My eyes open after what seems to have been an eternity.

I had a bad dream, although it wasn't the same one I usually have.

I haven't dreamt at all in a long while, as a matter of a fact. It used to be every day that I'd dream of my parents dying, or something like that.

I'm groggy and my memory's hazy. I'm too tired to remember anything.

I get out of bed and stumble across my bedroom to get to my bathroom. When I look in the mirror, though, I'm snapped awake by the person that I see in my reflection.

Something's wrong, I think. I'm not quite sure what's wrong with the person in the mirror, as it just looks like… me.

Suddenly, everything comes back to me, like a tidal wave of memories that, in hindsight, I would have rather forgotten about. I look at myself in the mirror again, and I realize what the problem is.

I'm me.

The last two years I wasted. I…

I became Monika… I was… and then…

The last detail of my memory banks surfaces.

She came back…

Monika came back for me. She must have devoted all of her time, just to find a way back to me. And what did I do? I wasted my life away. I went insane.

But… What actually happened to me?

As soon as I ask myself that question. One last memory comes into my head. Like a shard of glass, the memory seems to impale the back of my head as I think about it.

I killed myself.

I step out of my bathroom haphazardly and scan my apartment. No Monika merch, no cosplay, no posters, no plushies. It looks like my old room did, before all this happened. Before my mind snapped in two. Before I lost the one thing in life that I most certainly didn't want to lose.

No… Don't tell me…

I sprint back into my bedroom, where my bed is still messy from having slept in it. I grab my phone that's charging on the bedside table, and my face most likely turns to one of pure horror as I look at the date and time.

2:41 AM.

February 28th.

The same time that I got thrown into Doki Doki Literature Club. To the very minute.

I raise my hands up to my hair and grab it for dear life, as if it will save me from hyperventilating. I start scrunching it up as I slowly turn my head to my wall calendar. Not the 2020 Monika wall calendar that I bought from who-knows-where, but instead a University of Alabama football poster that I had found in the apartment when I first started living there. The notion that I even had that calendar despite hardly following college football at all makes me chuckle, before I once again remember my situation and fear sets in once more. Too rushed to pull the nail out of the wall, I simply rip the calendar out, flipping to the front page where Nick Saban greets alongside the year '2018'.

Not again… No way…

I grab the remote control that lies on my sofa and point it at my TV, turning it to a late-night news channel. My breathing gets ever heavier as I hear what the reporter has to say.

"Corporate giant Amazon has just publicly announced their bankruptcy after several of the business's top shareholders reportedly backed out of their large investments in the company. Thousands of employees internationally have already been laid off, and several of the remaining executives have announced the company's plans to shut down services in most countries. CEO Jeff Bezos has yet to comment on the matter, leaving many questioning-"

I turn the TV off. I've had enough. My legs collapse from under me and I let myself fall onto the couch. I'm shocked speechless, and I'm breathing so quickly that my lungs aren't getting enough oxygen. I close my eyes in a futile attempt to shut off all of the information that's come to my brain, having finally put two and two together.

I went back in time… Again.

My eyes open once again, but I'm far past letting grogginess stop me from getting up. It's bright out now, and the natural sunlight hurts my eyes as it passes through the window onto my face.

I take stock of my situation, talking to myself out loud. "Time went back again… Back to before I wasted my life away…"

"But how is that possible…?" As soon as I ask myself that I instantly realize how dumb of a question that was. I've been sent into a visual novel, turned into an AI, and made it back when I shouldn't have been able to. On top of that, time reversed when I came back from Doki Doki Literature Club.

Is there a connection…? I think to myself. The last thing I remember before I woke up today was blowing my brains out in front of Monika.

Monika.

"She must have something to do with this," I think to myself. "She found her way to my reality, and what greeted her was…"

I cringe at the recollection of Monika's face when she saw me. It has one of horror mixed with disgust.

"Even if Monika was the one who turned back time, I doubt she'd give me a second chance."

As little as I want to hear it, that's the truth. And it's my fault.

Don't worry, Xavier. You still have your friends, if nothing else. If time's gone back, that means that Tyler's still- I stop my train of thought in its tracks as one more painful memory resurfaces.

I killed Tyler.

I stand motionless for half a minute before I walk out the door of my apartment, reassuring myself that he's still alive.

Right… Time went back.

I walk down the hall of my apartment complex and take the elevator down to the parking floor. As I walk every footstep echoes multiple times over as the sound travels across the underground parking lot. I grab my keys out of my pocket and unlock my car.

As I sit down in the driver's seat, I remember the last time I saw this car. When I drove it off a canyon, the experience was hazier in the moment compared to my memory of it. Just about all of my memories from the past two years are like that. It's either because of the insanity or the time-leap, I think to myself before realizing that it doesn't actually matter all that much. I pull out of the parking lot and make my way to Tyler's house.

As I drive, I remember the time when Tyler first told me he had rented a house. At first I was jealous and thought him a spoiled brat, as he could easily get an apartment for much cheaper. He then told me that he was sharing the rent with several of his college friends, and I suddenly felt slightly less jealous.

Before I know it, I'm pulling into Tyler's driveway. Even though I know he's alive and well, I'm still nervous for some reason. I shake it off and ring the doorbell.

No answer.

I start to get progressively more nervous as the seconds tick by. Just when I'm about to ring the doorbell again, the door opens to a man who looks to be around Tyler's age.

"Hey, can I help you?" He says in a casual tone. At my wits' end, I muster up enough strength to ask, "Is Tyler home right now? I'm a friend of his."

The man stands speechless, looking at me. He then says, "Come in," in a much less cheerful tone than the first thing he said to me.

As I walk in he gestures for me to sit on the sofa and he says nothing but, "Make yourself comfortable."

"Where's everyone else? I heard from Tyler that there were a lot more of you living here?" I ask.

"Listen, man…" He starts.

I can tell from his tone that something's wrong. "What is it?"

"Tyler's gone. We woke up this morning and he had left on his own.."

It takes me several seconds to process what is being said to me. "What…?"

"He left all of his belongings, even his money and car. Everyone else's out looking for him. I decided to stay here in case he came back, but it's not looking good. He must have left early in the morning, so he could be miles away at this point."

My right hand reaches my hair as I slowly comb it back. I sigh, stand up, and head for the door. "All right. Let me know if you find any leads." I walk back over in his direction and give him my phone number before heading back to the door.

"See you." The man says.

"Yeah." I exhale, in a worse mood than I've been in a long while.

I step back into my Buick and return to my apartment empty-handed. Collapsing on my bed, I realize what I need to do.

I have to find out what the hell is going on.

It's been about a month or so since time went back. I've taken stock of my situation as much as I'm likely able to, and I have it all written down so I don't forget. I look down onto my notepad and reflect on what I've written, hoping to find something that magically connects the dots.

Time went back to the moment when I originally fell asleep to get pulled into the game. This is also the same date and time that I came back.

Tyler is gone. No one knows where he went, and he brought nothing with him.

Elizabeth is gone as well, in a similar fashion as Tyler.

Everything else is exactly the same as it was two years ago, and all of the compensation I got from Amazon is still in my bank account untouched.

Suffice to say, there's still a lot of stuff I don't know. It seems like I'm the only person left, in this reality at least, that knows about what happened with Doki Doki. In other words, I have no way of finding any other info. Monika made something to travel to this world, but it's easier said than done when I have little to no experience with programming or engineering.

Bordering on brain-dead, I open my refrigerator to hopefully find some food, maybe some spare liquor. Instead, what I find is empty space.

Goddammit… I've mostly been picking up food as an excuse to leave the house and research, so this is actually the first time I've opened the fridge since time looped. Frankly, I forgot I even had a fridge. I must have thrown it out at some point in the past two years… My memory's so hazy that it's hard to remember specific details.

Either way, I realize what I have to do. I get in my car once again, heading to the supermarket.

So, after months of living in a video game and years of insanity, I'm driving to the store to get groceries. I chuckle to myself, realizing that my life's finally returned to normalcy, whatever that means. I walk into my supermarket and buy a few bags of salad mix. I should probably eat healthier since all I ate in the last month was junk food, I consider as I take it from the freezer section. I promptly stuff some more fruits and veggies into the shopping cart I took with me, and buy some frozen meat, milk, and plenty of cereal while I'm at it. I then go to the liquor aisle and buy more than I probably should, already abandoning the concept of dieting. I don't think I've had any alcohol since I went into that game, so it's fine for me to spoil myself, I think, and this notion serves as justification enough to spoil myself further. I proceed to buy a little bit of everything, since I got a seven-figure compensation fee from Amazon that remains unspent now that the thousands of Monika merch transactions I made over those two years never happened in the first place.

After over an hour at the store, my shopping cart is nearly overflowing with food. I have the right to spoil myself, though, since it's been a long while since I had what could be called a normal life. Now that I'm thinking about it, living a normal life might be the way to go. I mean, yeah, I obviously loved Monika a lot, but at this point I think she's out of the question. I'm pretty confident in my looks, so finding a girlfriend here in the real world is very much possible. After all, I was in a relationship with Elizabeth for quite a while, and I had a few relationships in high school…

I head over to self-checkout since I don't feel like stalling the line with my loaded shopping cart. There's no one else at any of the self-checkout kiosks, save one girl who has no fewer groceries than I do.

As I start scanning my items, I catch myself turning around and looking at the girl at the kiosk across from mine. She looks familiar, like I've seen her somewhere before. Her dark hoodie contrasts sharply with her bright pink hair…

Hold on, pink?