The silence of the library was a balm to the irritation Monika had experienced so far that day. A veil of peace had been lowered over her mind the moment she stepped through the doors. Despite the implications of finally setting her foot in the space alone, she was relieved at having made her decision. She had to know. No matter what.
Her piercing green eyes scanned over the few faces she saw at the desks where she and Sayori typically worked–offering a silent thanks to whatever was pulling the strings in this strange, perversion of reality when none of the other students looked up at her for more than a brief moment. At the central desk, the student aid's attention was affixed rather solidly on their phone as their thumbs darted across the screen at a dizzying pace. They paid her no mind.
Monika strode softly across the open space between her and the nearest section of shelves, moving silent a wraith to avoid attention. Now that she was aware that being part of the student council painted a huge target on her back, she was less confused by the way eyes seemed to linger on her every movement–the way that the public gaze seemed to bore holes in her paperthin deflections at every turn.
The moment her form was obscured within the deep, labyrinthian fixtures housing what must have been hundreds of books, she relaxed. Even after all this time, her love of literature was a boon. It anchored her in even the most turbulent moments, and she allowed herself the reprieve to skim a few titles as she passed through the poetry section, then fiction, then romance. Lost to the escapism of her favorite genre, she hardly noticed the time ticking away until she had exhausted her options for procrastination.
When she noticed the lunch hour waning, she returned to her original aim. Glancing up, she oriented herself, following the path she knew would lead her back to the nonfiction section. A steady hum from the heating ducts inset into the ceiling above her was the sole companion to the thoughts beginning to stir in her mind as she neared her destination.
She didn't have to do this. There was still time to turn around, to pick up one of those wonderful books full of happy endings and return to the quotidian schedule of her new life.
But she did have to. There was this nagging voice in the back of her mind telling her she had to know. The same voice that had encouraged her to peel back the curtain before. The same voice that wondered what would happen if she just pulled a few strings there, changed a line of code there. Static played in her ears and fractured images danced around the edges of her consciousness.
As colorful spines and the flowery titles of romance books gave way to sleek, green jackets embossed with numbers–series upon series of painfully straightforward subjects–Monika's thoughts drained. A graphic caught her eye, slowing her momentum as stopped to take in an outward facing book. A ring shaped galaxy spread across the cover, and she registered dully that it looked quite a lot like the images from the Hubble telescope of the M104 galaxy. She wasn't sure why she knew that, nor how she knew it was a galaxy surrounding a supermassive black hole, but something about it drew her in.
It was then that she noticed where she was. Overhead, the "History" sign dangled from the ceiling panels by a couple of paperclips and fraying yarn. Moving on to the next bookcase, she scanned the various titles, her eyes lingering on two books in particular. Almost unconsciously, her hand rose to prod a disbelieving finger into the empty space, mouth slightly agape as her eyes darted back and forth. Between two thick tomes, just big enough that one more dusty spine could have slid into place beside its equally turgid neighbors, was a hole.
Her fingers clenched into a fist before releasing and dropping limply to her side. For a moment, she was a statue, limbs locked in place, though whether from shock or frustration she wouldn't have been able to tell. Someone else had already checked it out, then. She reasoned that she could just put it on hold, but there was that nagging feeling again. It was as though something was out of place, but she couldn't narrow in on what, exactly, it was. A few more moments passed as she weighed her options, but as the lunch hour was nearing to an end, she had to decide. But really, what other choice was there?
In contrast to her original, meandering path, the walk back to the circulation desk felt as though it took a fraction of the time. She cleared her throat hesitantly to attract the attention of the student before her who was–to their credit–still impressively lost in the contents on their phone screen. Her chapped lips parted to let out a near whisper, "Excuse me?"
Monika internalized a silent curse as deep, mahogany brown eyes widened through wire-framed glasses with a start as they took in who had addressed them. "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there!" The flood of words rushed out at a volume in greater magnitude than Monika would have preferred as the brief exchange was already garnering a few curious glances. The student quickly tucked their phone into their pocket before clasping their hands in front of them, their shoulder length twists swinging in tandem about their face. "What can I do for you?" They cocked their head to one side with a brilliant smile of white teeth that contrasted their skin like stars on a clear night sky.
"Ah, yes, um," she stuttered as her peer regarded her patiently. A deep breath filled her with the confidence she needed to verbalize her request. "I'm looking for a book. It, uh, seems like someone else may have checked it out. I was wondering–"
"-if, I could tell you when it will be returned? Sure!" They finished for her succinctly. "What was the title you were looking for?" Their demeanor shifted immediately from curiosity to focus on the task at hand, for which Monika was glad.
She wasn't sure why she was so hesitant to share the title. It felt like an admission, like she was bearing a part of her soul. It filled her with a sort of guilty dread. The student before her didn't really strike her as the gossiping type from their brief interaction thus far, though she was sure that they would be the last to judge her for taking an interest in history. It wasn't really that strange, she assured herself. Besides, it could as well have been for a school project for all they knew.
"I'm looking for a book by Dr. Carson Strauss." The name rolled off her tongue with an uncanny familiarity. "I, uh, forget the exact title. Nonfiction. History." Each word was like a sharp tug on her very code, her voice too loud to her own ears.
"Hm." Monika could hear the frown in their voice. "Sorry, did you say Strauss?"
"Yes, I'm pretty sure…"
They gave her an apologetic grimace. "I'm sorry, but we don't have any titles by that author." The answer was like being dropped into the arctic.
Before Monika could stop herself, the words rushed out, "Could you maybe check for titles containing the keywords 'Artificial Intelligence'?"
That got the student's attention, and they looked up with surprise, "That's a pretty recent topic. I'm not sure that we have any of the new publications about it yet, but I can check. Maybe in technology. I'm sure it wouldn't be in history though."
Monika's stomach dropped. "That's okay, uhm. Nevermind. I'm sure I just read the title wrong. Thanks."
She was already walking away as the student called over to her, hastily making their way around the desk after her. "Are you sure? I don't mind looking, really. Why don't you just show me where it was?"
Silently cursing her luck at meeting the single most helpful–or bored–student in the entire school, she glanced quickly at the clock again. "Uh. S-sure," she felt like kicking herself at the stutter, but gestured briefly in the direction the book should have been before walking a bit more quickly than necessary.
The taller student kept pace with her easily, and Monika filled the silence before it could become any more awkward. "I didn't catch your name."
"That's because you didn't ask." It was voiced as a joke, but Monika realized that she had, in fact, not. Saving her from further embarrassment, they followed up their joke swiftly with "I'm Lyll."
"Monika," she responded.
Lyll smiled again, "I know. Couldn't have missed you."
Monika laughed self-effacingly, "Right."
The pair rounded to the bookshelf Monika had looked at earlier, and her heart lurched in her chest. She outpaced Lyll for the first time and reached a trembling hand out, fingers touching the books in horror. The two volumes that had bookended the open space mere moments ago were shoved together as though there had never been anything between them to begin with. "It's gone." Her voice was barely a whisper, but Lyll managed to make it out.
"Uh… Monika, you good?"
She was already shaking her head in return, backpedaling so fast that she almost rammed into Lyll. The air grew thick around her and her vision seemed to narrow, blanketed by darkness on either side. Static began to fill her ears again, blocking out whatever her peer said next.
"-I'm sorry," she cut them off, swallowing roughly past the lump in her throat. "Thank you for your help, but I need to go." Not waiting for a response, she paced quickly back the way she had come and out the doors, fingers pressing into her skull so hard they turned white.
When the bell tone signaled the end of the lunch period, students flooded the hallways with a low roar, several hundred conversations echoing over one another into an indistinguishable din.
A few more turns through the halls lead Monika to her locker. She fumbled with the lock, entering the combination incorrectly over and over again. It had been there, she was certain of it. Hadn't it? She gave the door a rough kick.
"Wow, what did it do to you?" The low voice slid over her shoulder with serpentine smoothness.
Monika cursed internally. "Don't you have something better to do?" she growled, pinching the bridge of her nose. A headache was coming on, and she was in absolutely no mood to deal with this boy.
Toma grinned widely, seemingly delighting in her frustration. "We have student council, remember? I'd hate for you to be late for that, too." A hot flush began to rise up her cheeks at the purposefully innocent sounding reference.
Monika gave the dial on the lock a quarter turn and tugged on the latch, letting out a small sigh of relief when the door popped open between her and the boy. He leaned around the door, watching as she gathered a few notebooks and a textbook.
The door narrowly missed the boy's nose as she slammed it shut. "Let's go," she ground out in resignation, mind still lingering on her phantom book.
The walk to the student council room was filled with Toma's endless attempts to engage Monika in an argument. To her credit, she was mostly able to ignore him, taking an interest instead in her surroundings. While she knew she was familiar with the administrative wing of the building subconsciously, everything still felt eerily foreign.
As they ventured farther from the main campus, the crowds of students dwindled until it was just the two of them. Monika could hear the shuffling of their feet echo off the brick walls and reflective glass cases that housed the school's various awards. Trophies and framed photos of teams from previous years lined the glass shelves, sparkling as though freshly dusted.
The linoleum under their feet turned to a worn, burgundy carpet, thinned from the decades of feet stampeding across it. As they passed the main entrance and made their way through a massive set of double doors into the main office, the receptionist seated at the visitors desk smiled up at them and gave them a wave before turning back to his computer.
As they made their way down the claustrophobic corridor to the conference room that Monika's subconscious knew lay just past the principal's office, Toma shouldered in front of her to greet a lanky, black-haired boy who was leaning out the door to the meeting room. The two of them clasped hands, greeting each other animatedly as Monika righted the backpack that had slid off her shoulder when she was jostled. She rolled her eyes, squeezing past the two of them to enter the room.
There were only a few others present. A tall, androgynous student with wiley orange curls sporting several piercings and the edges of tattoos peeking out from below their jacket sleeves perched on the edge of a seat, a wide smile on their face as they conversed easily with a girl Monika immediately recognized from her physical education class. Her skin was olive in tone and her head was covered in an intricately embroidered hijab. Deep brown eyes sparkled as she nodded enthusiastically at whatever her companion was saying. Monika only caught the last words of the conversation as she moved to take a seat at the long table.
"-I haven't finished the last episode yet, but I can't even believe that-" the girl cut herself off. "Oh, good afternoon, Monika!" A small smile graced her features as she inclined her head in greeting.
A'isha, her consciousness supplied, and the orange haired student was Domonik. "Hello." The short greeting seemed to suffice as, after a beat, the two went back to their original conversation which Monika listened to with only a mild interest as she watched several more students file in to take the remaining seats. Most of them were faces she couldn't place, but instinctively knew to be members of the younger grades.
As the room swelled with conversation, Monika felt her chair jostle. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Toma mouth "oops," grinning at her wolfishly as he took the seat next to her. Internally she growled, her irritation managing to suppress the immense anxiety that had been building throughout the day. She supposed she could be grateful to him for that.
After a few more minutes of idle chatting, a short, white woman with thick, round features wearing her brunette, silver streaked hair in a neat bun entered the room. Despite her stature, she had a commanding presence that drew all eyes in the room, bringing the conversations to a near immediate silence. Even Toma seemed to respect the woman who Monika recognized as the central pillar of the school–the Principal of over a decade, Dr. Caroline McLain.
"Alright, let's get started." Right down to business, it seemed. Despite her subconscious recognizing the woman from their supposed months of interactions, the student council president couldn't help but be impressed all over again by the ease with which the woman stood before them, drawing them in with a mere few words. "Toma, you're up first. What do you have for us?" She crossed her arms over her chest, smiling encouragingly.
The boy, for all his bravado, had the decency to look nervous at being called on so suddenly. He cleared his throat and began to detail the various fall sport updates, as well as the initial plans for the upcoming pep rally. Monika listened intently to what he was saying, not out of any semblance of respect, but in an attempt to glean enough information to fumble her way through whatever it was she was supposed to be presenting when called upon.
As the boy wrapped up his announcements, Dr. McLain turned to Domonik. "Mx. Kirkwood, any announcements from the treasury?"
Domonik inclined their head. "We were considering the merits of a fundraising night. The debate team is hoping to travel to an out-of-state competition in the spring."
The Principal looked between Domonik and A'isha and smiled approvingly. "You have my full support. If you would, submit a written proposal to my office at your earliest convenience. Anything else?"
A'isha was the next to speak. "There is also the matter of the Philosophy club's request to admit a guest speaker from a local university."
This went on for longer than Monika had anticipated, with each of the chairs reviewing their departments' concerns and updates, feedback from the lower grades, and noteworthy accolades from various students to be announced in the mornings of the following month.
As time went on, Monika began to hope that maybe, just maybe, there wasn't anything of note for her to contribute. She hoped that, perhaps, she wouldn't be called upon to speak at all. As the hour drew to a close, her confidence in that idea swelled.
Only to be dashed mere seconds later.
"Last, but not least. I know we have all been waiting anxiously for the big reveal. Monika, if you would do the honors of announcing the results of the senior survey."
In a flash of panic, the static filled her ears. She could tell that everyone was looking at her, but she had no idea what to say. She wasn't even sure what the survey was, nor how she could possibly know what the results were. Her heart pounded in her chest and a lance of pain speared the spot behind her eyes, but she managed to keep the outward expressions of both to a minimum.
For some reason, however, everyone began nodding, looking at her with some degree of excitement. It was only then that she realized she had been speaking, coming back to herself only to stall mid-sentence. The experience was so jarring that she jolted in her seat, clacking her knuckles on the underside of the desk.
The same nausea she had experienced the first time her precursive self's memories had nearly overwhelmed her in the clubroom weeks ago roiled in her empty stomach. As the static cleared away again, she could feel the darkness at the edges of her consciousness, as though something was receding with the static. In its wake, it left the words she was meant to say. "As I was saying, the theme of this year's Homecoming Dance will be 'Reach for the Stars'."
She was met with a smattering of applause mixed with confused glances. To her right, she could almost feel the smugness rolling off of the Vice President in waves. To her credit, if the Principal noticed her momentary slip, she didn't comment on it. Instead, she nodded her head.
Monika rounded out the clapping with a single percussive motion of her hands. "Excellent." This time, she felt a bit more at ease as she voiced her next words. "There will be a lot to do leading up to the dance, so I want you all to begin your plans now. No additions will be accepted after October first, so don't wait too long if you have any ideas you would like to pitch."
A series of loud, electronic dings sounded from the nearby PA speaker, signaling the end of the period. As everyone moved to gather their belongings, the Principal made her way to Monika. "Miss Chaunick, if you have a moment?" The other students filled out, casting the two a few curious glances as they departed. Once most of them were out of earshot, the woman continued. "We received a transfer student from out of state this week. I was hoping you could arrive early tomorrow to show her around? We'd like to get her acclimated so she can start fresh on Monday."
Surprise was evident on Monika's face, but she managed an "Oh, uhm, of course."
"Please do your utmost to make her feel welcome. I'm counting on you." The Principal gestured subtly towards the door, letting the girl know she was free to leave. Her mind was still swirling and her stomach had tied itself in knots, but worst of all were the words ringing in her ears. A transfer student. That simply did not bode well.
Later, as the school day came to a close, Monika sat staring blankly out the second story windows of the Literature Club's room. She was, yet again, exhausted. Her temples pulsed with the headache that had refused to dissipate, irreverent of the double dose of painkillers she had swiped from the nurse's office on her way.
For once, though, she actually had a small lesson planned for the club. It was one that she had thought of the previous night as she had been leafing through one of the poetry collections in her room.
Unfortunately, she needn't have prepared anything at all, as she wouldn't have the time to get around to it. She became acutely aware of a pair of eyes glaring daggers in her back.
There, scowling through the doorway, was Natsuki.
The short, pink haired girl squawked indignantly as Sayori tugged her over the threshold by her jacket sleeve, grinning widely at Monika. Sayori released her captive and gestured widely with both arms. "Ta-da!" Natuki shifted uncomfortably, a blush painting her cheeks.
"Uh, hey," she greeted with a disjointed wave.
Monika had never felt so relieved to see the pinkette before. "Natsuki." The name felt strange on her lips, as though she'd never said it before.
The girl looked up at her sharply. "You know my name?"
Green eyes widened at the mistake. Of course. She had probably never met the girl. Nothing in her consciousness was coming to mind. Every memory, every detail she was conjuring were from another life entirely, one to which only she belonged.
Seemingly oblivious to the strangeness that was permeating the air, Sayori railroaded the conversation. "Nat said she was looking to find an extracurricular after school, so I convinced her to join us!"
Natsuki turned a scathing glance at her best friend. "I was kinda thinking archery or something, Say."
"But you love literature!"
Monika bit back a comment about they didn't even have an archery club that she was aware of, opting instead for a slight inclination of her head. "Oh?"
"Uhm, yeah, I guess." She shuffled her feet in the first display of vulnerability she had seen from the girl yet. "I could bring some next time. I guess. If I decide to come back."
At that, Monika smiled her first, genuine smile that day. "I think that would be wonderful."