I talked to Monika. Perhaps I was wrong about her.
She seems conflicted. Unsure of herself.
At a surface level, she's just as level-headed as ever (levelheaded is an interesting term for a verified fucking psychopath), but her eyes are stormy now. I've only once seen her this way before. The first time Yuri died (when she was concerned with no more than how to wipe the stain of Yuri's blood off her shoe...).
Maybe she's changed. Maybe she hasn't.
I don't know yet.
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I've spoken with Sayori. That much is good. I don't know how much she knows.
The noose was tied, the chair under it. All normal. But the chair wasn't kicked over. At the last moment (well, just a moment earlier than in the other lives...), she decided not to.
(when i came back here, she was just stepping - falling, more accurately - from the chair... i was so close all the other times. so very close.)
She's not her old, cheery self. That self was never her. I accept that. Everyone has their problems, after all.
(just ask me... i might look like i'm holding it together now, but that won't last... if it touches a hair on her head, so help me god, i will remove it from this existence and not let up when i think it's gone)
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I might show this to Sayori some time soon. This little... voice box? I guess you could call it? It's not like a recorder... it seems to go deeper than that...
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So Sayori is okay now. That's good. I will never let her go.
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It's now been two days. Two days and nights have passed since Sayori didn't die. Monika is still a threat, but she's not the biggest that I can imagine right now.
I don't think this was supposed to happen.
Time is broken. Reality itself seems to be crumbling.
When you go outside, it goes from sunshine to rain to thunder to blizzards in the course of a few minutes. Time is still passing at a regular pace for us, but everything else seems to be... broken. I saw a squirrel an hour ago born in Sayori's tree, only to grow old, shrivel up, and die in a matter of seconds... it wasn't an outlier...
There are strange optical illusions dancing at the edges of the sky. Like the Aurora Borealis, if the Borealis frequented a small town and flashed like lightning throughout the day.
Monika seems withdrawn. She's left the house multiple times, and when I ask her what's out there she only seems worried.
I don't know what's happening. But I don't think it can continue.
(there's only one logical conclusion here. this life is a cycle. and the cycle has been broken.)
I don't know why everything seems to be falling apart at just the time it seemed to be getting better... luckily, Sayori hasn't shown much interest in leaving the house or looking outside, so she hasn't noticed the drastic changes.
(the drastic changes that she, undoubtedly, is the cause of)
I wanted to make this world perfect for her...
(and i can do so)
but it seems to be solely trying to thwart me at every turn...
(there's only one real option)
why? Why is this world so cruel? Why does everything always have to fall apart?
I remember, vaguely (hell, i can't remember my parents, so there's a limit to the specificity of such memories) a time when I was a little kid. I went to church, with my family, and I was separated into a small group of children, away from the main preachings. I was told that the world was made for us, made for me... so why is it that everything is trying to make me so miserable?
(it's so simple...)
All I want is for Sayori to be able to be happy. And I would like to be there to see it. Is it really so much to ask?
(i need to do just one itty, bitty thing)
Or maybe I'm the one who's failed... maybe this was all some sort of test from some sick sadistic god sitting up and looking down upon us all... maybe I was supposed to save Sayori... I failed so many times... am I worthless? And now that she's finally saved herself, the punishment for my impotence is to watch the world slowly wither away around us all...
(there can only be two)
If there were a single thing I could do, any single thing, to sate the rage of this world, to avoid this punishment - if there's any god out there, any real controller - listen to me...
I have been here for so long... I've seen the exact same pain so many times... I lost count at three hundred, but every time I see Sayori's tears, every time I see her lifeless eyes, every time I know I failed to save her, the knife in my heart is wrenched in the exact. Same. Way.
Whatever I did, I apologize.
However I failed, I will make up for it.
Any thing I need to do.
Any price I need to pay.
I am willing.
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Save her.
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(the path forward is so simple, the conscious mind so oblivious. but to the deeper soul, the truth is made clear.)
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please...
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(so listen up...)
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(an ecosystem, at carrying capacity, must always have a dieout...)
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(there were two, and it worked, and now there are three, and it doesn't...)
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(the solution... is... to kill...)