I'm in the Monika

by Yukatado

An ailing, middle-aged man dies full of regret and a wish to go back to Japan, where he lived before he ruined his life with various addictions. A half-Japanese girl and her family die in a car crash. She's gone, but the game needs its characters in order to be played. The man wakes up to realize he is now Doki Doki Literature Club's "villainess". Will the game demand to be played?

1. A Wasted Life

A Wasted Life

I coughed, spilling my whiskey. I didn't even like the stuff, but it was cheap. Blood splattered on my hand. I could hardly breathe, but I needed the burning, golden syrup to numb the pain.

I took another drag from my cigarette.

"Goddamnit!" I cursed, spilling more of the whiskey. I was drunk already, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough.

I coughed again. More blood.

"I shit blood. I piss blood, I throw up blood. I cough blood. If I didn't have cirrhosis and lung cancer, I'd swear I had fucking Ebola!" I coughed more blood and some of it landed in my whiskey.

"God fucking damnit!"

My breath caught in my throat and air wouldn't fill my lungs. My chest was on fire. I wheezed out as much as I could. I tried to cough, but there was nothing left inside but more blood.

My already wobbly, fading consciousness was rapidly receding. My world started fading as stars sparked behind my eyelids. My hearing turned strangely electronic as if the audio on a computer were encountering an error.

I was terrified as every regret flooded my mind. There was no peace, no hope. Why didn't I ask that girl out? Who? What even was her name? I can't even remember. Why didn't I study harder? I want to listen to that song one more time . . . I want to . . . watch . . .. Just one . . . more . . . sip . . . . . .. I . . . want . . . to . . . go . . . back . . . to . . . Japan . . ..

Peace—little more than the absence of pain and terror—finally came in the form of the cruelest of black; and silence.

Author's Notes:

The title of the story comes from Shuuzou Oshimi's manga, Boku wa Mari no Naka—I'm in the Mari. Although I don't currently plan to have much, if anything to do with that comic's plot, I liked the title.