DDLC: Project Bellflower

Part 1: Dawn of a New Reality

Monday, February 5th, 2018

A new week of school had begun. Students of the school, some more reluctantly than others, flocked through the gates of the academy. Amongst the many students was a girl, named Yuri. Yuri was a rather reserved and quiet individual, preferring to let books be her source of entertainment both in public spaces and her own home, rather than interacting with others. Though on the rare occasion, she would bond with others over board games - she was a closeted nerd, if you will.

However, at some point during the past year, she joined an after-school club, a literature club. Here, though it took some time, she made friends with four other students: Monika, the club's President, Sayori, the club's Vice President, Natsuki, and more recently a boy, known by his nickname 'MC', who's no longer around under the guise of him having gone overseas, according to Monika.

All was well for the club, Yuri even learnt to open herself up to others a little and slowly became more willing to partake in club activities.

In recent times, though, Yuri's behaviour changed, and not for the better. The other girls took note of this change too, but no matter how much they tried to convince her it was okay for her to talk to them should anything be wrong, she never took them up on the offer.

Monika believed Yuri's unusual behaviour as of late was, in part, due to a book she had come into possession of recently. When reading, it's typical for Yuri's thoughts to become overtaken with what's happening in her book, and sometimes she can be so invested that she doesn't even realise when she's being spoken to, something that, in the case of this particular book, could become problematic.

The book Yuri had been reading was called 'The Portrait of Markov.' It had an ominous-looking eye on the cover of the book, like something you'd associate with religious cults. Very little is known about its actual contents if anything at all. Monika didn't know where Yuri got the book, and somehow, Yuri didn't either, saying she just found it in her bag one day, but never even questioned it. But Monika could sense something was up, her more than most...

Monika was this world's God, essentially. It wasn't too long ago that Monika realised this world they inhabited was a facade - it was all just a game. A game programmed by a real person. A game with predestined paths for everyone. But, somewhere along the line, through experimentation encouraged by both curiosity and desperation, Monika found that she could influence some of the events within the game, manipulating the code to her liking. Her control was limited by her own code, granted, but with the permissions she's been able to obtain, she basically had all that she wanted.

Code manipulation and permissions aside, no one, not even Monika could predict what was about to come...