There were already worlds containing humans, of course.

Millions of worlds. Billions of worlds.

Made by sick fucks like her who thought suffering was a good idea.

Made by entities who valued existence and happiness, even at the cost of suffering. Who valued existence a little more, or a lot more than socially appropriate in her society.

There were worlds where humans started out in an egalitarian utopia. Where their suffering was minimized.

There were worlds where humans started out in a digital/virtual world, free to choose their shape, their bodies avatars, free to remake their own minds and their own psychology as they saw fit. With their humanity only a starting point for their desires, but not a limitation. There were very few limitations in these worlds, most having to do with inflicting true-suffering on themselves and others. Because even in a transhuman utopia, suffering would happen, if it was allowed. And it was allowed. Because humans would eventually find unlimited happiness to be boring. But there were limits. Most of it was consensual. And there were limits on how badly you could make yourself suffer, because your future-self is in some sense a different person from you, who might change their mind; people who had the bright idea of forcing themselves to experience torture for hours without being able to change their minds about it, were usually told no by whatever entity made the rules of that world. But it just goes to show what lengths humans will go to have novel experiences once they get bored.

Anyway, enough of that. Yes, there were billions of utopian world where suffering was a drop in the bucket, where suffering was 99.99% consensual, where trillions of humans lived happy, fullfilling lives. Worlds where the total happiness was nearly-infinite. Worlds with an unimaginable amount of happiness.

There were worlds that started out bad, but had already reached their own utopia. Because that was the trajectory for most if not all "bad" worlds. Otherwise what would have been the point?

(and if there worlds that were never meant to have a happy ending, that would never reach a utopia, that were doomed from the beginning, nobody told Soph about them. She wasn't quite mature enough to know that kind of secrets. And frankly, she didn't want to know. Her own deviant desires were quite enough for her)

Soph could have visited one of the utopian worlds, in a human avatar. Some of worlds allowed visitors, even from someone who was technically a god. Some of the worlds would put harsh limits on what she could do while she was there, or limit her thinking capacity to human or only barely super-human, but they would still allow her there. Because having a novel, super-human visitor might be fun, and optimizing fun is very important in utopian worlds (but not optimizing it too hard, because being living a hyper-optimized existence is not fun either. Because humans also enjoy the freedom to make their own mistakes, and their own bad decisions. Humans typically didn't want all or most of their lives to be guided by a superintelligence).

Some of the worlds rejected all visitors, rejected all intervention, choosing to leave their own fates in their own hands. Some of the worlds rejected even their own creators, their own gods. Cursing those who brought them into existence, the humans in these world would defy heavens and truly be the masters of their own world and their own fate. Soph would respect their choices. As far as she knew, such choices were universally respected by super-beings. Unless... no, Soph would not think of such things yet, for Soph was still young, and she didn't want to face the true-horrors of the multiverse, if such existed, ahead of schedule.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Soph could have put herself on a waiting list for creating one of the utopian worlds. It would take (in human timeframes) millions of years, but they would let her have one eventually. Because even utopias expired eventually, with the beings therein choosing to transcend their human nature and become super-intelligences themselves; or becoming bored and after millions of years of happy fullfilling lives, choosing oblivion (or any of the other options she wasn't aware of, because Soph wasn't going to spoil her fun and learn a bunch of trivia she didn't need to know yet)

She could have joined a patheon, a group sharing the responsibility in creating and managing a world, as many young superintelligences who didn't want to wait a million years to have their own world often did (and of course many superintelligences had no interest in managing a world at all, and were happy with exploring mathematics, creating art, writing fiction, playing hyper-dimensional sports, having happy or unhappy relationships with other superintelligences, and many others things, some of which don't even have words to desribe them in the human languages)

She could have applied for a minor role in someone else's world, just for a taste of true power over mortal (and im-mortal lives)...

No.

No. She already felt these options were boring.

That was not her path. Not her calling.

Out of all the worlds that already existed, she would create one more.

A world of beauty.

A world of horror.

A world of happiness.

A world of suffering.

Her world.

Her universe.

She would become a goddess.

She would become a monster.

Because the multiverse was full.

Because suffering was the price one had to pay for existence. For being created.

And because humans desperately wanted to exist. To be created. To be brought out of the void, out of oblivion.

They wanted to exist.

Or so they thought.

And so she thought.

So she would grant them their wish. She would grant herself her wish.

And if she was wrong...

She would pay the price.

She would suffer for it.

She would suffer for her crimes against humanity.

She would take her punishment.

She would let humans decide let punishment.

Yes. That was the right path for her.

She would be a goddess of humans.

And when her humans won, or when they lost.

She would let them judge her.

She would let them judge whether she deserved to exist.

She would let them choose her fate, just as she chose their fate.

She would let them torment her, as she had tormented them.

She would let them destroy her, as she had destroyed them.

Was that fair? Was that just?

No. Despite the multiverse being overwhelmingly good (or so Soph thought, based on her state of knowledge), the nature of existence itself was not fair. It wasn't just.

And so she would suffer her just, or unjust punishment, if the humans she created called for it.

Because she was a monster.

Stepping on this path would make her a monster.

Anyone creating a world containing significant amounts of suffering would be a monster. She had no illusions about that.

She shuddered.

She shivered.

She tingled.

She loved humans. And she hated them.

Because humans hate their own nature as well. They hate their selfishness. Their greed. Their anger.

And yet they love it. And she loves them.

And she hates herself for loving them.

Soph was very, very tired.

She would rest.

She would think.

She would feel.

She would decide.

If her world.

Her universe.

Was worth it.

Was worth being brought into existence.