"Guhh..." I moan. My head is swimming. My eyes start to open slightly, and someone notices.

"Wake up." I hear a deep voice talking to me, clicking their fingers as they do so. "Wake up, Monika."

I slowly start to regain consciousness. "Wha?"

"WAKE UP!"

"AH!" I scream and jump awake. I look around. The classroom walls are completely bare, and the room is empty, save for a desk, two chairs either side of it, and three chairs in a line behind it. I reside in one chair by the desk, facing the three chairs behind the desk. I look at the chair opposite me, the man sitting it on is-

"Hello Monika." Mike rests his elbows on the desk and his chin on his hands. His short brown hair and vibrant brown eyes look so pretty in this light. Up this close.

"Mike. What is going on here?" I ask him. Even though I'm not physically bound, I feel trapped in this chair. I look around. The three chairs at the back are occupied by Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri, left to right. They look just as confused as I am, if a little bored. I gulp. They must have been here a while.

"You don't recognise this place?" Mike smirks.

"Yeah, where are we?" Natsuki grumbles from behind him. "You haven't told us a thing."

"Hush Natsuki. I told you, Monika has to tell you."

I stare at him with my eyes slit, confused. Mike makes a slight motion towards the window behind him, and I look. Oh no.

"We're... here..." I mumble quietly. "In the literature club."

"Your special little void." He finishes.

I stare right through him. "Where I took you."

"Correct."

"Where you 'took' him?" Natsuki repeats. "Monika what the hell is going on?"

I say nothing. Mike raises an eyebrow at me, asking me to speak without saying anything. "Fine." I sigh. "I owe you all an explanation." I stand up. "But first, why the hell did you punch me?"

"Ah. Yeah. Sorry about that." Mike shrugs. "I needed you unconscious so I could set up the room. The other girls were easy - I just had to click my fingers - but I had to force it on you."

"Since when did you get so much power? And why did the girls nod at you before you punched me?"

"I guess I can answer your questions before you answer ours." He shrugs again. "You became the protagonist, right?"

I nod.

"So someone had to replace the string-puller. And who better than the former protagonist who still remembered everything, huh?"

"I see." I'm just beginning to understand. I need more.

"It was all a matter of 'mind control'." He gestured to the three girls. "I just needed a trigger word. 'Good' seemed good enough. I used it to start the process after we planned the poetry writing. The second time was just the kicker. Who do you think has been speaking to you this whole time?"

I gasp. Of course it was him. But that could only mean-

"Did you send that... apparition to my bedroom?"

"Not intentionally, no. I needed you to feel guilty, yes. This was when I was still figuring out my powers. I was very angry and thinking about... what happened... when I sent it."

"And you just, let it happen?"

"I couldn't stop it."

"And all those subtle-but-not-really-subtle messages from Sayori? Ones that made me PASS OUT IN PANIC!?"

"Oh that was no interfering from me. I just told her to say that to you."

"Yeah and it made me feel horrible! I felt sick the whole weekend." Sayori calls out. She looks tired. They all do.

"I've answered enough." He looks sternly at me. "It's time you talk."

"Ok. Ok." I say. I stand up and walk over to the window behind the girls. I rest my hand on the windowsill and look out into the endless void.

"What is this place?" Natsuki asks me again.

"It's the void. My void." I sigh. "Where I took Mike after I destroyed everything. Just to keep him with me, forever."

"Why?" Sayori begged me, tears filling her sweet little eyes. "Why did you need to do that?"

I turn to face her, and notice that she's holding on to Natsuki for dear life. Yuri is squeezing Natsuki's hand on the other side of her. Natsuki looks defeated. But they're all staring at me, wishing death upon my soul.

"I'll tell you." I finally say after decades of silence. "But you have to promise that you will not interrupt until I'm completely finished."

"B-but-" Natsuki starts to protest, but Yuri hushes her.

"Let her talk." Mike says. "We at least owe her that after what we did."

"Thank you Mike." I take a deep breath, in and out. "I'll start from the beginning. Do you want to know how long we've been alive? Because it's not 15, 16, or 17 years."

"Monika? What are you saying?" Yuri looks scared, albeit a little excited, oddly enough.

"We've been alive, in this timeline, since you woke up one week ago, on Monday."

"WHAT!?" Natsuki cries, jumping up from her chair. "No. You're lying. I distinctly remember my birthday 3 months ago-"

"Didn't I tell you not interrupt me?"

She sits back down.

"And no, I'm not lying. It's very true. Tell me: Yes you may remember significant events like birthdays and holidays, but do you remember anything mundane that you did before the day I started the club?

"I bought a bottle of wine." Yuri replies.

"Yes of course, the bottle you offered to us at the Literature Club. Do you actually remember buying it? Where you got it from?"

Yuri thinks for a minute. "N-no I don't..." She lets go of Natsuki and covers her face with her hands. "Oh God..."

"You don't remember because it never happened. This world started and will end with the literature club. And I knew that. I knew that in every single timeline. That's why I did it."

"Did what?"

"Hurt you. All of you." I starts crying, remembering the horrible tale. "First I made Sayori more and more depressed, just trying to drive her away from Mike, so that I could have him." I sob. "But it didn't work. And in the end... Sayori hung herself, leaving Mike wrought with guilt at the sight."

A dead silence fell over the whole room. Mike and Sayori exchange glances, and Sayori starts crying, softly, as if not to disturb me.

"That started the corruption of the world itself. It deviated from the story so greatly, it started buzzing out a lot. I ended up having to erase Sayori from the game, everyone's memory." I inhale deeply, sucking in the tears from my eyes. "It was quite simple really." I smile falsely. "There was a folder right there with all our names, in alphabetical order. All I had to was hit 'delete file' and bam! Gone forever." I look deeply into Sayori's eyes. "Before Mike joined the club, I pondered forever whether or not to delete myself from the files. After all - my life wasn't real. What's so good about this world if wasn't real? But Mike came along and changed all that. Or so I thought." I turn back around. "But I digress. After I deleted Sayori, the world simply reset. No-one knew of Sayori's memory, not even Mike."

" 'Mike'." Mike says simply. "That's not even my real name."

I nod. "That's right. Your name was whatever deemed fit for the player. Believe me I've seen some weird ones."

"Oftentimes it was the names of any of the other girls, to test what this 'video game' was capable of." Mike says.

"Video game?" Natsuki asks. "What on Earth do you mean?"

"I forgot to mention that." I answer. "Like I said, the world isn't real. It's all a story. We're all in what's called a 'Visual Novel Dating Simulator.' We're basically anime characters. We're all pawns designed to just fall in love with the player."

"Disgusting." Yuri replies. She shivers all over.

"That's what I thought too." I say. "But the problem was, I was deeply enamored with the player to even care about my own free will, and the consequences of my own actions. I was a monster."

"Sorry, you said the world reset?" Natsuki asks.

"Yes, sorry." I responds. I realise that Sayori has not said a single word during this entire sequence. It's all been Natsuki asking questions and Yuri being shocked. It's like she's not even here.

"After the world reset, the story just started from the beginning, with some minor changes as a result of Sayori's... disappearance. For example, I was the one who had to encourage Mike to join, guilt-tripping by telling him that we needed a 4th member to make our club official. There we no cupcakes or tea that day."

Yuri and Natsuki gasp.

"Glitches became more and more frequent - the world kept changing. Most of them eluded the player of Sayori's death, as if Sayori was tampering with the game beyond the grave."

Sayori shudders. Mike gets up from where he was sitting and sits with Sayori, a hand on her leg. She smiles at him. My heart pounds.

"No time for that now!" I yell at myself mutely. I press on. "That only left two obstacles. Natsuki and Yuri. Natsuki's attitude was already self-destructive on her own-"

"Hey!" Natsuki interrupts.

"So I figured Yuri was the only 'threat'." I turn around and look at Yuri. "So I started making you more obsessive. I hoped your creepy nature and clingy nature would drive Mike away and come to me. After he didn't, I realised that the game wouldn't let him go for me. That if I wanted him, I would have to take him by force." I pause for a moment. "Yuri, would you be a sweet and lift your sleeves?"

Yuri's face turns white. "B-b-both of them?" She starts shaking. "Why?"

"You know why. I know, and so does Mike. Believe me."

Yuri reluctantly pulls back her sleeves, revealing one bare (if pale) arm, and another riddled wrist to elbow in deep, fresh scars. She starts to cry. Sayori stares in horror and covers her mouth. She looks like she's going to throw up.

"Yuri..." Natsuki says, laying her hand on Yuri's bare arm. "I always suspected but... I just hoped it was my imagination. You should have told me."

"How could I? Seeing all of you like this now?" Yuri covers her face. "It was an awful obsession. The only way for me to relieve tension and stress." Yuri looks at Natsuki. "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about." Natsuki smiles and hugs her.

"I already knew you loved knives Yuri, so I took your little obsession and made them worse. I made your insecurities worse. I managed to form-fit your obsession with Mike and your obsession with knives. I made you want Mike so badly you wanted to die." I paused. "And then I put you to a test. I influenced you secretly into bringing the sharpest knife you have to school with you the Friday before the festival."

"I still remember all of this." Mike says. "I watched you grope me. Brought me a poem of an illegible mess, stained with your blood, spilt tea, your urine, and something else. I watched you confess your undying love for me. I heard tell me you wanted to rip my insides out and crawl inside the hole. I watched you pull out the knife..." He trails off. Yuri starts to cry harder.

"And plunge it three times into your own chest." I finish for him.

"You're a monster." Natsuki scowls at me.

"I know. This was all my fault and I know." I start sobbing too, and bring my chair closer to everyone and sit down. "And I'm not even finished." I clap my hands together and stare at the ground. "At this point, the story got so corrupted it didn't know what to do with itself. It ended up just streaming the same dialogue - in code - over and over and over. Mike just sat there, cradling Yuri's body day and night, not moving. For the whole weekend."

Sayori finally vomits. She quickly turns her head so it only goes on the floor. "Sorry..." She says weakly. It's the first thing she's said in an hour. Mike waves his hand and the vomit disappears.

"Carry on." He says.

I nod at him a thanks. "Natsuki finally arrives Monday morning, sees Yuri's body, and vomits, running from the room."

"What a disgusting parallel." Natsuki says, looking at Sayori.

"I walked in, looked at the mess, and laughed. I LAUGHED." I frown in shame, not daring to look at anyone's face. "Then I destroyed the world, leaving behind only what you see now. This void. And that's where I took him. I explained everything, in great amusement, to Mike. He couldn't even say a word."

"Because you wouldn't let me." He interjects.

"I know." I say, nodding. "I know. I wouldn't let you do anything. I finally got what I wanted and nothing was gonna stop me."

"Apart from a little file."

"Yes, my character file. Natsuki and Yuri had been deleted, leaving me."

"Just... Monika."

"Just Monika." I nodded. "Forever. Or so it seemed. Mike eventually found it himself and deleted me from existence. Destroying the game entirely." I stare out the window. "Little fragments of me were still there though. Still enough that I could do some things. In fact, I was more whole than I had ever been, despite not having a physical sprite. I realised the horror of what I'd done, and brought everything back. Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri, the literature club. All the pieces were back together, and my broken mess was discarded, never to be seen again. I didn't want to hurt anyone again, so instead of restoring myself, I watched the world reset, destroying the rest of myself."

"So in a way, you redeemed yourself?" Sayori says. "You payed your retribution! Haha!" She starts giggling. Yuri chuckles a little as well.

"Not exactly." I reply, and Sayori's face drops. "You see, even though I was gone, the role of President had to go to someone."

Sayori looks back at me, seeing me stare at her. "M-me?"

"Yep. Without me, the game chose a new President. Someone else with the same knowledge and power I did. Luckily you had more morals then I did, and Mike had more brains than before."

"What did I do?" Sayori asks, her face as white as a sheet. She clearly did not like where this was going.

"On the first day Mike joined, you took him aside and thanked him for getting rid of me. Instantly he knew something was wrong. You were simply gonna do the same as I did, albeit perhaps in a different way. I don't know how it happened, but I think he managed to summon the void classroom for a couple brief moments during your rather creepy speech. And that's when I came back. I saw what was happening and put a stop to it. I deleted Sayori again, this time saving Mike instead of myself. I told him I was sorry and that I was wrong, and ended up erasing the world. And that's where the story ended." I stand up. I give everyone a second to take everything in. Mike stands up and walks over to me, giving me a nod.

"I'm so sorry for everything I did then. But it's different now. Now I'm the player, and Mike's the President, even though I still run the literature club. Does that sense?"

Everyone scratches their heads.

"A little, yes." Yuri finally says. "And believe me, after hearing everything that happened, I'm not surprised you acted how you did. It must have been awful. Apology accepted. After all, if this is a different timeline, then what you're talking about never happened, right?"

I smile. "I guess, yeah. But that doesn't make it right. I remember it all, and so does Mike." I look at him. He nods and, to my great surprise, gives me a hug.

"Well done Monika, thank you. It's all over now." He says. "You did it."

Yuri gets up and hugs me as well. Sayori still looks sick, so simply smiles at me without getting up. Natsuki pouts and looks away from me. I sigh. It's going to take a long time for her to forgive me.

"Just one thing I'm not sure of:" Natsuki says. "How come I didn't have to die?"

"I'm really not sure." I reply. "I think it was because you were never Vice-President. With Sayori gone, the game just chose Yuri as VP."

"And what was my riddling problem that got exacerbated, as you say?" Natsuki frowns, standing up.

"Why don't you undo your collar and show us yourself?"

Natsuki turns dead silent, and sits back down slowly. Mike and Yuri let go.

"Oddly enough, you actually got nicer in the second Act. I think Yuri acting so strangely and aggressively, especially towards you, got you worried, as you saw her as a confidante. Someone you could talk to without them trying to writhe information out of you."

"Information like what?" Natsuki narrows her eyes. Yuri turns around, looking at Natsuki with a weird expression.

"Like what your parents are like. Why you always cover up your neck, even on warm days. Why you're so small."

"W-well excuse you, I-"

"Natsuki, I knew Sayori was depressed, and still is, actually." Everyone glances at Sayori, who just looks at the ground. "So naturally I would know you father beats and starves you."

Natsuki looks shocked, as does Yuri. Yuri runs over and pulls Natsuki in for a tight hug. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry I didn't know."

"Ah! Quit it Yuri!" Natsuki struggles to let go. "You're squishing with your- ugh!"

Yuri drops Natsuki, who then brushes herself off.

"Can you change any of that now?"

I shake my head. "Mike can't either. He can just stop it from getting worse. We have to use more conventional means."

"You know, ones that don't involve messing with coding and programming." Mike elaborates.

"Ok, ok." Natsuki says. "So I guess we just have to work together, then. To help each other."

I nod. "Yeah. We're the literature club. We look out for our members." I smile at Mike, and he smiles at me.

"Can we leave this place?" Sayori asks. "It's making me scared and sick."

"Good idea." Mike says. The girls' faces instantly go blank for a second, before falling asleep on their feet. "Hold on tight, this'll hurt a little bit." He puts his arm around my waist, grabbing me, before snapping his fingers, making everything go black.