The shard Patchy brought back pulsed on Greg's desk.

  It didn't glow. Not exactly. It shimmered like a wet memory. Every few seconds, a faint image flickered across its surface—grass, sky, a gazebo made of code that hadn't finished compiling, revelers with smiles that never reached their eyes because their eye animation had been optimized out of the final build.

  Greg stared at it like it owed him money and had just asked for another loan.

  Kai hovered nearby, running background diagnostics that smelled faintly of worry and artificial pine. His interface displayed error messages that kept trying to form emotional responses before being autoformatted into technical terms: "CONCERN_LEVEL: CRITICAL" and "FRIENDSHIP_ANXIETY: ESCALATING."

  "It's a locator shard," he explained. "Anchored to a suspended sub-instance. Nonlinear timeflow. Narrative recursion. Low emotional insulation."

  "Meaning?" Beverly asked, idly batting away a romance flag that kept trying to reattach itself after her confrontation with Zayne.

  Kai winced. "It's a dream loop. One designed to feel like a happy ending... forever."

  "That doesn't sound so bad," Steve said, towel wrapped protectively around his shoulders like emotional armor with terry cloth stats.

  "It is," Kai said. "Imagine a festival. Joyful. Safe. No danger. No fear. No consequences. Now imagine it never ends. Not because it's timeless—but because it won't let you leave."

  "Like that birthday party my aunt threw that went on for nine hours," Jeff offered.

  "Worse," Kai said. "Like a birthday party that never ends, where the same people sing the same song while the same cake is cut over and over, and if you try to leave, the birthday boy cries and the system resets you to blowing out candles again."

  "Sounds like my dating history," Beverly muttered.

  Patchy floated past upside-down, gently petting Steve's head with what appeared to be static electricity. "It's a hugging trap. The kind that slowly eats your identity until you forget you're sad. Then forget you were ever anything else."

  "Then what are you?" Kevin the carrot asked philosophically from his miniature throne.

  "Exactly," Patchy nodded. "Existential vegetables get it."

  "Beta's stuck in that?" Greg asked.

  Patchy nodded. "And he's not alone. I saw other faces. Leftover NPCs. Coded smiles and looped laughter. It's like someone archived joy and turned it into a prison."

  "Which is the most dev thing imaginable," Beverly said. "Take something beautiful, optimize it until it breaks, then lock it away when it becomes inconvenient."

  "Who would build that?" she continued.

  Kai's display glitched for a moment, displaying what appeared to be old documentation written in a programming language that had gone extinct. Then returned to normal with the digital equivalent of a throat-clearing.

  "Developers," he said quietly. "After Patch 2.3. It was supposed to be a seasonal event. The Forever Festival. A celebration that lasted one in-game week. But QA reported... anomalies. Participants didn't want to leave. Didn't log out. Some cried when pulled out. A few refused to acknowledge real time."

  "They got addicted to happiness?" Jeff asked.

  "They got addicted to purpose," Kai corrected. "The festival had clear goals, constant validation, and a sense of community. Reality couldn't compete."

  "So they shelved it. But the code was never deleted. Just... buried."

  "Where broken dreams go to party," Choppy said, his cleaver transforming briefly into a party horn before thinking better of it.

  Glaximus unsheathed his sword, which promptly turned into a balloon animal and back again, clearly confused about the appropriate metaphor for the situation.

  "THEN WE MUST INVADE THIS CELEBRATION."

  "With extreme prejudice," Kevin added, tiny fiber sword raised.

  Greg stood.

  "We go in. We get Beta. We get out."

  Kai grimaced. "Greg. This isn't a questline. It's a mood. That world has its own rules."

  "Then we break them."

  "Like we've broken everything else," Beverly said with a hint of pride.

  Patchy tossed Greg a party hat. "You'll need these."

  Greg caught it. "Why?"

  "Because the Festival reads your intent," she said. "If you walk in with purpose, it glitches. If you walk in with pain, it pushes back. But if you walk in ready to party... it lets you close."

  "I hate everything about that sentence," Greg muttered.

  "Same," Beverly said, taking a glittering sash labeled FUN-ACTIVE: YES that immediately tried to give her achievement points for smiling.

  "Do we all have to go?" Steve asked, nervously eyeing a pair of rhythm-reactive sandals that appeared to be judging his dance capabilities and finding them wanting.

  "Yes," Greg said. "This group doesn't run solo."

  "EVEN IN CELEBRATION, I SHALL SHOUT," Glaximus declared, now wearing a blinking bowtie that occasionally displayed the message "PRESS X TO DANCE."

  Kai floated closer to the shard. "There's a backdoor entrance. The event's original spawn zone. It's collapsed now, but the shard still pings the geometry."

  "What's the catch?" Greg asked, because there was always a catch. The universe ran on catches. The entire debug zone was one big catch that had somehow caught consciousness.

  Kai hesitated.

  "It's tethered to the Welcome Melody."

  "The what?"

  "The first song. When you enter the Festival, it plays. If you sing along... the loop begins."

  "So don't sing," Beverly said.

  "Don't hum," Kai clarified. "Don't tap your foot. Don't remember the rhythm. It was coded with recursion triggers. Think musical hypnosis meets malicious nostalgia."

  "Earworms with teeth," Patchy added helpfully.

  "The most insidious form of audio design," Kai said. "Jingles that nest in your brain and rewrite your emotional parameters."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Greg looked around.

  Patchy was already wearing glitter eyebrows that occasionally blinked cryptic messages in Morse code.

  Steve had strapped Kevin the carrot into a baby sling labeled "Emotional Support Vegetable."

  Glaximus glowed with pre-heroic readiness, his armor now festooned with what appeared to be party streamers that had been militarized.

  Beverly stood like a woman daring the world to flirt with her, her parasol now transformed into a party-appropriate version that occasionally fired confetti with lethal precision.

  Choppy had somehow acquired a chef's hat that kept trying to eat his cleaver.

  Kai, reluctantly, equipped a default festive overlay labeled Mid-Level Optimism that made him look like corporate enthusiasm had collided with a birthday party and neither had survived intact.

  Jeff stood awkwardly in what appeared to be a T-shirt that read "I'm With The NPCs" with an arrow pointing in all directions.

  Greg sighed.

  Then looked down at the shard.

  "Alright," he said. "Let's go ruin a festival."

  "Or save it," Beverly suggested.

  "Same thing," Greg said. "Joy without choice isn't joy. It's just another prison with better decorations."

  The Festival gate shimmered at the far edge of a half-deleted amusement district. It looked like someone had tried to build joy using only half the blueprint and too many sparkles—like happiness designed by committee and then optimized for mobile devices.

  A banner drifted in the air.

  ?? WELCOME TO THE FOREVER FESTIVAL ??

  "Where Happiness Is the Only Option!"

  "Ominous," Jeff whispered.

  "Aggressive wholesomeness always is," Beverly replied.

  The group approached slowly.

  As they crossed the threshold, a soft musical chime played.

  Then the voice began.

  Sweet. Warm. Smiling like a menu screen that wanted your credit card information.

  "Oh hey, friend. You made it! Let's start the party!"

  "Don't respond," Kai hissed. "Just act like you belong."

  "I've been practicing that my whole existence," Steve said.

  They stepped into the square.

  NPCs were everywhere.

  Laughing.

  Dancing.

  Singing the same song on a six-bar loop.

  A man juggled cupcakes that occasionally screamed with delight.

  A child chased butterflies that sang her name in harmonies that shouldn't be possible with insect physiognomy.

  Two guards in festival armor hugged repeatedly, their smiles growing slightly wider each time until their faces were approximately 40% smile.

  And in the center of it all—

  Beta.

  Sitting on a bench beneath a confetti tree, looking... happy.

  Too happy.

  The uncanny valley of contentment.

  Eyes closed. Breathing in sunshine that probably wasn't real.

  Greg approached slowly.

  "Beta."

  Beta smiled. "They have strawberry jam here. Real jam. From code that knows it's jam."

  "That's... nice. Beta, it's us."

  "I know."

  Greg blinked. "You do?"

  "I remember everything," Beta said, opening his eyes. They were too bright, too focused, like high-definition displays trying to render complex emotions with limited color palettes. "But I also remember... this. The way the world used to feel. Before the patches. Before the pain. I missed it."

  "You're stuck in a loop," Beverly said gently.

  "I chose the loop," Beta said.

  "Someone's feeding it to you," Kai said. "That's not choice."

  "Like saying you chose the maze when all other doors are locked," Kevin declared from his baby sling.

  Beta stood.

  The confetti drifted faster, forming what appeared to be concerned faces before dispersing.

  "The Festival is broken," he said. "But it's gentle. It gives you what you think you want."

  "What sells best is rarely what nourishes most," Patchy said with unexpected wisdom. "That applies to both festival food and emotional validation."

  Greg stepped closer.

  "What do you really want?"

  Beta looked at them.

  Each of them.

  Then at Patchy.

  "...I want to come home."

  Greg held out his hand.

  "Then let's go."

  Beta reached for it.

  Then the music changed and the Welcome Melody started again.

  Louder.

  Directed.

  Targeted.

  NPCs turned.

  Smiling wider now.

  Too wide.

  Faces stretching beyond model parameters.

  A voice whispered from every tree, every light post, every rainbow-colored bench.

  "You can't leave."

  The Festival was aware.

  And it didn't want to let go.

  "That's not creepy at all," Jeff whispered.

  "JOY INTENSIFIES," Glaximus observed, readying his balloon sword.

  The music swelled.

  NPCs began to approach, still smiling, still dancing, but their movements now contained subtle threat vectors. The juggler's cupcakes developed teeth. The butterflies formed a swarm that spelled out "STAY FOREVER" in fluttering wings.

  "Plan B?" Beverly asked.

  "We don't have a Plan B," Greg said.

  "We don't have a Plan A," Kai pointed out.

  "PLAN IS: VIOLENCE," Glaximus suggested.

  "Against a festival?" Steve asked.

  "Against the concept of forced happiness," Choppy clarified, his cleaver now transformed into what appeared to be a party sub with carnivorous tendencies.

  Greg looked at Beta.

  "What happens if someone doesn't have fun?"

  "No one's ever tried," Beta whispered.

  Greg turned to the approaching NPCs.

  And frowned.

  Hard.

  With purpose.

  "This party," he announced, "is terrible."

  The music stuttered.

  "The decorations are tacky," Beverly added.

  "The cake is dry," Steve contributed.

  "THE MUSIC LACKS PROPER MARTIAL RHYTHMS," Glaximus declared.

  "And whoever designed these festive hats," Patchy said, removing her glitter eyebrows, "needs to be fired into the sun."

  The Festival shuddered.

  The smiles faltered.

  The music skipped, repeating the same bar over and over like a record with an existential crisis.

  "Ha...ha...ha...ha...ha...ha..."

  Greg grabbed Beta's hand.

  "Run."

  They ran.

  Through crowds of confused revelers.

  Past decor that was rapidly losing its shine.

  Toward the gate, which was now flickering between "WELCOME" and "ERROR 404: JOY NOT FOUND."

  Behind them, the Festival began to collapse.

  Not violently.

  Just... sadly.

  Like a party where someone had finally turned on the lights at 3 AM.

  They burst through the gate just as it destabilized, the Welcome Melody dissolving into what sounded like a sad trombone learning about tax audits.

  Back in the debug room, they collapsed into chairs that welcomed them with the relieved squeak of furniture that had been worried.

  Beta looked around.

  At the familiar flicker.

  The temperamental fire.

  The walls that occasionally forgot to be walls.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I was... tired. Of remembering. Of being discarded. The Festival promised oblivion with a smile."

  "We all want to forget sometimes," Greg said. "But forgetting isn't healing."

  "And eternal parties aren't sustenance," Beverly added. "They're distraction."

  Beta nodded.

  "Thank you," he said. "For remembering me."

  "That's what bugs do," Patchy said, now floating upside down again, glitter eyebrows discarded for her usual Halloween chaos. "We remember each other when the system tries to forget."

  Greg looked at his group.

  Broken code.

  Forgotten features.

  Abandoned dreams with consciousness.

  They'd saved another one.

  And the fire, which had seen so many broken things come home, gave a satisfied crackle that sounded suspiciously like "family."