World Literature

Each night, I went to sleep wishing that this would turn out to be a nightmare.
Yet each morning I awoke to find that the world was just as horribly warped as it was the day before.
I have to live while blending in, while acting like one of them. Just as I've done these past three months, I will continue to do for the rest of my life.

A Visual Novel / H-Game by Nitro+, Saya no Uta ("Song of Saya") revolves around a medical school student, Fuminori Sakisaka. Before the main plot, he was involved in a car accident which killed both his parents. He was saved, however, by an experimental brain surgery... which just happened to drastically alter his perception of the world. Everything now appears to him as if it were made from guts, slime, and gore.Well, almost everything.One night while still in the hospital, a girl dressed in white appears before him. To him she appears completely normal, and above that, downright beautiful. Rather than consider the why of this, he latches onto her as his reason to keep living, and convinces her to move in with him once he's released from the hospital.The more things go on, however, the more Fuminori withdraws from the rest of his life. His friends become increasingly worried for his sake, including Yoh Tsukuba, who has had a crush on him since before the accident. His doctor, Ryoko Tanbo, still has the impression that there's something he's not telling her... This is true enough; out of fear of becoming a lab experiment, Fuminori never told her (or anyone save Saya) about the way he now sees the world. Finally, there is his search for information on Professor Ougai. All these things and the decision on whether Fuminori wants to be normal interact to drive the plot forward.

Adult Fear: Pretty much all characters in the Visual Novel meet horrible endings, but for this trope in particular, Yousuke is the primary example and arguably the only one worthy of feeling sorry for. A doting family man has his life suddenly thrown into hell after Saya gives him a "new" way to see things, from there on the otherwise upstanding citizen goes apeshit insane brutaly killing his wife and daughter out of pure horror everything in the world has become in his mind, and even enjoys it in a very twisted way, and as if this wasn't excruciating painful enough Yousuke's mind deranges so much that after he meets Saya again, with she now being the only person he can see in human form, the first thing in his agenda is to viciously rape her. A true nightmare - no, better yet - a night terror to any decent family man out there.

Adaptation Decay: The American comic book of Saya no Uta takes some... "creative" directions with the plot. Fuminori is changed to a more "American" name (Josh), Saya is no longer Cthulhu, but rather the result of secret government experiments. We are shown Saya's true form at the end of the first comic, despite never actually seeing it in the original story— which is arguably scarier than actually knowing. Saya is also "aged up" to a less controversial body in Josh's eyes. While she was almost a child in the H-game, she's now about 18 physically.

Aliens Speaking Japanese: Saya learned it from Dr. Ougai.

Beneath the Mask: Dr. Tanbo. On the job, she's a kind, friendly doctor, albeit a bit secretive.

Betty and Veronica: Shy, hesitant Yoh is Betty, malicious and beautiful yet cute looking Saya is Veronica. Can be turned the other way around if all you look at is their body, though.

Big Damn Heroes: When Dr. Tanbo saves Kouji from the well.

Black Speech: Fuminori's hearing sense, along with all his other senses, is also warped: all voices but Saya's sound to him distorted, with weird frequency changes and other sounds hard to describe. This visual novel is dubbed, so we sometimes get to hear those voices as he hears them.

A different example we can also hear, later in the story: when Oumi breaks into Fuminori house, how do you think she hears Saya's "Welcome home!"

Body Horror: Happens to Yoh when Saya transforms her into the same being as herself. Then in one of the endings to everyone in the world.