. I'd definitely recommend it to any fan of Doki Doki Literature Club.
