One!

We open our eyes-

I can feel something pull at my soul; the parasite is slowly torn away from my very being, crammed into its newly created mortal coil.

Having my adopted kid inside me is weird in more ways than one, even I have my own limits when it comes to degeneracy. Hotel is clearly thinking the same as they smile...or frown... their face isn't constructed properly hold on-

CRACK.

Hotel snaps their neck, sometimes digging into the bones that form their facial structure; it takes a couple of tries, but it eventually looks like a proper human face.

A-anyway--let's just skip the usual steps for now. I'm not sure when I started doing the 'one two three' thing; it's just a helpful routine that allows me to mentally prepare myself to the fact that this is a different world with different rules and a different body. But I don't think we need to do that here, patting my chest in front of my kid is also kind of weird...well, it was always weird now that I think about it--not obscene weird but...you know, weird.

"White," Hotel states.

"White?" I look around. It looks...yeah, pretty white. I'm in the middle of a white street, with white houses and white...people--not white as in beige, I mean that their skin is bleached white, their hair is white, their clothes are white...you get it, white. It's as if a game failed to load the textures properly, and so all you have are the base colorless models.

Not that I'm judging the way they look, they all seem-

"Happy," Hotel finishes my thought.

I nod. Yeah, pretty happy, everyone is smiling--and those are not fake smiles, I can sense it, all those people are genuinely happy with who they are.

Wait, all of them? I take a better look around me, everything is so white it makes it hard to differentiate shapes from their surroundings, black is the only renegade colors and even that is sparse--as if everything around here was built to minimize the amount of shadows that could be seen, if that's even possible. Apart from that--it looks like a normal suburb.

Even if it looks weird, it's strangely peaceful. It's nice to be in a happy place for once that doesn't feel like it's on the brink of destruction for one, I like it.

Wait, no I don't.

This is boring, uniform colors, everyone is dressed the same, it's all I hate about a world, why would I ever like a place like this?

A warmth creeps up my legs, I look down, but there's nothing; nothing visible that is. My perception allows me to see what's actually going on, something is trying to dig its way into my soul and make me happy, it's not uncomfortable but-

I quite literally shake off the weird feeling, but it's still here, it climbs higher, it's now up to my torso. Ha, this really is nice. It's not a perverse type of happiness, or even a drug-like dose of dopamine; it's as if I'm finally getting to be happy with who I am, finally at peace. Maybe I've been too harsh on myself, maybe if I just accepted my mistakes as just that--mistakes, I could move on and take actions instead of hiding in my mind.

Alright, that's enough.

I expel the feeling out of my soul, it's a charisma tendril of course, but charisma is a lot more complicated than just 'make people like you', it's also how you interface with others, it's technically what I use for soul surgery too.

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If I had to guess, the universe itself forces happiness on people, unless the entire city is one big soul, which isn't completely out of the question. Whatever it is, it's what makes everyone happy, and it tried to grab a hold of me the moment I showed up. The fact even someone like me struggled a little to get that stuff out of me means no one here even had a chance to 'choose' that happiness.

Weirdly enough, Hotel isn't affected, maybe because they were a god before? Or because we're linked, it targeted me first because it thought we were the same being. Whatever the reason, it means I won't have to look over them at all times or they'll...become happy?

Mhh, it's not a bad type of happiness--sure, it's forced, but it's just making you comfortable with who you are, doesn't it? I think it's even helping you grow as a person, it's like a very good therapist, but it also kind of feels like cheating happiness somehow.

Wait, if everyone is happy; how is this universe even surviving?

Right--did you even wonder why not more universes try to create utopias? Even the gods that are good-natured will often refuse to create a perfect universe where everyone is happy. From what I could gather, there are three main reasons as to why they don't do that:

1. Negative emotions are easier to trigger.

2. Conflict is necessary for interesting things to happen; Immortality is boring, after all

3. You need different emotions for the universe to work properly.

One and two are pretty obvious, but they don't stop a nice god from making a perfect happy world, the third one, however, does.

See, experience is the fuel of the soul, but just like a body need a varied diet, a soul needs to feed on different emotions to function properly. A world that solely run on happiness will severely lack on other negative emotions, and as such the universe will be severely limited on what it can do because it's essentially eating the same dish over and over with no variety.

This is the reason why you can get a certain amount of experience from someone's memory, but you can't get an infinite amount of experience from said memory by recreating that memory over and over. Just like you can re-read a book and learn something new each time, you can re-experience a story or a memory and get something new from it--but you'll eventually run out of things to convert into experience, and you'll need to move on.

What I'm trying to say is that a world like this is like a kid eating nothing but cereal, it might taste good--but it's certainly not healthy. A universe running entirely on happiness is just waiting to fall apart.

Hotel frowns. "Everyone is already happy, what should we do?"

I shrug. "I don't know, I usually just wander around until I run into something interesting, but I doubt that'll work here."

"If they don't need us, maybe we should just leave?"

"Hotel, no one really needs us--and even if they did, that's no reason to leave a universe behind without exploring it a little."

Thinking people 'need' you is how you start thinking of yourself as some magical savior that's here to solve everyone's problem, when everyone would've done just fine without you. We don't belong here, and we never will, we're interdimensional tourists who at best shake up the economy a little--and at worse, the type that litters everywhere because they are too lazy to go up to the closest trash can.

I look around, and despite the fact our clothing and skin is way too colorful compared to our surroundings, no one is casting weird glances at us. I wave to a random man walking in the distance, and he waves back--which confirms people here aren't ignoring us on purpose, they just find us unremarkable.

The man approaches us with whatever the opposite of resting bitch face is. "Hello! How are you doing on this fine day?" He asks us in a jovial tone.

"I've been better. Hey, is there anything fun to do around here?" I ask. Expecting the most boring answer in existence.

"It depends on what you're searching for, old friend! There's a theme park not too far away from here, or maybe you want something calmer? You could join my wife and I for some tea if you'd like!" His smile grows even wider, and Hotel tries to mimic him. Hotel's smile still look really forced, but props to them for trying to fit in.

From what I can sense, his friendliness is genuine--which ironically bothers me more than malicious intent. At least someone tricking me into drinking poisoned tea and trapping me in a basement would make for a fun adventure, but unfortunately, I don't think that's what I'm getting. "Sure, tea, whatever," I reply.

"Splendid! I'm sure my wife will enjoy your company!" He pulls out a piece of paper from his coat and scribbles something on it. "See you at nine!" He hands me the paper and goes on his merry way.

I look at the paper.

It's blank, like everything else around here.

This place sucks.