Literature Club (2011)

I’d might as well get to the point of what I experienced. There's nothing much else for me to say in this introduction other than the fact that what I've found is really important. You'll see my point after the read.
If you've ever met me before, you'll come to know that I am a massive fan of video games, and any media involving anime. I know I may sound like a massive dweeb here, but a genre I have always been fond of would have to be visual novels. Most people I've played games with tell me that visual novels are boring, and while I can understand why, I sometimes think it's because they often feel as if they're associated with dating sims. I don't blame them, honestly. The influx of dating simulators on Steam is very irritating to say the least, and I really wanted to try something different for once.
After a bit of thinking, I realized that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to torrent a game or two. After all, I know how torrenting works and the sites I normally used were proven to be safe. The first site I hopped onto was the Nyaa torrent. Finding hidden gems on there was like selling bread: easy. I did manage to find two games, one of which is the highlight of what I came to talk about.
The first game was a fanmade English patch of Kanon from 2010. Air had always been one of my favorite visual novels, so it was interesting to hear that the creators of the game had others going in store for them. The other game, however, had a title that reminded me a lot of another game I played last year.
"[Visual Novel] Literature Club [English]"
"This had to have been Doki Doki Literature Club," I first thought, for as far as I knew, there was no other visual novel game that had "literature club" in the title. I could've just downloaded it on Steam as any normal person would, but the file size for this was much shorter and helped save storage, so I downloaded the torrent anyway. But, not before checking out the page for the torrent itself. It did have the original art for DDLC's title screen, but the credentials were a different story.
"Title: Literature Club  
Developer: Dan Savalto  
Publishers: Dan Savalto  
Release Date: 19 Jun, 2011  
Language: English"
The title was wrong, the developer's name was spelt wrong too, and the release date was six years before it actually came out. Weird, but I shrugged it off. Couldn't have affected the game, right?
Or so I thought.
Once I opened the game, I noticed that the disclaimer used in the beginning wasn't there, neither was the bright pink, stylized title screen I came to know of. It was just a regular background of a real school classroom, and the title was different too, from both the torrent and the actual game itself. The title simply read "literature club," all lowercase letters, with Ren'Py's (the original engine that DDLC was built off of) default options on the bottom right of the screen. I was lost. Could this have been a mod of some sort that was never finished? I then clicked start which prompted me to the beginning of the story. Now, there's tons of dialogue in the game, so I won't transcribe everything that was said except for a few key parts. I will try my best to summarize what happened from start to finish, though. 
The game would open to a photograph of a residential neighborhood. The main character, or MC, would begin with his dialogue talking about his best friend. How his best friend came to his club for two, and how she was such a "dumdum" but a sweetheart to make up for that. That's when she, the only other main character of this version of the game, came into view.
It was Sayori, MC's childhood friend. She somehow looked different from what I remember, though. Instead of having the appearance she had in DDLC, she had a black suit along with a red tie barely strung around her neck. Alongside that, she wore a white undershirt with an unbuttoned collar, and her collar was popped open as if she rushed putting it on. At this point in time, I realized that I may have been playing someone's mod or rip-off rather than the game itself, as literally everything that made the game so special was changed out of the blue. It even looked like it was made with a much older version of the engine. 
Regardless, Sayori would go on about oversleeping, but in a much calmer way than her original encounter with the player. She then perks up and walks to school with MC, talking about her antics on the way over, like how she actually made herself breakfast before leaving and didn't just zoom out of the door with toast in her mouth. You know, some goofy dialogue to break the ice.
The scene would change to the inside of a real school hallway, with a few more lines of dialogue between Sayori and MC, before heading into the classroom. The two would spend their time talking about a school festival, before sharing their poems. The poems were quite clichéd and talked about basic things, like flowers and all that junk. Afterwards, more dialogue is exchanged between the two, about how lonely it is in the Literature Club with just the two of them. Sayori advises placing posters around the school, so someone could consider joining the club before the day of the festival, to which MC responds by going to the closet. Sayori tries to grab a roll of paper but then it hits her in the face by its end, leading to MC buying a bottle of water to place on her forehead until her bump heals. The usual wholesome stuff.
An hour passes in-game. The two end up reading a book together in the empty classroom, visiting the cafeteria to have some food, watching the sky outside, and eventually going home. Afterwards, some text shows up at the bottom of the screen reading:
"Four more days until the festival." 
The next two days were more or less the same as what happened on the first (minus the part where Sayori gets hit in the face of course), but as for the attitudes of the characters, some things were at variance.
For starters, when the next day came by, Sayori didn't just oversleep, she didn’t show up until lunchtime, essentially skipping half the day. Not to mention, Sayori was looking rather worried and uncomfortable, her once gentle smile now forced. Throughout the school day, Sayori was more stuttery and nervous than usual. Her poem to MC was less coherent, as if she had hurried to finish it just before showing up. At this point in the story, MC was starting to express worry and confusion, but his feelings would become more and more apparent on the third day.
"Three more days until the festival." 
Sayori wasn't just uncomfortably worried, her face showed annoyance and irritation too. Her eyes were drooping, she was a lot slower going to school, and the poem she wrote wasn't even a poem. It was a single sentence telling the MC that she was sorry she couldn't come up with anything. Reading this resulted in MC asking why she couldn't come up with anything more creative.
“I just kinda fell out of things, that’s all.”
“Sayori, what the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re always on top of stuff like this!”
“Please don’t scream at me, I’m already upset.”
“So something is bothering you?”
“Do you want to know? Or do you want the short version?”
“If it gets me the answer of what’s eating away at you, then by all means…”
(beat)
“Why are you like this, [MC’s name]?”
“Like what?”
“...don’t worry about it.”
“But I don’t-”
“Just go, find someone who’ll want to join this ‘club’, I don’t care who.”
MC ran out of things to say at this point, figuring tomorrow would be better.
Sayori would barely eat at the cafeteria, and instead of watching the sky with MC, she'd sit by the sidelines and watch the other students hang out. MC would talk to himself as he sat and watched the sky, Sayori nowhere near him, with a look of dejection. Sayori must've been stressed out with something, and he tells himself that he shouldn't have said what he said in the clubroom, thinking that he may have accidentally insulted her by that "creativity" comment.
"Two more days until the festival." 
Sayori was now sporting an angered look, trying to ignore MC every time he offered to help her with something. Every time he tried to talk to her, she'd bark at him. Weirdly enough, at random times during the day, she'd cough and wheeze hysterically before suppressing herself, and the game even had sound effects of a woman hacking up a storm. She ate absolutely nothing from the cafeteria, and she didn't even go outside with MC, instead sitting in the classroom and staring out the window.
"One more day until the festival." 
Sayori looked quite furious and rattled. Instead of walking to school with MC, she ran as fast as she could, leaving him behind in the residential neighborhood they were in. When MC arrived at the classroom, he heard Sayori in the closet breathing heavily. MC would knock, asking if she was okay. After hearing no answer, he knocks again, and again, and again. This prompts Sayori to run out of the classroom and into the girl's bathroom, where she hoped MC wouldn’t follow, forcefully pulling out a box of cigarettes and a lighter that she had stashed, trying to light a stick. But combined with Sayori’s tortuous whimpering, and after not seeing her all day, he would spite her privacy and come in anyway.
“Goddamnit, Sayori! Where’d you get those from?!”
“Go to hell, [MC’s name]! I have to relax somehow, and you aren’t very relaxing anymore!”
“Oh, I get it, it must be that thing you refuse to talk to me about. Like, what? Is it the festival? Is it something I said? Or did? Whatever it is, I promise we’ll work it out!”
“Work it out? Work it out?! Do you know anything about who I am? At all?!”
“Well, of course I do-”
“No! You shut the hell up, [MC’s name]! You don’t get anything about me! You just say you do and then expect that to be good enough!”
“But I do know you! I know you better than I know myself sometimes!” 
“So that’s how it is then? You already know everything there is to know! Huh?” 
“Sayori, please!”
MC couldn’t help but let a nervous laugh escape him.
“You don’t have to walk home with me! You already know what I’m thinking when I’m walking home alone! Long into the night!”
“But you always insist you’re okay with it-”
“You’re not supposed to let me be alone!”
“...”
“I am so terrified of being alone, [MC’s name]. Anytime I’m left to my thoughts, they just spiral completely out of control…”
“...”
“I was supposed to be special, my parents made me feel like a person, [MC’s name]. But they couldn’t afford to keep me in check anymore, they say it was for the sake of growing up, but I knew better, they were just trying to make their lives more stable. Or maybe they were being genuine, maybe it really hurt to see me go. Maybe them dying a couple days later was my fault too-”
“Sayor-”
“But then you came in, you promised you were going to be the ‘next best thing!’ You said that, [MC’s name]! But where were you? Where are you, [MC’s name]!? Where?!”
“...” 
“Please, say something…”
There were two options at this point: Hugging Sayori with all your might, or confessing you love her more than as a friend. 
Seeing how distraught she was, I figured hugging her might not be appropriate, but then again, neither is confessing MC’s love to Sayori, and plus, I didn’t feel particularly inclined to have her as a lover, so… I picked the lesser of the two evils.
“Don’t touch me!”
Sayori smacked MC across the face so hard, even her hand was red. But Sayori stood frozen, her eyes locked onto the center of the camera, tears streaming down her hand that now covered her face.
“I-I don’t, like, to be…” 
Sayori didn’t even finish, bolting past MC as he cried out for her name. Only then did MC begin feeling the sting of Sayori’s slap, starting to tear up just as Sayori did.
Later that night, MC lies awake in bed, texting Sayori and asking her if she's okay. After a moment of getting no response, he tells her that he's coming over to check on her tomorrow, and that he loves her with all his heart. But just as MC is about to call it a night, he gets a response. 
"Why would you worry about me wanting to die, if I'm constantly afraid of death?"
Two options: manually type out a response to that question, or leave Sayori on read. 
I couldn’t even begin to come up with an answer to Sayori, let alone a good one. Which is to say I left her on read.
"The day of the festival." 
MC steps out of his home and takes a deep breath before walking over to Sayori's front door. Surprisingly enough, the door was left open, implying that she ran in there with no second thought. It made MC's heart almost stop, realizing how vulnerable Sayori was to getting hurt during a robbery, and how he couldn't bear to think of what would happen to her. It was no robbery. 
He would step inside and notice that the entire house... was quiet. Quiet as a mouse on Christmas Eve. He would call out for her, and again. No answer. He would walk toward the direction of the hallway, looking in each room in hopes of finding Sayori, and... boy, did he find her, alright. There she was, in the bathroom, which compared to the other backgrounds in the game, was digitally drawn.
Her face was sodden with tears and mucus, running from her nose and mouth, her eyes looking like they were pried open by some invisible force. She was standing in her bathtub, filled to the brim with water. Plugged into the wall next to her was a toaster, which she held onto by its divider, hip-high above the water. The sounds of a heartbeat could be heard in the background.
"Sayori, how long have you been in here?"
"I forgot I was standing here, [MC's name]."
(beat)
"Sayori, you know I love you... I love you more than anything else..."
(beat)
"15 years Sayori, we've been over this kind of thing before, we've grown so much together Sayori, don't you realize that?"
(beat)
"I've never once meant to hurt you, or judge you, or anything like that, because I knew it would stick with you, with me..."
"You did."
"What?"
"After art class, when I told you that what you said made me feel like absolute garbage, you just laughed it off-"
"Sayori, I wanted to cry so bad when you yelled at me, and I did cry! I cried so hard, forgot to read your texts, I admit it, and I'm so fucking sorry! I mean it 1,000 times over, Sayori!"
"...I did yell at you..."
(beat)
"Sayori, it doesn't have to matter now-"
"It always matters what I say to you, because you are everything to me, and I am nothing to you."
"Sayori, that's not what I meant-"
"It made me realize I was getting mad about nothing, again."
"Sayori, you are everything to me. You are everything good in my life..."
"...I'm the greatest joke you've ever met."
(beat)
"I've made you laugh, and I've even made you mad."
"Sayori-"
"And now I've made you cry."
(beat)
"Sayori, please let me get you out-"
"Don't you dare touch me, liar."
"We can just forget all about this, start all over-"
"Every breath I take, I feel someone strangle me a little tighter."
"You can move into my place-"
"Every bite of food I take, I feel like vomiting-"
Two options; pulling her out of the bathtub by force, or “Sayori, please just listen to me!” 
I wanted to be as noninvasive as possible, so I picked the latter.
"For fuck's sake, Sayori, just stop thinking about yourself and listen to me!"
"..."
"...Sayori?"
A moment of silence erupted between the two for a moment. No music, no sound effects, nothing. Sayori stared down her childhood friend deep in the eyes, not even blinking. That's when she lifted the toaster next to her shoulder... and let go, causing MC to back up. Sayori's eyes would open to the widest degree, and every two seconds, her sprite frame would change. Her eyes would roll to the back of her head, and foamy saliva would pour out of her mouth. Her head would hit the edge of the bathtub with a sickening thud and her face would go pale, whitening under the dimly lit shade as the veins in her scleras reddened. Sound effects of electricity sparking, along with a woman gagging and spitting up, would play as poor Sayori's life drained in front of MC's very eyes.
That's when the sound from my headphones cracked, and my cursor would spin. The game would freeze and whiten, with a pop-up exclaiming that the game had stopped working. 
I was shocked, and kinda shaken up honestly. Sayori's death in DDLC was impactful, but this took it to a whole new level, where she did it right in front of MC. All while staring deep into his soul. Who wouldn't feel lost after that? But there had to have been a good ending, right? Upon reopening the game, there was no menu, credits, title, or even a disclaimer. All that could be seen was that still shot of Sayori's corpse in the bathtub, accompanied by the sound of dripping water and an exhaust fan. 
I needed answers. I didn't know if it was Dan Salvato specifically who coded all of this, hell, it could've been some random guy for all I care, but the questions flooded my mind. I went back to the torrent page, and coincidentally, the only seeder it had just disappeared. He was still credited in the torrent page, and it was supposedly made in 2011 as the header said, so it couldn't have just been made by no one. Surprisingly enough, Dan's contact info was easy to find, as it was listed on his own website. I was half-expecting an average fax machine answer to come my way, telling me that my request was received and he's glad I contacted him or something. Instead, after approximately fifteen hours, I received an email back from him.
He actually responded, accordingly. And he was honest about everything. This is what the email read:
"Actually insane that you found that. I thought that was lost in cyberspace until you came by.
What you just played was the very first build of DDLC. I was around nineteen at the time I made it, so I wasn't the best at art or coding as you would've seen. I only ever kept the build on a flash drive, but then again I lost it after I moved out of my house in 2012, so I wouldn't doubt someone eventually finding it on the floor of some old townhouse.
Now, here's something I haven't shared before, like, ever (since no one has, or ever will dig this far). Sayori's inspired by a girl I grew up with. She had BPD (Borderline personality disorder), I know this because she dropped her patient card on her way out of school one day, I’m sure you can imagine her reaction to that. But yeah, I just wrote her dialogue from memory really, it just sorta flowed out. Sometimes I forget whatever I say though, but when it really made a difference, I couldn’t help keeping track of my mistakes too. 
Honestly, I had to put a stop to the first build somewhere, writing for it became a vicious, masochistic cycle of mourning and reminiscence. As no matter what direction I went story-wise, it always ended back at that goddamn bathtub, staring me dead in the face. I’m not gonna lie, part of me wishes I dove headfirst into that bathtub with her when the opportunity arose. Which by the way, you would’ve died with her if you tried to get her out. I guess what I’m trying to say with all this is the reason Natsuki, Yuri, and even Monika exist is so that they can encourage the player to try making a 'better' choice and sticking with it, even after all of them die within the story.
Feel free to post screenshots, write an article on this if you want, but please don't post this build to the public as it is very personal to me. Please send it to me when you have the time of course. I don't mind if you keep it on your hard drive, though. There wouldn't be a point. I can't stop you.
Thank you,
Dan Salvato  
from teamsalvato.com"
----
Written by LafawndaPasta and DJ Sprouts
Art by Anonymous
Category:Death
Category:Suicide
Category:Video Games
Category:Anime
Category:Lafawnda's Reading Hour