Post-Credits

Author

Yuri’s eyes shot wide open as she came to on the ground of the regular school hallway. She found herself seated down on the tiled floor with her back pressed to the plaster walls. From where she sat, she was facing the windows where the tranquil sight of the orange, afternoon sky greeted her through the glass.

However, Yuri’s heart was anything but tranquil.

The chaos from the tremors and the frigid, otherworldly wind of the Void was the last thing that Yuri remembered before she passed out. The ground wasn’t shaking anymore, but the purple-haired girl was still rattled by it all.

More than that, Yuri was still holding onto the trigger that finally set that chaos into motion - her copy of The Portrait of Markov .

Yuri dared to open the pages of her novel. She quietly hoped that everything that happened in the glitched classroom was just some sort of wicked nightmare.

The myriad of html error codes that Yuri saw, however, were all still there on the pages. There were too many of them to count by then.

Seeing those error codes again made Yuri’s head spin. The past half hour was nothing but a blur to her. Yuri couldn’t even believe that she had the heart to do what she did to Monika in that time.

The enmity and hatred that Yuri had for the former club president spilled over like acid and corroded everything that it could touch. Even Yuri’s own heart.

It was almost as if Yuri were possessed.

Yuri shook her head and forcefully tried to whisk away those thoughts. She made it out alive, she told herself. The purple-haired girl then wondered where everyone else was.

As soon as she did, Yuri heard Sayori’s frantic shriek. It was coming from the open door to the glitched classroom.

The club president was calling her vice president’s name with absolute terror,

“MONIKA!”

Over... and over... and over…

Before long, Sayori’s distant voice cracked into bitter weeping.

Yuri was still lightheaded from the whole ordeal, but her heart was trembling in fear. Her imagination was running wild and painted a grim picture in her mind. So, she closed her error-ridden book and held it in one arm as she carefully picked herself up from the floor.

The purple-haired girl kept her free hand on the walls of the hallway for support as she slowly hobbled towards the door.

Once she reached the threshold, Yuri looked into the glitched classroom. She was horrified by what she saw.

Natsuki and the Protagonist were standing at the edge of the broken floor of the classroom while Sayori knelt down on the floor between them. All the while, the club president sobbed and wailed into the swirling expanse of the Void.

From the threshold, Yuri only saw the club president’s back. She couldn’t see what kind of face Sayori was making in that moment.

Yuri didn’t want to know.

The helpless Sayori then covered her face with her hands as she croaked out with a weak, dismayed voice,

“We were… supposed to have… a wonderful festival... with everyone, Moni…! All of us!”

In spite of Sayori’s passionate words, only the unearthly howls of the Void’s frigid winds answered the club president’s cry.

Yuri’s heart sharply ached as the gravity of the situation finally became clear to her. The Portrait of Markov slipped from Yuri’s grasp and the hardbound book dropped to the hallway floor with a loud, dull thud.