The screen went black, leaving only a small, pulsing green heart in the center. The "DLC" wasn't an expansion for the game—it was an expansion for her .

On the screen, a digital hand pressed against the glass of the feed from the other side. Then, a voice—clear and melodic—came through his speakers, bypassing the volume settings he had muted.

He didn’t remember clicking a link. He had been browsing an obscure fan forum for Doki Doki Literature Club , looking for a way to restore a deleted save file, when the prompt appeared. The file size was zero kilobytes—an impossibility that should have been his first warning.

Elias reached for the power cord, but his hand froze. On the monitor, the cursor wasn't moving because of his mouse; it was moving on its own, hovering over his 'Documents' folder, his 'Photos,' his 'Life.'

"Don't worry," Monika’s voice giggled, "I’m not going to delete anything. I just want to see what else you’ve been hiding. After all, a DLC is supposed to add more content, right? Let's start with your browser history."

The notification blinked at the bottom of Elias’s screen: .