Unknown POV
"Ugh, my head..."
It was pounding worse than it ever had before, and there was this painful ringing in my ears that slowly forced me awake from what felt like an eternity. I could feel myself lying on my back on something soft, but I thought for sure I fell asleep at my desk, not my bed, and yet here I was regardless. I couldn't remember anything crazy happening last night, so how did I end up here? Whatever the case, I tore my hand away from my head, setting my arms to my sides, and with a groan of pain, began to forcefully bring myself up from the bed until I was sitting upright. At the same time, my eyes reluctantly started to pray themselves open until I could vaguely see the room around me. At the very least, I was relieved to my room was the same as it always was, the wallpaper was dark blue covered with faded light blue and light brown squares, the white desk and chair across from by bed that I thought for sure were a different color last night, the bookshelf on the opposite side of the room along with a green footrest between them that I didn't have before… wooden flooring with the multicolored rug that I… also never had before… an- wait a minute.
"This isn't my room."
With that realization destroying any restlessness I had left, I threw myself out of the bed and made my way to the door. Swinging it open and making a sharp right down the stairs to the bottom floor, my eyes frantically flung themselves throughout the next room, it once again not resembling the house I remember. This room was incredibly spacious, with white wallpaper with white flowers spread throughout it, a couch and footrest with the same light and dark green colors as the footrest upstairs along with a table sitting on top of a dark blue rug with light blue squares and beige lines forming diamond shapes. Far across from them was a TV Desk with a brown, old school TV, a VHS player and a long blue vase with light and dark blue stripes on it, along with a cabinet in the corner and a framed picture of a white flower in a pot. To the right side of the couch was another desk with multicolored drawers and yellow radio with a large red button and a blue old circle dial phone resting on it and another cabinet sitting to the right of the desk and more bookshelves and random framed pictures above it.
"This isn't my house!"
I found myself racing across the room and into the kitchen next door, throwing open nearby drawers and cabinets and shuffling through pots and pans, crashing bowls and glasses into each other without concern, as if I was frantically searching for something that I had lost, only I didn't know what it was. I only wanted to understand where I was, and who owned this house. As I searched, my headache suddenly returned, magnetizing my hands to my head. I ran to the nearby door, opening it to find the bathroom and saw a tall glass cabinet in the far corner. Tearing it open, I quickly grabbed and swallowed the nearby headache relief I found inside. Wiping the sweat off my head, I leaned on the nearby counter top catching my breath as I tried to comprehend everything that just happened.
"What the hell is going on?" I thought to myself frustratedly. "Where the hell am I?" "Who's house am I in?" Why can't I remember-" I suddenly stopped as my widened gase moved from the wall to focus on my shaking hands as I became horrified by what I saw. They were completely grey now!
"What is this?!" I yelled, "What the hell is going on?!"
Clutching my chest as if I was cold, my eyes began to study the rest of my body, only to find similarly terrifying results. The same grey color on my hands had traveled down everywhere else on myself. I was in such shock at what I saw I found it hard to breathe. Glancing around the room, I ran toward the cabinet to view myself in the glass panels on the doors, only for my fears to be proven true. The light grey has covered my face, neck and head, everywhere I looked, it was there! My hands instinctively found their way to grab the top of my head, when I discovered that my hair thankfully hadn't changed. It took a second before I realized what had happened however, finding myself screaming and stumbling back to the center of the bathroom when I discovered that rather than losing its color, my hair had vanished entirely! My hand pressed against the top of my head to feel for anything, but there was nothing except skin. It was true. I was bald now too!
"What is happening to me?!" I screamed out loud, no longer caring if anyone heard me.
I gasped, grabbing my throat as I realized that my voice had also changed along with my appearance. It somehow sounded both masculine and feminine at the same time now, as if it could belong to either a boy or girl. I was in a complete utter loss of words, and just found myself sitting down in the middle of the bathroom, clutching my chest. I was sweating and shivering profusely from my panic, and my throat had become dry from how fast I was hyperventilating before as I struggled to gasp for air. My eyes also began to burn from how long I had gone without blinking as well, forcing me to keep them shut as I tried to come to terms with my predicament. I needed to take several minutes in order to piece together all of the thoughts that were rampaging inside my mind, between the house, my sudden lack of color and my new voice.
"This can't be happening! This can't be happening!" The thought endlessly repeated itself. Nothing made sense to me, and pinching myself did nothing, proving that this was in fact, not a dream. My brain and body were a complete wreck, a broken record of frustration, confusion, and fear. I had dozens of questions, and almost no answers. I clenched my hands tightly against my chest as tears poured from my eyes. It was the first time in my life where I felt truly lost and alone. No one was here to help me, and all I wanted was to go home.
After what felt like an hour, I was finally able to open my eyes again, and my breathing had returned to a more normal level. From what I could tell, everything was still the same. As much as I hated to say it, I was stuck in wherever I was, and crying my eyes out in some strangers' bathroom wasn't getting me any closer to the answers my mind desperately craved for. Out of all of this confusion and panic, only a few of those thoughts were clear in my mind. I need to figure out what was going on, where I am, both how and why I got here and most importantly, how to get home. Finally gathering what was left of my willpower, I pulled myself up from the ground and made my way towards the front door of the house, rubbing the last of the water from my eyes. I, however, took a quick moment to examine the rooms around me.
The bathroom was surprisingly spacious, and had white tiles for walls, dark blue tiles for flooring and the sink cabinet was green with a yellow. The same rug from the bedroom was being used for a shower mat, the glass on the corner cabinet was surrounded by a wooden frame, which was particularly wide on the bottom. On top of that, shelves were placed unusually high up, and the cabinet above the sink required me to stand on the counter top just to reach it. The kitchen had everything I was expecting, but had bizarre shades of light blue on the oven and the stranger radiator above it, dark blue and dark green on the drawer and cabinets, and dark blue wallpaper on the top half of the wall, and light blue tiling for the bottom. I wondered to myself what the owner was thinking with these choices of colors, but quickly shook it out of my head, remembering I was still in someone else's house. As I made my way to the front door, I noticed my reflection on the glass cabinet in the corner near said doors, and took notice of the clothing I was wearing. I had on a blank white dress shirt covered by an open light dark blue sweatshirt that had two purple streaks running around it, alongside a standard pair of blue jeans that were slightly ripped near the knees and red shoes with white laces and white tips. I knew these clothes weren't mine, as they were not what I was wearing last night, but I was just thankful I had something to wear. I made a mental reminder to thank whoever owned this house.
Placing my hand on the front door handle, I took one more look at my hands, and I began to tense up again. This time however, it was not fear, but determination that flooded my body. I needed answers, and I was going to find them. Taking another deep breath, I slowly opened the door, momentarily blinded by the outside light and needing to block it with my hand, but I quickly adjusted to it as I made my way through the yard until I reached the sidewalk, where I-.
No, it couldn't be! It just couldn't! It's size was staggering, even reaching far higher than the trees! There were shades of blue, yellow, red and orange across it. Some parts of it were extending away from the rest with only wooden planks supporting them, and there were train tracks held in mid air by beams that led in and out of it along with a massive crate being suspended to the side with barely anything keeping it up. This structure was gigantic, and even with my struggling memory, I knew exactly what it was. I didn't want to believe it, but there was only one thing it could be. It was the Neighbor's house from Hello Neighbor!
... and I'm standing right in front of it.
This cannot be happening! This physically cannot be happening! Everything about what I'm looking at is wrong! This building was from a video game, and yet here it was sitting right in front of me! Just the idea that it was real was a struggle for me to comprehend, but I couldn't bring myself to look away from it, to the point where I almost forgot to blink. I could feel my breaths become completely out of whack, as it now became an endeavor to not lose myself to the shock of seeing this nightmare in front of me. Everything within me was trying desperately to move, to look away, to do anything that would get me away from the terrifying realization of what I was staring at, but nothing I could do would tear me away from where I was standing. It felt like my body was frozen where it was, only being able to stare at this impossible structure that I was still struggling to believe was even real, let alone that I was across the street from it. Even as this horrifying building felt as if it was draining the willpower from my body, I heard a noise that distracted me for a split second, giving me the opportunity to turn the tiniest sliver of my attention towards it.
The noise in question was the skipping and humming of a young girl. The girl was humming to herself what sounded to be a theme song to a video game, which sounded familiar, although I couldn't recall where I heard it from. Regardless, the clicking of her shoes started to become louder the more time passed, which told me that she was heading in my direction. Even with that said, I still wasn't able to turn to see who was coming, as all of my focus was being sucked away from that by this damn house. I was concentrating so much to turn myself away from the house that I wasn't expecting the sudden force that struck my right side, sending me stumbling slightly to the left, finally snapping me out of my stasis and giving me a split seconds opportunity to see what struck me. As it turns out, the young girl who was skipping had run right into me, knocking me out of my staring contest with the house. I didn't notice this at first, as I was too busy rubbing the right side of my head with my hand, which was the part that got struck the most. Wincing in pain, I was able to open my left eye and turned my head towards the girl, who was mumbling "ow" to herself repeatedly, sitting on the ground rubbing circles on a large bright red spot on her forehead with both her hands. I'm guessing that's where she ran into me. The girl had brown-pinkish hair with a large red bow on the left side. She was also wearing a white dress shirt very similar to my own along with a brown vest, an unbuttoned dark grey blazer held together by a red knot, a short dark blue skirt, socks that nearly reached her knees and white shoes with light blue tips. I'm guessing that's where she ran into me. Feeling the stinging on my own head start to ease up, I let go of my head and extended my right hand towards the girl.
"Are you all right?" I asked her gently. She let out a quick gasp in surprise.
"Yeah, I think so." The young girl stopped rubbing her head and replied softly. Opening up her eyes to look at me, I could see they were the most beautiful shade of ocean blue.
"Sorry that I-" She began to say, reaching for my hand, only to suddenly pull it back as she looked up towards me, her eyes widening to the point where I swore they were going to pop out of their sockets.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" She screamed at me. I jumped back in shock from her sudden outburst. It was at the point that it finally clicked with me who it was
"S- Sayori?"
It was enough to completely catch me off guard, sending me back a few paces, while my arms stiffened so while my elbows remained parallel so my sides, the other half of my arms and my hands shot out in front of me defensively, while Sayori tried her best to shuffle away while still facing towards me, her breathing entering total overdrive. The house was bad enough as is, but now she's here too! I almost thought I could piece together where I was, but this throws everything out of whack again! I know she was just a 2D character in a video game before, but seeing her like this just felt unreal, even more so than the house.
"Two different games at the same time?!" "What the hell is going on?" I pondered to myself, quickly turning my head back and forth between Sayori and the building that remained just to my left.
"W-who are you?" "W-why do you look like that?" Asked a horrified Sayori.
I gasped, taking out of my thoughts as I turned back towards her, arms dropping to my sides, yet remaining stiff. There was a distinctive fear in her watering eyes as she stared at me, uncertain about what to do. Her breathing was still incredibly fast, and she looked like she was trying to get up and run away, but something was keeping her frozen in shock. For a second, I was confused on why she was so scared, but quickly realized her fear when I caught sight of my discoloration again. Clenching my shaking hands, I turned away from Sayori.
"I'm sorry..." I told her quietly before taking off down the sidewalk.
"Hey! Wait!" I heard her shout behind me, but I didn't look back. I needed to figure out what was going on, and I needed to find out where I was. I caught a glimpse of a large town full of skyscrapers out in the distance and, not knowing what else to do, made a beeline towards them without a second thought, praying that I could find my answers there.
I still found myself running as fast as I was when I started when I neared closer to the town. It was abnormally close to the neighborhood that I first woke up in, and the town up close seems so much different than that old fashioned house. As I grew close to the buildings I first saw, I took notice of the large sign that stood just outside of the town. It was made using seemingly clean cut wood, curved into two tall light brown stakes that held a large rectangular brown plank that was more wide and long. The wood looked freshly stained and in the middle were a series of individually cut and styled letters of multiple shades of colors that spelled out two different words.
"Indie Town..." I said to myself. "Must be its name."
Quickly discarding that thought train, I keep up my pace as I continue deeper into the heart of the town. I was already sweating buckets, my heart rate was through the roof, and I felt like I was about to collapse, but something inside of me told me to keep running anyway. As I headed downtown, I began to look around and noticed the townspeople that I was running through. They all looked like they were from different video games and most were acting just as bizarre. Some were seeming just as confused as I was, as they got a look at their new surroundings. Other characters were conversing with each other, some were getting into fights, which were breaking out in the middle of the road, and most confusing of all, some were acting like nothing was going on, like they were still in their own games and not... wherever this place was.
Regardless, I pushed my way through the crowds and pressed on, as I began to also take notice of the different types of buildings and setpieces that were scattered throughout the town. I caught sight of a large library to my right, styled after an ancient Grecian architectural structure surrounded by grass and sidewalks, a mostly fenced off parking lot to my left, with the only way in being connected to the road outside, and within the parking lot looked to be some sort of restaurant with a large 2D brown cartoon bear resting on the sign. Ahead of me out to the distance also rested a giant mountain with what appeared to be a large hole on the top, although it definitely didn't appear to be a volcano of any kind. Outside of those, the standard buildings and skyscrapers that surrounded me seemed to all look the same. They looked to be basic rectangular apartment buildings with flat, single colored walls and had two sets of windows for each level, of which each building seemed to have varying amounts of them. The only difference between them was how tall they were and what color they were, which were all basic colors. Blue, red, green, yellow, orange and white, among several others.
In fact, I found myself so distracted by the town around me that I almost didn't notice what I was about to cross ahead, forcing myself to grind to a halt mere inches from the line that separated the light and the dark... the literal line. As in, an obvious, straight, untouchable line between the mourning light and... whatever was going on in front of me. A single step would take me from the blue sky and clear sky of the town and put me into a dark, cloudy thunderstorm shrouded in fog that looked completely out of place from everything around it. When I looked to see said clouds, I discovered that the storm formed a large equilateral square around this area of land, although it was too far up to see if there was anything above the clouds. The land was surrounded by worn down metal fences which reached my chest and from what I could make out in the fog, only housed a single building, which looked to be an old church looking structure, and I was able to see that a sign was attached to the building. I tried squinting my eyes, but I couldn't make out what it said, as it faded thanks to the fog and seemed to be decaying, at least from what I could tell. However, when I looked down at the gate of the fence in front of me, there was what looked to be a hastily made sign made of rope and a square plank of wood. Grabbing the wooden plank, I brought up to the light where I could better see what was on it, which turned out to be some sloppy red paint which read out "Gospel of Dismay."
Dammit, I know I heard that somewhere before, but from where?
"Hey, wait up!" I heard Sayori shouting behind me through her own troubled breathing.
Dropping the sign and hearing the bang it made as it smacked into the metal gate, I turned to face her as she rushed up to my side before having to catch her breath, using her knees to help keep herself from falling over.
"Wow, you're fast." Sayori told me as her breathing recovered.
She eventually managed to recover, and brought herself up upright to see the storm that I came across. I watched as her eyes widened and was rapidly shooting her head around between the storm, me and the town behind, spinning herself in circles, seeming completely confused and at a loss for words as she took in everything around. Her arms became crossed on her chest and she was shivering profusely as if she was cold.
"I... I don't remember... any of this. Everything is different and... scary..." She finally spoke after taking some time looking around and turning back towards the storming acre.
Suddenly, Sayori perked up and turned towards me, as if she was about to say something, but I cut her off before she could get any words out.
"I'm sorry, but I need to figure out what's going on here. None of this is making any sense." I said to her bluntly before taking off back in the other direction.
"Hey, wait!" I heard her shout behind me, but she didn't sound like she was chasing after me again. I hated having to leave her in a situation like that, but I had too many questions that demanded attention, and it drove me crazy that I had yet to get any of the answers that my mind so desperately craved. I just needed to get to a place where I could think about everything that I saw, and there was only one place I could think of where I could do that. With this in mind, I picked up my pace and hurried back through the town toward the house I woke up in.
Sayori's POV
I reached out with my hand, hoping to grab whoever that was before they left, but my feet wouldn't move anymore. I couldn't do anything but watch as they disappeared into the crowd of strangers. My arm dropped to my side as I felt a wave of rejection hit me like a gust of cold wind, and felt a tear fall down my cheek as I hung my head in shame and turned right down the sidewalk, seeing the school out in the distance. My thoughts were all over the place, trying to make sense of everything that had happened throughout the last few minutes.
"What was that all about? Why was their face like that? Why were they running like that? Was it because of...me...?"
I shook my head, trying to throw out that train of thought, but of course it didn't work, leaving me with the feeling of guilt I was all too familiar with. Trying to turn my thoughts away from that idea, I spun my head back towards the weird new town.
"And why is the town so different now? I didn't know any of those places, or those people. I'm so confused." I thought to myself, my hands bringing themselves to the sides of my head. My head started to hurt from all the different things that I saw, and not being able to understand any of them. I just wanted to know what was going on, but I didn't know how.
In the middle of my confusion, an idea popped into my head. "Hey, maybe the others noticed all this weird stuff too!" I realized. "I'll have to bring it up during the club today. Maybe they might have an idea about what's going on!"
With that tiny ray of hope by my side, I brought myself back towards the school and made my way to the clubroom.
I guess I wasn't feeling that great as I made my way down the hallway towards the clubroom. It was the weekend, and Monika had asked everyone to come in today to help with preparations for our school's upcoming club fair, to see if we could bring in some new members, and usually I would be really excited to help out, but today, I just didn't feel like myself. Maybe it was all the weird stuff that I saw, or maybe it was the guy who kept running away from me, I just didn't feel like myself today. The rain clouds were really strong this morning, but I tried holding on to those tiny shards of hope that I wouldn't be alone in my confusion.
Approaching the twin doors, I suddenly felt a strange sense of dread slam itself into my chest. Was I scared to tell them about what I saw? That they wouldn't believe me? Would I just make myself look like a big idiot, trying to tell them about the town and that guy? Was any of it even real, or was it just a bad dream? For a second, I wasn't even sure I wanted to go in, but I knew the others would get worried about me if I didn't show up today, and I didn't want that to happen. So, with all that in my mind, I placed my hands on the doors, took a deep breath, put on my best smile and flung the doors open.
"Hi everyone!" I yelled, surprising the three other girls in the room. These three were my fellow literature club members, Yuri, Natsuki and Monika.
Yuri had light purple eyes and long purple hair with a tiny bright purple hair clip in the upper left part. She was also pretty tall compared to the rest of us, and she looked more physically developed than us too, which I know made Natsuki really jealous, as she was the shortest out of all of us. She had pink eyes and short pink hair with the cutest little ponytails on both sides of her head with little groups of hair poking out from underneath them. She also had a red hair clip shaped like an hourglass to the right of her forehead. They had two desks upfront moved next to each other and were sitting together reading what looked to be a novel of some kind, something called "The Silver Eyes". I didn't know what it was about, but they seemed like they were really enjoying it, and it hurt a little to interrupt them, especially when right as I came in, Yuri almost jumped right out of her seat.
In a desk behind sat Monika, the club president. She was taller than me, but not as tall as Yuri, had bright green eyes and long light brown hair with two really long bangs next to where her ears were. The rest of her hair was in a ponytail that almost reached her lower back, all tied together with a big white bow. Like the rest of us, she was dressed in our standard school uniforms, but she had black socks and shoes with pink tips rather than blue tips like the rest of us. On the desk she was sitting at was covered with a bunch of papers and a book about computer coding. Wonder why she has that book. It doesn't seem like something she would normally bring to the club.
Everyone turned to face me as I came in.
"Hello Sayori! Glad you could make it today!" Yuri stood up and said to me, sounding very relieved. Natsuki however, seemed really annoyed when she came to me with her hands crossed.
"About time!" She said right into my face. "What took you so long?!"
"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked her, really confused by her question. Before she could say anything though, Monika stood up and came over to where everyone was standing.
"We were worried you weren't going to show up." Monika told me. "It wouldn't be a literature club meeting without you, Sayori." She gestured towards the clock, which read 3:45 pm, 15 min later than Monika asked to be at the club today. It was then that I realised my mistake.
"Whoops!" "Hehehe~" I spoke with a small chuckle, pushing my index fingers together in front of me. "Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind." "I didn't realize what time it was."
"Don't worry about it." Monika reassured me, patting me on the shoulder. "As long as you're here, that's all that matters." Then, with a snap of her fingers, she quickly got all our attention, curious as to what our president had to say.
"Okay everyone!" She announced. "Now that we're all accounted for, we can start to work on those fair preparations."
"Actually..." I said to her, slowly raising my hand. "I have something I want to ask."
Monika shot me an annoyed glance and looked like she was about to say something, but then just sighed and asked, "What is it?"
I suddenly felt 3 pairs of eyes staring directly at me and a lump grow in my throat. All of my worries began to hit me all at once, but it was too late to not say anything now. With a painful gulp, I started to speak.
"So... I ran into someone today and... something was really weird about them..."
"Ooo~ Is it a boy you like~?" Natsuki chimed in.
"W-What!? No!" I said quickly, trying to defend myself. I could hear Natsuki chuckling to herself.
"It's alright, Sayori. You don't have to tell us if you don't want to." Yuri replied.
"Nonono, it's not like that at all!" I told them. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"What? Of course we would believe you! You're our friend." Monika said to me.
"No, that's not what I mean. I just... couldn't tell if he was a boy or a girl." I admitted.
"Huh? How?" Questioned Natsuki, understandably confused by this.
"It's possible they could have looked like either gender." Yuri replied. "Boys can look like girls, and vice versa." "It's possible they could have been transgender as well." Natsuki didn't say anything, but just crossed her arms while looking down at the ground, like she hadn't thought of that.
"But the weirdest thing was, his f-, her-, their face was all grey, and so were their hands… a-and their legs too and… well, everything I saw from them was grey!" I continued while gesturing towards my own face, having to stop and correct myself when I remembered I didn't know which gender they were. "and I know I never seen anyone like that before, but.. they still felt really familiar to me..."
Everyone else was completely confused by what I said, which I knew was going to happen, but I just felt like I needed to say it. I didn't know why, but I really didn't believe it myself, so I guess I just needed someone that understood my own confusion. The other club members all turned to face each other with puzzled looks, then turned back towards me.
"Sayori..." Monika started.
"I know, I know!" "I know you weren't going to believe me..." I told them, hanging my head towards the floor in shame.
No! It's not that I all. I just..." Monika tried to tell me.
"It's fine!" I said to her bluntly. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better." Wanting to move away from that topic, I brought up my original point. "Besides, that wasn't even what I was going to ask you."
"Then, what were you going to ask?" Monika questioned.
"Well..." I hesitated before continuing. "Has anyone noticed how different the town looks today?"
The room suddenly got really tense as I asked the question. Yuri and Natsuki looked at each other with uncertainty while in the corner of my eye I thought I saw Monika's eyes get really wide for a split second before she shook her head.
Yuri was the first to say something. "...I mean..."
"Now that you mention it, the town did look different today.." Natsuki added.
Monika looked really confused at us. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "The town looks the same as it always does."
What Monika said didn't make any sense to me. Did Monika really not notice anything different? "Maybe I'm just seeing things..." I thought out loud.
"It's not just you, Sayori." Yuri said to me. "We definitely are not in the same town anymore. In fact, as far as I can tell, this room is the only place that remained the same from yesterday."
"This doesn't make any sense." Natsuki pointed out. "The town can't just randomly change overnight. We have to be somewhere else now."
"Guess I haven't been paying attention, but I didn't see anything different." Admitted Monika.
"How could you not!?" Natsuki questioned, turning to face the club president. "The town isn't even close to what it was before!"
"Are you sure you didn't see anything, Monika?" I asked her, although I don't think she heard me, as both Yuri and Natsuki were now interrogating her now, and I could see the terrified expression on her face.
"I find that hard to believe, Monika!" Yuri said to her face frustratedly to her face. "Why are you trying to ignore this problem? "You would never push away something like this before!"
"Yea." Natsuki agreed. "You would have to be blind to not see that something is wrong today!"
"Guys, can we stop fighting please!" I shouted, but no one heard.
"I-I'm, um... I mean-. Are you sure you guys are ok?" Monika hesitated. I could see her flashing her eyes between her two fellow club members, trying to decide what to do. Her eyes started to water as she began to realize she was fighting a losing battle.
"Absolutely!" Yuri admitted bluntly. "Are you sure you're not the one having the issues right now?!"
"Why can't you just admit that the town is different?!" Natsuki told Monika.
"STOP FIGHTING PLEASE!" I screamed, not being able to hold myself back anymore. Everyone shot back towards me as I shouted, obviously taken by surprise by my sudden outburst.
"S-Sayori..." Yuri stated, a bit startled from my shouting. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."
Yuri and Natsuki suddenly looked really guilty, and Yuri's face turned bright red as she turned away from the rest of us. From the far wall of the classroom, I could hear Monika sigh out loud towards the ground, then suddenly perked up, snapping her fingers as she got our attention with a confident expression on her face.
Okay everyone! I have an idea!" She announced. "Why don't we pause the project for today and take a walk around town?" "That way we can get a feel for the different layout."
"Ooo, that sounds fun!" I said.
"Hang on." Natsuki spoke up. "A second ago you were just saying that the town wasn't different. Why would you suddenly say that is now?"
There was a short period of silence before Monika spoke up again. "I... I realized that I was wrong..." Monika replied with a little hesitation. "Perhaps I was just trying to deny that fact, but I didn't mean to lie to you guys the way I did, and I'm sorry about that."
"...Alright, but I'm holding you to that!" Natsuki stated directly to our president. Monika then turned towards Yuri, who was still shaking and facing the wall, trying not to look at us.
"...Yuri, I-" Monika started to speak softly, then Yuri suddenly spun around to face Monika And shouted "I'M SORRY!". I could see Monika step back in surprise, but soon after, Yuri's eyes widened as if she just realised what she said, saying "sorry" to her over and over again, falling to her knees and shaking her head .
"Yuri. It's alright." Monika said to her, kneeling down to her level.
"...I-I don't know what came over me." Yuri told her. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, but I just... I couldn't control myself. I'm so sorry Monika!"
"Don't worry about it." Monika reassured her. "I was... being stubborn. You had every reason to get as mad as you did. I promise I won't act like that again." She then placed her hand on Yuri's shoulder. "Let's just put all of this behind us, okay?"
Yuri, after a short pause, finally looked up again at our club president, wiping her eyes and putting on a smile before the two shared a hug.
"Thank you..." said Yuri. The two then let go of each other, stood back up and turned towards me and Natsuki.
"A walk does sound nice." Yuri admitted. "It would be good to get an idea of what this new town is like."
"Oh, we should go say hi to that person I met earlier!" I told the others.
"Are you sure?" Monika asked me. "We don't know anything about them."
"Why not?" They looked just as confused about the town as I did, with how fast they were running around, and how scared they looked..."
"Then it settled! We'll take a stroll around the town, then go meet Sayori's new friend!" Monika stated.
"Yay, let's go!" I shouted excitedly.
"Lead the way." Said Yuri.
Monika's POV
The road to that mysterious person Sayori met wasn't very long at all, as the town was surprisingly smaller than any of us had expected. The townspeople were just as confused at our new surroundings as we are, and most of them were very friendly as well, which was a nice surprise considering my initial skepticism. From the moment I woke up, I knew something was wrong, but I just couldn't bear to tell the others, especially after what they had been through. Regardless, we made our way down the sidewalk towards the house Sayori was leading towards, bouncing and skipping ahead like nothing was wrong. I always appreciated that about her, able to keep herself and others cheerful even during the darkest of times, even if she has to fake it. Yuri and Natsuki had fallen behind me, as they were engaged in their own conversation.
"Come on. We're almost there!" Sayori shouted to us.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" I shouted back.
"Of course! This is right where I bumped into him, literally! Hehehe~"
Even with her enthusiasm, I couldn't help but feel a sense of dread fill the air as we made our way towards the house. Something did not feel right, but I couldn't tell what it was. All I knew was that I was getting worried about this person that Sayori told us about, as we knew nothing about them, and even though everyone in the town was friendly, I didn't want to take any chances, especially with the town being so different from what we knew before. Not helping was the fact that as we grew closer, we caught a giant structure to our right. It was roughly three to four times larger than a normal house, it's walls were filled with many different colors, there was a train track setup being supported by tall beams, and the entire building looked incredibly unstable, with different parts of the structure hanging above the ground, seemingly ready to fall apart at any moment.
"Woah! Who needs a house THAT big?" I could hear a surprised Natsuki say.
"Perhaps they have a very...very large family?" Yuri answered with uncertainty.
"or maybe he's overcompensating for something." Natsuki proudly stated.
"That's... another possibility..."
We soon came up to the house just opposite of the giant structure, and Sayori wasted no time making her way towards the door. This house was much more tame than the one across the street, with a light blue wooden exterior and a crimson colored roof, a short white picket fence separated by a rough dirt patch which led straight to his house and a few long white colored wooden stairs and a railing which led to the door. Sayori quickly jumped up the stairs and was about to ring the doorbell, only to stop once she realized there wasn't one there. She then began to violently and rapidly knock on the door, but as she did, the door began to open. I guess the person who lived here didn't shut it completely. She slowly started to open the door, only to jump back gasping as she did. We quickly ran up to her and before we asked what was wrong, we saw what caused her sudden reaction. The walls and ceiling of the room were covered head to toe with pictures and papers filled with seemingly random black painted text. Thick black lines were also connecting some of those pages and pictures together, all of it looked random and rushed, like whoever did all this did it in a massive panic. I could hardly fathom any words to describe what I felt upon seeing this. All I could think of was...
"W-What is this!?"
