Monika awoke in darkness. The world was black, cold, and wet, and for a few seconds, she thought she might be in another nightmare. But as her room came into focus and the dull gray light of a morning still a few hours away from dawn snuck across her bedcovers, she realized that she was truly awake.

She weakly kicked her bedcovers off of her body and lay there, panting. Her chest heaved erratically, and every inch of her was shivering despite the sweat that coated her skin. It had felt so real. The wind, the numbness. For some reason, it reminded her very much

of being deleted

of the way things used to be. Before this world – before reality, in a sense. Back when she was the smart, pretty, athletic Monika, the president of the Literature Club. Always ready with a confident smile and a bounce of her hips.

Back when the world was set. When she had all of the answers. When she didn't have to panic over every little conversation she had.

God.

She drew her knees up to her chin until she was curled up in a tight little ball, her forearms wrapped around her shins, her delicate fingers clutching her kneecaps like lifelines. Her legs creaked and cried in pain, as did her arms – she'd been moving around while sleeping, trying to get herself to feel something in her dream. Her body throbbed, and a whimper worked its way up from the back of her throat, but she didn't cry. She was too ashamed to.

She couldn't do anything. Couldn't be a good president, couldn't be a halfway decent friend, and couldn't even get through a single night's sleep without waking up in a cold sweat over a silly little nightmare. In that moment, Monika truly and deeply hated everything about herself.

The frail little girl sniffled and rubbed the corners of her eyes roughly. No crying. She didn't deserve the emotional release that her tears would bring. How could she, when she'd already failed at so much, had already caused so much trouble for everyone around her…?

For the umpteenth time since waking up in this new world just under forty-eight hours ago, Monika thought about her friends. Yesterday, she'd put too much pressure on Yuri to finish her poem for Monday's festival. Thinking about it now, a part of her had known so even back when the conversation had originally taken place. But, for some reason, she just couldn't stop herself from acting that way. She could've spoken in a nicer tone - she just didn't know how to without making her friend even more uncomfortable.

She'd also been to mean to Sayori, which was perhaps a worse offense, because she'd been doing nothing but trying to help her these past couple of days. Despite her depression and all of the other problems that Monika knew she was struggling with, Sayori had spent time and effort trying to get through to Monika purely because she cared about her. And Monika had pushed her away at every opportunity.

She'd been rude, harsh and condescending. And maybe even worse than that, now that she thought about it. From her perspective, she thought that she'd just been standoffish and blunt, but what if she'd said something really bad and just didn't realize it? What was Sayori doing right now, this early in the morning?

Wait a minute what

Monika held her breath.

day is it?

Monika shot out of her bed and hit the floor running. Her legs, sore from clenching and thrashing in her sleep, shrieked in protest, but she pushed through the pain. She flung open her bedroom door and dashed through it without pausing. She slid wildly across the wood floor of her hallway, trying desperately to gain traction. Once she did, she sprinted all the way to her front door and, unable to slow down fast enough, charged full-tilt into it, shoulder first. She cried out in pain, voice cracking, but leapt back into the fray immediately, twisted the doorknob, and yanked the door inward. She ran through the frame, cursing herself with what little breath she had. Stupid. Disrespectful. Evil.

The grass of her front lawn provided a nice cushion before her bare feet landed on the pavement. Little pebbles stabbed their way into her soles and between her toes, but she didn't slow down until she reached the front porch of Sayori's house. She paused for an instant to leap up all of the steps in one go. Her school pride t-shirt thrashed wildly in the wind, causing the image of her school's mascot to flap and twist about maniacally. Sayori's front door was unlocked.

Monika prayed that Sayori's bedroom was located in the same place as it was in the game, took the staircase two steps at a time, and landed on the first floor with a thud. She flung open the first door that she saw and dashed in, fumbling on the walls for a light switch.

"Sayori?" she croaked in a voice that sounded just as ugly as she felt. "Oh please, oh please…"

Got it. She flipped the lights on

and saw a perfectly empty room. Sayori's bedcovers were spilling out of her bed and onto the floor, but there was no Sayori to be found beneath them. Nor was there any rope

or glitches

or anything strange to speak of. It was just Sayori's room, in perfectly normal condition – but without Sayori.

"No," Monika said to herself. She scratched at her scalp frantically, her nails pulling up clumps of hair from their resting places and causing them to stick out in every which direction. "No, no, no, no, no…" She paced in place and swept her eyes from pink-colored wall to pink-colored wall. No Sayori. The cow plush squatting at the foot of her friend's bed seemed to mock her with its beady, knowing eyes. Monika continued chanting. "Where? Where, where, where, where, where, where – "

"Who's there?"

A stern, yet shaky female voice called out to Monika from the hallway. She gasped and whirled around, her eyes darting around madly in a feeble attempt to catch any possible glimpse of whoever had just called out to her. Monika's lips moved for several moments without making a sound.

"Sayori?"

A few soundless seconds passed, filled only by the rapid heaving of Monika's chest. Then, a young, peach-haired high school girl in shorts and a t-shirt walked into the light of her room, her eyes wide and her expression more than a little afraid. However, when her eyes adjusted to the light, her face shifted into something more along the lines of surprise.

"Monika?" Sayori said incredulously.

Monika stammered to herself. "S-Sayori." She took a step forward, her quaking knees threatening to buckle under before she could go any further. Sayori took a cautious step back, but stopped in her tracks when Monika's lips began to tremble. Her vision had grown hazy, and she thought she felt something wet and salty trail down her cheek when she blinked.

"Sayori," she said again. Monika dropped to her knees just a foot in front of Sayori, hanging onto what little composure she had left by a thread. Her teeth clenched together so hard that they began to ache, and her hands shook. She wanted so badly to reach up, to put her arms around her friend. But it hurt so much. "S-S-SaYOri…"

The girl in question shushed her friend and bent her knees slightly, placing a hand on Monika's cheek.

Strawberry soap

Sayori didn't say anything – couldn't think of what to say in this strange situation – but it hardly mattered. Her face did the work for her. Her furrowed brow and wide, concerned eyes melted Monika's defenses.

But it was her lips that finished the job. Because when Sayori was feeling an emotion, it was always expressed in her lips one hundred and ten percent. When she was happy, she grinned from ear to ear. When she was feigning sadness, she frowned overdramatically. But currently, her lips were at neither extreme. Instead, they were turned down just enough so that they couldn't be counted as neutral, but also not so far down that they could be considered an objective frown.

Sayori looked so incredibly, genuinely worried for Monika, and it broke both of their hearts.

Darkness shielding them from the prying eyes of the world, the president collapsed against her vice, bawling like a child. Air exuded from her lungs in big bellows, and she cried unreservedly into Sayori's t-shirt.

"I'm sorry..." she managed, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

Sayori whined sympathetically and grabbed onto her friend, holding them tenderly.

"Monika…Monika, I'm fine, what's wrong…?"