"Goddamn, finally!" Susie yelled as she saw Noelle and Kris approach after what seemed like them being in the Literature Club forever. "Did you survive?"
"I honestly have no idea, we're barely alive." Kris snickered while relief washed over them. It was over, for now. There would be more of that but honestly it didn't seem that bad.
"Anyway…" Noelle sighed, partially relieved to get out of there and partially out of dread because she will eventually have to come there. "Uh, where do we live?"
"Well, Kris has been inserted into the protagonist's spot so naturally they'd have that house." Berdly spoke up, pointing over at some random house "It's best if we all just live with them."
"Hell yea, we aren't homeless!" Susie celebrated, running over to the house that was pointed out.
"Susie, wait!" Noelle ran after her, the two others following for the chaos and just to take a break from this…very interesting day.
Eventually, the four caught up to each other and started a discussion.
"It was horrible, by the way. We ended up fighting a sentient cupcake and I was alone with Monika for a portion where we fought a silhouette person." Kris announced to the party.
Almost like a truck, a realisation –and reference that wasn't appropriate for the situation– hit Berdly, right there.. "Just Monika?"
"...Just Monika." Kris did not catch on.
"Why would you allow yourself to get fooled by her so soon?"
"She just grabbed me and forced me outside and then the fight happened!"
"WAIT!" Susie interrupted. "Y-You…fought a sentient cupcake?!"
"..Yes." Noelle admitted.
"You guy's shoulda taken me."
"You would have killed Natsuki." Kris recoiled, looking over at Noelle who looked to the floor for a second before perking back up.
"Anyway!" Noelle forced the conversation to move along, not wanting to remember that part of the day. "We need to write poetry."
"And THAT is why I didn't go."
"But you literally just stated one moment ago that-"
"Shut up!"
"I reject that idea!"
"Can you two go a day without doing this?" Noelle pleaded.
"No we cannot." Susie smirked.
"Oh, we're here." Kris pointed out that the group had indeed reached their house, they quickly stepped inside the strange house and everyone followed.
The house was small and pretty average looking, once again something that you'd see in an anime or manga….or a visual novel. The realisation truly hit as the house went silent. They were trapped in a video game, and they'd probably be stuck for two weeks because of how this worked.
"I-I'm going to explore this place..!" Susie groaned and stormed up the stairs. "Need to think."
"...She doesn't seem right, I'm joining her." Noelle slowly walked away and also walked up the stairs in an attempt to follow her.
Noelle witnessed Susie sit down on the floor of the second floor and pull out a piece of paper and pencil.
"Mm, looks edible. Why am I doing this?" She took a bite of the end of the pencil and started roughly writing on the piece of paper. "Why on earth do people write these things anyway?"
"Mmmm… Get up, deal with things… This sounds like shit."
Noelle winced at Susie's self degrading comments. That was her girlfriend that she was talking about!
"Cycle….Cycles? Do I repeat the word?"
Was she writing a poem?
"Door…Chase….Legend… Is this really working?"
Probably, yes.
"I show just give up, this isn't gonna help any-"
"Yes it could!" She called out in response, not realising how loud she said it for a second. The other girl's head swiftly snapped at her and she stood up.
The paper and pencil gently fell to the floor as Susie looked down at them, trying not to have any eye contact with the girl. "Uh, Noelle. How much, uh…did you see?"
"A…decent amount!" She smiled back, or tried to. "What were you doing, exactly?"
"I know that you and Kris need to force out these stupid poems for this game so I thought that…I could…." She trailed off as she scratched her head and picked up the paper. "I-I just wanted to help by uhh… actually, I don't think it was going to work anyway."
"What were you planning to do?" Noelle took a step forward cautiously, the only thing she wanted to be was a supportive person.
"I thought that if I wrote this dumb poem then I could help you with yours or something like that. I don't know, it was stupid and probably….what's the word? Right. Probably narcissistic or some crap like that." No matter what, Susie was dedicated to keeping her gaze to the floor.
"You weren't. I can tell that you were being genuine and…thanks, for trying." Noelle reached her hand out, only for the favour to not be returned.
The hallway once again turned deathly silent with not even any upset muttering from the duo.
"Susie…" Noelle continued. "I know that we're going to be in here a while if the plot is really…what it was said to be. But, you won't be alone and… I honestly thought you'd be excited for this adventure."
"A game that at first appears to be a Visual Novel involving romancing random cute anime girls, but is actually a psychological horror game about a woman who manipulates all of her friends to their twisted demises so she can feel real." Susie mumbled the repeated words at a volume that was loud enough so that Noelle could hear but quiet enough so that she didn't need to accept it herself.
Noelle just raised an eyebrow and signalled for Susie to continue.
"Alright, I hate to admit it but this is outright terrifying! I mean, a game where most of the cast is deleted from existence?!"
"I think we all are, it's fine to admit that." Noelle took a step closer towards Susie which allowed her to put her hand on the panicked girl's shoulders.
"You sure?" Susie put her head up so that she wasn't staring at the ground but she had her head in a position where she wouldn't be facing Noelle.
There was an extra punch in Noelle's voice that came out of nowhere. "Suse, of course I am."
Susie finally admitted defeat. "Alright. Just uh, don't tell anyone about this."
"You being scared?"
"Yes."
"Alright, then. My lips are shut!"
"Anyway," Susie sighed in a much more satisfied manner before her face switched to an all familiar smirk. "Should we spy on our local nerds and see what's up?"
"Of course I do." Noelle shared the sneaky sentiment and the two stepped down the stairs as quietly as they possibly could just so that the two that they –not so– secretly shipped wouldn't hear them.
Unsurprisingly, Berdly and Kris were sitting at an empty kitchen bench, both on either side and a piece of paper right in front of Kris, who had been holding a pen at the time.
"I know that only having one stanza is an odd choice but it's just my first poem." Kris looked at the paper, which seemed to have a poem on it.
"Wait, but aren't there seven, not just one?" Berdly commented as he pointed at each individual line separately.
"Mm…uhh.." Kris winced and also pointed to the poem, but the full thing. "That is a stanza right there." They then pointed to one of the sentences. "There is a single line. Lines make up the stanzas."
Although they were completely right and he'd just have to admit it, that did not help the ego of the Bluebird of Misfortune. He'd said the wrong thing again and he looked like an idiot, why wouldn't he? Wasn't that what he had-
"Are you still there?" Kris clicked their fingers which —very successfully, somehow,— knocked Berdly out of whatever trance he had entered just then.
"Uh, mostly.." He responded, quieter than before. Unfortunately for him, Kris could see his face and could tell what was wrong just then.
"Hey.." They whispered. "Listen, it took me a while to get that as well, don't feel bad for-"
"I…I don't.. T-Totally."
"You don't sound very uh….'not badly feeling', whatever it'd be called."
"Well, I suppose the correct words I would use would be..discountenance, upset…"
He took a pause, before admitting the one thing he's always known but never wanted to admit.
"...Idiotic."
The word stung like picking a rose that you want to give someone, but can't because of all the thorns, like failing to realise what you truly want and feeling as if you wanted something else just because that's all you had. Like failure, just because he got one little thing wrong.
After a considerable amount of time, Kris spoke up again.
"Listen," Although their face always had the same blank expression, it just…became more serious in that moment, somehow. "These are things that we all feel, I'm not…good at this but I can tell you that. We're all different on the inside than how we appear on the outside, I would know."
"If you say so."
Just like that, Berdly forgot that horrible feeling, mostly.
The SOUL is now viewing: The DDLC Characters.
Hole in Wall.
Hole in Wall.
Monika had written this poem so many times that it felt like nothing, just a small retelling of her epiphany. But this time made it so, so much harder. She rubbed her eyes and yawned as a puddle of ink formed on her page. A second hole had opened in the wall, one leading to an entirely different reality, different mechanics and rules. Rules that her game, her world, had begun to follow.
With it, a legend that Monika had never heard before.. A legend of hope, a legend of dreams. A legend of light, a legend of dark.
Dark that had now filled the game of Doki Doki Literature Club!
The legend of DELTA RUNE.
And with it, at least two of its characters.
Including the SOUL that resided in one of them. The Player. If she couldn't enter the player's reality, she could at least keep you here.
If she could get The Player out of her game's protagonist, then surely she could get it out of Kris as well. Monika doubted that they would complain about that.
Finally, it was all working out!