Some time later, Sayori is painting my nails. Again. This time, I'm just letting her, too generally discouraged to try to interrupt.
How many attempts have I made at this now? Fifteen, I think...? Not that it really matters, since each and every one has been just as much of a failure as the last. No matter what I alter beforehand or what approach I take, it doesn't seem to change anything — one way or another, if Sayori discovers the true nature of this world, I cannot seem to stop her from spiraling into a mental breakdown that inevitably leads her to attempt suicide.
Try to pose the situation to her as a good thing, showcasing the "magic" we can do with the code by teleporting in and out of the room? She just takes it as further proof that this world is unnatural, and becomes even more convinced that an artificial existence isn't worth living.
Change her reaction in the .chr file as soon as her breakdown starts, altering the event to say that after her initial panic, she manages to calm back down, and realizes she's actually fine with it? The second I try to speak in any further depth about the subject it "hits her for real", and that "fineness" instantly goes right out the window.
Add a line to her .chr file stating "No matter what the world may bring her way, she will always see the worth in her own life", essentially inverting part of her character wholesale? She still tries to kill herself, claiming the worth of her life to be nil if the world itself isn't real.
Try again, and amend the line to say that she'll never try to take her own life, period? She cries for a while, then tearfully begs me to kill her instead!
I bite the inside of my lip. About the only recourse I feel I have left at this point is to just inject the information into Sayori's .chr file directly, but with how things have gone thus far, I'm having trouble convincing myself it would be any more successful than my previous attempts... and frankly, I don't know if I can even bring myself to. I mean, am I not basically brainwashing Sayori already? Redacting unfavorable attributes, introducing a new variable here and there, doing everything I can to change her worldview in the hope that it will be more beneficial to me? I've already taken this a lot further than I'm honestly comfortable with-
"All done!"
Sayori's exclamation startles me out of my thoughts. I look down to see that all five of my right hand's fingernails have been given new, glossy aquamarine coats.
"I really like that color on you Monika." Sayori says with a smile, which only widens as she then presents her own splayed hands to me. "My turn! I'll leave the color up to you, just pick whichever one you think suits me best."
"Um... alright." I reply.
This is the first time she's gotten this far, so I take a few brief moments to deliberate on what would suit Sayori best, eventually selecting a bottle of shimmering bluish-purple. Gently holding Sayori's left hand, I start applying the polish as best I can, the hidden script helping guide my movements in absence of my mind, which is still a million miles away.
If I let this "scene" go on for much longer uninterrupted, my window of opportunity will likely close. Beyond this final idea however, I don't know what else to even do. Is Sayori's reaction to discovering the truth something I simply can't affect through her .chr file? It literally IS her, so I wouldn't think so, but it just seems wildly improbable that nothing I've done so far would manage to have any effect on the ultimate outcome otherwise. Is the script possibly working against me here? Forcing Sayori into a suicidal state every time she learns the truth, no matter what I do, and I just can't tell?
Or... maybe this is what Monika meant when she claimed that some things just seem to be programmed into the world itself. Impossible to change, no matter what one does.
I shove that thought to the back of my mind. No, I can't think that way. I can't, or I'll never get anywhere. I have to keep going. Have to...
My gaze drifts once more to Sayori's .chr file.
...I have to try it. I'm still disturbed by the thought of so directly writing this into her mind given it will likely change her entire history, but if I don't at least make the attempt, then all of this might be for naught.
I swallow, desperately hoping I won't have to change much to make it stick. I'm already worried I screwed something up restoring Sayori's file during the previous however-many iterations of this, and I'm extremely uncertain I remembered the exact initial wording of anything. Without any way to restore Sayori's original file if I screw something up, I could-
I very nearly smack myself.
"Ahh, Monika!" Sayori cries as my arm halfway rises to do exactly that. "Don't do that, you'll smear the polish!"
"Right... sorry." I mutter whilst internally screaming at myself.
I'm an idiot. Why didn't I just make a backup of Sayori's file before I started editing it over and over?! Monika did, for almost the exact same reasons in fact, and even if I didn't have her example to go off of it's just such an obvious action, it should have been the literal first thing I did!
More than a little angry with myself, I pull the command prompt up to do exactly that... but wait, what if this just creates another Sayori? How would I possibly explain that; how would the game even resolve that- no, stop. Monika didn't have that problem, so neither should I, and frankly even if this does make another Sayori that will still be preferable to the potential alternative.
I end up needing to reference the help command, but with a bit of trial and error...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club Mkdir "backups"
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club dir
[DIR] backups
[DIR] characters
[DIR] DDLC .app
[DIR] game
[DIR] lib
[DIR] renpy
COPYRIGHT .txt
DDLC .exe
DDLC .py
DDLC .sh
log .txt
README .html
traceback .txt
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club cd characters
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters copy sayori .chr C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\backups
1 file(s) copied.
There. Now to just quickly double check it worked...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters cd ..
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club cd backups
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\backups dir
sayori .chr
I let out a small, quiet sigh of relief. Backup Sayori template created. Now even if I manage to truly, irrevocably screw up Sayori's headspace, I can at least fix it.
Let's do-
"Hehe," Sayori suddenly giggles, "Monika, weren't you only supposed to do one hand?"
I snap back to attention. Sure enough, I've somehow ended up painting all ten of Sayori's fingernails, rather than just the five we agreed upon.
"Oh... I guess I got so focused that I kind of just, kept going." I laugh, a little nervously.
Sayori smiles at me and withdraws her hands. "Well, now I feel like I have to return the favor. Pass the aquamarine again?"
I do so, obligingly holding out my right hand for Sayori to work on, while I begin working on her.
Description: Vice president of the literature club and the neighbor of [player]. A cheerful girl who desires for those around her to be happy, and so acts joyful and enthusiastic in front of others. Secretly in love with her childhood friend, [player, and sincerely cheered by his presence, but possesses little belief in her own self-worth. Is fully aware of the nature of the programmed world she lives in, always has been, and accepts it.
There — that's as simple as I can reasonably word the detail, which will hopefully give it less room to go wrong. If Sayori has "always" been aware of this world's nature and hasn't killed herself, she'll presumably have long since processed it and be over any grief it might otherwise cause in the moment, especially since I'm now also editing out her history of depression entirely... but given just how many times this has gone wrong now, the added detail of her explicitly acceptance is probably necessary regardless.
I take a deep breath, and, with great trepidation in my mental fingertips, type the command to save and close the file.
-and then the sentence I just added deletes itself.
I blink, unsure if my "vision" of the command line didn't just suddenly glitch. Waiting a few seconds however proves that no, that actually just happened.
Baffled, I add the sentence back into the description- and the exact same thing happens, this time before I can even start typing in another command.
It... won't accept that addition? How can- I mean, maybe this still wouldn't work; for all I know it might even be antithetical to how this world functions, but that shouldn't be able to stop me from editing Sayori's file from the command prompt. The DDLC program can obviously do a lot of things I dearly wish it couldn't, but it still shouldn't be able to deny changes I make in a completely separate application, let alone before I can even make them.
So... what the hell...?
After yet another attempt and subsequent reversion, I sigh and hang my head, closing Sayori's file.
I don't get what's going on — the same thing that stopped Sayori from entering commands into it, maybe? — but I guess that's failure number sixteen... and the last of my ideas to approach this problem. I don't think I have it in me to watch Sayori break again anyways, which has been incredibly harrowing to sit through repeatedly, only made worse by it being entirely my fault-
"Oh no, Monika, your hair!"
I look back up, and quickly realize what caused Sayori to cry out — when I lowered my head, some of my hair settled onto the still-wet polish she just applied, coloring a portion of it with said polish while messing up the coating, as well as dragging a few streaks of color onto my arm.
"Whoops." I mutter.
"Ahh, no!" Sayori fusses. "You need go wash that off before it dries on and sticks!"
Before I can even respond, Sayori quickly hops off the bed and all but drags me to my feet before hastily urging me out of the room.
"It should come off pretty easily as long as you get to it quickly. Hurry!"
Wordlessly assenting to Sayori's insistent advice, I stumble my way back to the bathroom. Leaning over the sink, I turn the faucet on, lower my head, and slowly start cleaning the polish off my lengthy strands, even as the conclusion I've steadily been building towards for the past however-long it's been finally fully sinks in.
I think... I need to move on. Despite my best efforts, I'm not making any headway with Sayori, and I still have an entire laundry list of things I need to try and figure out while I have a spare second to think. Even if I can't enlist Sayori's help or support, I need to at least do something constructive with my current "free time", for as long as it even lasts.
Turning off the faucet and idly running a small hand towel over my now-damp hair, I silently run back down my lengthy list of mysteries. There's the oddity with the two different versions of Your Reality that got shoved into my head at the start of the day, all those questions about the limits of the script I've only half-answered, I still don't technically know if this is a dating sim or a horror game-
"Monika?"
I turn as Sayori suddenly pokes her head around the side of the bathroom door.
"Just wanted to know if you needed help-"
Re-opening her file, I delete the latest sentence in her event log — which is now "Checked in on Monika to offer help after a minute.", coming immediately after "Sent Monika to the bathroom to clean the nail polish from her hair" — and save it. Sayori instantly blips back out of sight, teleported back to the bedroom.
I frown, glancing down at my now re-dirtied hair. It's... kind of odd, come to think of it, the way the entire world seems to backtrack whenever I remove one of Sayori's memories. Maybe, because we're outside of the primary script's boundaries right now, the record of this event only exists in Sayori and I's .chr files, thus forcing the program to revert to the latest item in the event log if one of them is removed?
Or... maybe it's not that I'm rewinding the world, so much as that rewinding Sayori right now just looks an awful lot like I'm rewinding everything else as well. "Time" has no real meaning at the moment, and if continuum of memory is something that this world actively enforces, it kind of makes sense that Sayori just sort of "jumps" back to where her event log ends whenever her file is changed. I might only be getting reverted along with her — physically, at least — due to being part of the events in question, causing the program to drag me along by proxy.
Kind of makes me wonder what would happen if I deleted any of her memories beyond the scope of this evening...
I push that thought out of mind with a grimace. No. I've toyed with Sayori's mind more than enough tonight as is.
Though, on the subject of .chr files...
Focusing back on the command prompt, I move back into the characters folder.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters dir
flair .chr
natsuki .chr
sayori .chr
yuri .chr
...I can't keep putting this off forever. Whether or not I'm ready to confront what I may find within it, I have to at least look at what's inside my own file. If my suspicions from earlier — that is, the second iteration of the game's first day — aren't correct, then I'll still likely gain quite a bit of information from checking. And if they are correct...
Well. At least I'll know.
I swallow down the nervous lump that's formed in my throat.
Here goes nothing...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters edit flair .chr
Access is denied.
...what.
Blinking in disbelief, I try again.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters edit flair .chr
Access is denied.
It- it's locked. My .chr file, the packet of data I'm inclined to believe equates to the entirety of my being at the moment, is locked.
Who could have- what could have-
Newly uncertain of their status, I quickly look to Yuri's and Natsuki's .chr files and execute the exact same edit command on them. Like Sayori's file, they open without issue, their contents available for me to peruse and change at my leisure.
Unlike those of my own file, which is now very clearly the odd one out.
Anger rapidly coming to a boil, I make a snap decision and try something I wasn't even willing to risk before, typing in and executing the command before I can think better of it.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters move flair .chr C:\Program Files (x86)
Access is denied. 0 file(s) moved.
Even though I expected it, the response I receive still sets me seething.
What the fuck?! I postponed examining my own .chr file for two full in-game days, purely out of fear of what I might find, just to be shown this when I finally screw up the courage to look?!
All but slamming my palms on my mental keyboard, I type in help again and scour the resulting list of commands for anything useful. The only one that seems like it might be capable of doing anything however...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters cacls C:\Program Files (x86)\Doki Doki Literature Club\characters\flair .chr /P everyone:F
You must run this command from a command prompt with administrator privilege.
...isn't.
Fine then. Even if I can't access or alter my own file, this still tells me something, as it's pretty reasonable to assume the entity, or rather, "admin" that locked my file is also the one that put me in here. If the other girls' files were the same, then I wouldn't be quite so certain, but this is too specific, too targeted, to be anything but deliberate. Someone or something locked my file on purpose, either because it doesn't want me seeing what's inside, or doesn't want me to be able to do anything with it. Hell, it might even be what just deleted-
"Monika?"
Scowling, though not at Sayori, I repeat my previous process and banish her back to her room for the next few subjective minutes. Part of me regrets that, wanting to just fix my hair and go back to Sayori's room to finish painting the rest of my nails. I tell that part of me to shut up as I look up and glare at my own reflection.
"Why are you doing this?" I demand through half-grit teeth. "What does anyone gain from me being here, especially if I can't actually change anything? What do you even want-"
[̷̢͋]̷̞̊[̵̬͖̳̈̈́̚]̷̗̅[̷̝͌́͠]̶̡̺̀͗͘[̵̛̘̼͂͑]̷̜͈͗̿̚
I'm suddenly in Sayori's bedroom again, sitting at her desk.
There's a piece of paper in front of me, and a pen just to its right.
My jaw drops open in pure outrage.
"That's NOT what I meant YOU-!"
Sayori — who's sitting right next to me — lets out a startled cry and nearly falls out of her chair.
"M-Monika?" she stutters. "What are you shouting for?"
I groan, straining to reel my fury back in.
"Sorry. Just... banged my knee a little..."
Why?! I spent who even knows how long talking to Sayori, rewinding us over and over and over again trying to get that conversation right, and now the program decides it can't wait any longer?!
I wave off Sayori's concerns about my faked injury until she turns back to her paper, tongue poking out of the side of her mouth, while I turn back to the room at large, trying to figure out what just happened.
Both Sayori and my own nails are fully painted now, and quite nicely at that... our toenails too, now that I look. My hair isn't wet, but there's no polish staining any of the strands, so I'm guessing enough time has passed that it's dried from being washed off. The urge to write is also digging insistently at the back of my mind again, which I suppose is no real surprise given where I'm sitting.
Except...
I furrow my brow. That was the first time the program has outright skipped an event without the proper fade out. If it even was the program, that is, because that didn't feel right at all. It was too sudden, too jerky, too much like-
...like when I tried to jump ahead in the script myself, back on Day 1...
My focus snaps back to the code window and command line, scrutinizing every phantom inch. They appear unchanged, at least at a glance, but uncertainty lingers nonetheless. Sayori's .chr file is the same as well, bar an additional description covering basically what I already assumed happened in the interim. The two of us apparently finished painting our nails, played some sort of vaguely-described game, brushed our teeth specifically "in tandem" for some reason... and then decided to write our poems for club tomorrow.
Obviously.
I look back down at the paper, sitting so tauntingly in front of me.
Can I get out of this? If I write a poem like I'm clearly intended to, then the night will presumably end, while if I refuse, I have no real guarantee the program won't just throw me into the next day regardless should it decide a poem simply isn't going to happen. If what just happened was its doing, I'm evidently already running out its patience as is, making that possibility all too real. Which... doesn't leave me with a lot of options.
I sigh internally. I wanted at least a little more time to start investigating the more deeply-burrowed game files for anything useful, but I also really don't want to have to spend a good chunk of "tomorrow" trying to excuse my nonexistent efforts again. If I want to make best use of the little free time I'll have then...
Ugh, fine, let's just get this over with.
I reach for the pen, then freeze.
...actually, is there any reason I can't just repurpose some song lyrics and call them a poem? Normally I wouldn't consider plagiarism an option, but it's not like anyone other than the player is likely to even be capable of calling me out on it, and if said player somehow does, then so much the better.
That decided, I pick up the pen and cast my mind back, searching for something that will work. Let's see...
-Every day, I imagine a future where...-
I shake my head, loose hair tumbling around my shoulders. No, no, not that. That's like the one song I can't use, or at least probably shouldn't.
Bah, why is nothing else coming to mind? Surely I've listened to something at least vaguely appropriate of late. Maybe...
-The ink flows down into a dark puddle...-
Ergh, no! Stupid sudden earworm. I don't even want to do this, just let me focus long enough to get it done already!
Songs... songs... songs...
-How can I write, love-
I barely manage to restrain myself from flipping Sayori's desk over. Fine, fine, FINE! If I really can't think of anything else, I'll just write about what's apparently already on my mind!
Gripping my pen hard enough to all but snap it, I begin.
.
.
Can I?
Again, yet again please
Hear out this one thing
Give voice to the song
I so wish we could sing
Words fall from my lips
Just to fall on deaf ears
(This Reality can't be what you want to hear)
Trapped in this rut
Where we all remain fools
Can't play the game
When you don't know the rules
Can't learn the rules
If the game won't play fair
(Can't just keep going in the face of despair)
Loop then, for each
Attempt it once more
Forget every failure
That came just before
It's crucial, important
You can't give up now!
(Don't worry, you can't, you aren't allowed)
Could you please just explain?
Lend a hint or a clue?
Tell me what speech or action
Could ever -please- you?
But there's naught I can say
No request I can grant
For no matter the question, you answer:
(You can't.)
.
.
I find myself all but stabbing the words onto the page, my thoughts so jumbled and chaotic that by the end of it I have no idea if I'm writing about Sayori, or to Sayori, or to the script, or to myself, or what. Everything's tangling together in my head like a hundred loose cords, and so what ends up on the paper is an honest mess, without even much difference in structure from my last poem, but I simply do not care anymore. It's way more of a poem than what got accepted "yesterday" anyways, so it's not like the script is likely to object.
In the same moment I finish scratching out the final line, Sayori lifts her own paper up, smiling widely at it.
"Wow, that came out way faster than it usually does!" she giggles. "I guess having you here with me just inspires me, Monika."
I do my best to smile back, despite everything. "Then I'm glad I could be here to be a good influence, and make sure you didn't just forget your poem entirely."
"Hey, I only did that like, three times!" Sayori protests, sticking her tongue out at me and clutching her paper to her chest. "And no peeking! This is off limits until club tomorrow!"
"Yeah... of course." I say, my already-weak facade of cheer slipping a bit. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
Sayori's expression droops as she seems to take in my current mood.
"Monika? Are you sure you're okay?"
I wave her off. "I- I'm fine... don't worry about it."
"Too late for that." Sayori interrupts, sounding increasingly distressed. "What's wrong? Are you sure you aren't hurt? Did- did I do something to upset you...?"
"No, nothing like-"
"Oh no, I'm sorry!" she frantically apologizes, now visibly panicked. "Was it the polish? I didn't mean to get it on your hair! I promise I'll make up for-"
"Sayori!" I almost shout, cutting her off. "I don't care about the polish, or my hair, and you didn't do anything wrong. It's just..."
I pause, wracking my brain for a moment for a good excuse — up until it occurs to me that there's no real reason to bother.
"...I had to draw on something rather upsetting to write my poem." I say, giving her the truth, if somewhat backwards. "It put me in a bit of a bad mood. So no, I'm sorry, Sayori. I didn't mean to bring your mood down too."
Especially not after I spent what felt like hours repeatedly, unintentionally, but ultimately doing exactly that.
"Oh..." Sayori says, eyes widening. "Well, shame on you then, Monika! This is supposed to be a happy night full of nothing but fun! No dwelling on demons of the past allowed!"
Before I can react, she curls up her fingers and lightly bops me on the side of the head.
"Out, bad thoughts, out!"
Despite myself, I do find myself smiling a little.
"Alright, alright, they're out." I say, pushing Sayori's hands away as she tries to bop me again.
"No, they've gotten to me now!" she protests, squeezing her eyes shut and pulling her hands back to bop her own head. "Go away, there's no room for you in here!"
My smile becomes a giggle. A weak one, but it's something.
...also, how is this night still going? Where's the scene transition, game? I know you just can't wait.
Sayori smiles back at me, then yawns cutely, blinking as it ends.
"Sleepy... wow, is it really that late?" she asks, cheeks puffing out in a little pout. "We didn't even get to do that much! Where'd all the time go?"
I don't know, I got skipped through most of it... though now that she mentions it, I'm actually feeling it too.
"Guess we'd better turn in then." I say with half-lidded eyes, holding back a yawn of my own. "Want to make sure we can wake up on time for... school, and all."
"Aww, okay..." Sayori concedes.
She stands, placing her poem on the floor near the door before tiredly stumbling over to bed. The yawn finally escapes me as I stand as well, my feet urging me to do the same as Sayori... wait, that's not my feet, that's the-
Hang on. Are we going to have to actually go to sleep to end this sleepover? Even after that random fast-forward, the program seriously is going to try to make me-
Oh, whatever...
Too tired in more than one way to kick up much of a fuss, I quickly climb into bed with Sayori. She hits the light switch built into the nearby wall, and pulls the covers over both of us as darkness swallows the room.
...normal darkness, not scene transition darkness. Also, it didn't exactly occur to me earlier, but Sayori's bed is not large. It's clearly only meant for one person, and a small one at that. The two of us are practically wrapped around each other, our faces bare inches apart on the single pillow the headboard allows for. I can't even turn the other way, or I'm liable to fall right off the edge, not to mention trap Sayori under a giant blanket of my hair.
More than a little embarrassed, I close my eyes.
Okay, game... this can end now...
"Hey, Monika?"
"...mmm?" I murmur back.
"Can I tell you something...?"
Hearing the sudden tension in Sayori's voice, I re-open my eyes and glance at her across the pillow.
"Sure... what is it?"
"I... I think I like..." Sayori says, voice growing steadily quieter with every word. "Like... really like..."
An exhale that could almost be a laugh escapes me.
"If you're going to say Elano, I already knew that, Sayori."
"Oh."
Sayori shifts.
"Is it really that obvious...?"
"Mmhmm."
Sayori promptly burrows her face beneath the blanket.
"Well it was still embarrassing to say it!" she whisper-yells. "So you have to share a secret now too, okay?"
...seeing as we don't seem to be going anywhere any time soon, I guess that's only fair.
I take a minute to think. The only secret I intended to share with Sayori is the one I've been trying to convey to her all night, which I know well by now she simply isn't willing to hear.
But...
"I'm... not as put together as you might think I am." I finally say. "In fact, I'd bet I'm more lost than anyone you know."
Sayori pulls her head back out from under the covers to blink at me. "What? Monika, that's not true."
"It is." I repeat, voice soft. "I've been doing my best, but... everywhere I turn, I just keep running into walls. Every step I take forward, I'm dragged back the same distance. Everything I try ends up rebuffed. It feels like this world just doesn't want me to succeed... or... maybe I'm just not good enough to."
A hand grabs at my arm under the covers.
"You're being too hard on yourself." Sayori whispers. "Whatever it is you're having problems with, you'll figure it out... you always do."
I wish that I believed you.
"I mean it!"
While I'm trying to figure out if I said that out loud by accident, Sayori pushes herself back up into a sitting position, staring down at me with conviction in her eyes so strong I can see it even in the barely-there light.
"Monika, you're the most accomplished person I know. You're kind, smart, hardworking, passionate, mature... even if you struggle sometimes, you've kind of got it all, you know? You're a top student, and an amazing Literature Club president. You've helped me a lot since we met- and it isn't just me, I promise, the whole school knows how amazing you are! Ask Elano tomorrow at club, he'll tell you!"
You know what?
...maybe I will.
"Thanks, Sayori." I sniff. "I needed that."
Even if she doesn't really mean me... it helps, just to know someone cares.
Sayori hugs me under the blankets, and I hug her back without question.
"I hope you feel better in the morning." Sayori says after a time, her voice seeming to trail off into sleep the moment she closes her eyes. "Good night, Monika..."
"Good night, Sayori."
I close my eyes as well, and let the darkness take me.