Literature Club: Return to their reality

Chapter 19: Suspense

The next few days (and over a week on my side with such hands-on approach) drag on anxiously. We are setting more and more precautions, while monitoring any possible developments (but catching only a few minor glitches) and utterly failing to locate the elusive enemy.

The club activities happen in more or less regular fashion, or at least everybody is trying to pretend that it's business like usual. Even if the others don't know what exactly we are trying to do, the tense mood is quite contagious. Not to mention the direct impact of the recent events and all the precautions on the illusion of the world's reality.

More by excluding all the other conceivable options than by having any direct proof, we finally agree on a most likely suspect – but this is pretty much the worst case scenario. On all the accounts: from collateral damage to espionage. Oh dear... We don't have that many weapons usable against this enemy. But inaction could result in utter disaster...

Still, we could at least attend today's Club meeting before doing anything drastic. Although, we're probably not in the shape to pretend to have it all under control – but at least we agree that everybody deserves to know the truth and have their say in the matter – it is their world after all.

Arriving at the Club, we find everybody dressed in their casual clothes – looks like they stopped pretending to care about school. Ironically, Monika is in her uniform, which she hasn't worn since the day she brought me to the Club. Looks like everybody is expecting something big... And what are they reading with such intense expressions?

"Hey girls, found any interesting read?" I ask.

Sayori nervously giggles and fumbles with her fingers; Natsuki huffs and turns away; Yuri tries to hide behind her hair; MC, sitting at another desk, pretends he never noticed the girls reading anything. Just what is going on?

"Has anything happened?" Monika asks.

After some hesitation, Sayori replies: "Player, you seem to have left this folder after yesterday's poetry reading."

"What folder? I've never had such a..."

... yellow folder... it does look like a certain interface element. I look at the papers on the table: I've never printed any of these, but this is definitely my poetry I've kept in Monika's folders. How the heck?

"Did it accidentally render the whole folder?" Monika asks.

Another glitch right under our noses?!

I start gathering the papers. Oh, there even is a love note from Monika!

"Well, I might owe you all a few for the first week." I wink. "Hope you didn't find anything too disturbing."

I admit, I've tried a bit of Monika's dark humor as a coping mechanism. I really hope they didn't find anything referencing their death scenes, especially in a casual way...

I look at the page still in front of Sayori, the one the girls were so intently reading: Eyes of Emerald. Could've been worse. It was my attempt at exploring Monika's perspective – and it goes through the entire original storyline, but at least doesn't focus on the most gruesome details.

"Is this how it really went?" Sayori asks, noticing me looking at the poem.

"Well, there is a bit of..." I mumble.

"Artistic reinterpretation," Monika finishes.

With her being much more qualified to answer the actual questions, I leave Monika to discuss this poem with the girls (they seem a bit too embarrassed to talk it out with me anyway) and proceed to gather the rest of the papers.