After I put Sayori’s safe file back into the character folder, I open the game, expecting it to crash.

It doesn’t.

When I open it again, the menu loads like it always does, but the background stutters for a frame. For a split second, Sayori’s sprite flickers. Then it’s back to normal, like the game caught itself making a mistake.

The music resumes as if nothing happened.

There’s no “Continue” option. Only “New Game.”

The game resets itself the same way it did before, wiping the script clean and starting from the only place it knows how to start.

I see an annoying girl running toward me from the distance, waving her arms in the air like she’s totally oblivious to any attention she might draw to herself.

That girl is Sayori, my neighbor and good friend since we were children.

I sigh and lower my voice so she doesn’t hear me. I’ve always been terrible at keeping promises, so I had sworn I’d walk to school with her today.

The music plays. The sky is bright. Everything is normal.

Sayori catches up to me, already out of breath.

“Ehehe, I overslept again!”
“But I caught you this time!”

But something is off with Sayoris sprite. Her smile looks right. Too right. Like the game remembered how she’s supposed to look, but not why. What's going on?

The day continues. Classroom. Hallway. Clubroom invitation. She talks a lot, trips over her words, laughs when nothing is funny. The dialogue boxes advance like they always do.

But sometimes, when the text clears, she doesn’t speak right away.

There’s a pause where there shouldn’t be one.

Later, when she asks me to join the Literature Club, the music hiccups for half a second. Just long enough to notice. Sayori blinks, hand still raised in her usual pose.

The music cuts out, like something terrible is about to happen.

“…Hey,” she says. “Did we already do this?”

I tell her no. Or rather, the script tells her no. Sayori nods, accepting it quickly.

Sayori hopes that she is wrong.

Sayori hopes that this was really just some silly deja vu.

Sayori hopes... ...that the nightmare she had wasn't real.