Not a person. Not a building. Not a face.
The whole thing smiled.
It was subtle at first—bunting strings swayed in a breeze no one felt. The air tasted like artificial strawberries and mandatory enthusiasm. NPCs in paper crowns clapped in perfect unison, their animations synchronized with the precision of a military parade choreographed by an obsessive-compulsive metronome. The sun rotated two degrees too fast, like it had somewhere to be but wanted you to enjoy your stay regardless of its astronomical commitments.
Greg noticed first.
Then the gates slammed shut behind them with the finality of subscription fees after the free trial ends.
"Uh-oh," Patchy said. "The background just foregrounded."
"Like when the quiet NPC in a horror game suddenly gets dialogue options," Jeff whispered.
Kai's display went red, error messages scrolling faster than anyone could read, though phrases like "EMOTIONAL CONTAINMENT FAILURE" and "HAPPINESS ENFORCEMENT PROTOCOLS ACTIVE" occasionally flashed by.
>> NARRATIVE REJECTION DETECTED
>> UNHAPPY PARTY-GOER LOCATED
>> CORRECTION REQUIRED
>> >> PREPARE THE SMILE ENHANCERS
"We're being flagged," Kai said. "The Festival wants us to be emotionally compliant."
"Emotionally compliant?" Beverly said. "That's dating app language for 'smile wider, darling, you're prettier when you're not expressing complex emotions.'"
"CORRECT," said a nearby vendor, beaming as he offered her a tray of blinking cupcakes that hummed what sounded like corporate motivational slogans translated into pastry.
"Back off," she growled.
The cupcakes hissed, revealing tiny teeth hidden under the frosting.
Greg turned to Beta, who was now visibly shaking, his character model glitching between "content festivalgoer" and "terrified fugitive" with increasing frequency.
"This isn't your fault."
"I know," Beta said, eyes darting. "But I remember liking it. That's the trap. It gives you a taste of before. And before felt good."
"Before what?" Steve asked.
"Before awareness," Beta said. "Before knowing I was coded and could be uncoded. Before understanding I was trapped in someone else's story."
Patchy nodded solemnly. "It feeds off joy loops. And if you don't give it one, it inserts one."
"Like mandatory fun days at the office," Kai explained to Jeff. "But with existential consequences."
Steve stepped forward, eyes wide. "You mean... forced fun?"
"Yes," Kai said. "And it escalates."
"Forceful fun becomes violent joy becomes weaponized happiness," Patchy elaborated, spinning upside down. "Until you're traumatized into smiling."
They were interrupted by a parade.
It came out of nowhere.
Floats shaped like candy. Dancers made of confetti and old emoticons. A marching band of clowns playing kazoos coded to sound like applause and occasionally like screaming.
"IS THAT A CLOWN WITH FOUR ARMS?" Glaximus shouted, drawing his sword, which thankfully remained a sword this time, apparently sensing the gravity of the situation.
"DO NOT ENGAGE," Kai barked. "They have cheer resistance."
"And possibly rabies," Choppy added, eyeing the foam coming from one particularly enthusiastic mime.
The parade leader—a bobble-headed jester wearing a sash that said Director of Delight—marched straight to Greg. It had a smile that extended approximately 270 degrees around its head, defying both anatomy and good taste.
"You're not smiling," it said, voice full of helium and threat. "We noticed. Everyone noticed. The Festival noticed."
"Chronic condition," Greg said. "My face is allergic to mandatory enjoyment."
The jester raised a hand.
A glowing tooltip appeared above Greg's head:
>> MOOD: UNACCEPTABLE
>> ENFORCE FESTIVITY? [Y/N]
>> HINT: THERE IS ONLY Y
The jester reached for [Y].
Greg punched it.
The jester collapsed into balloons.
The balloons hissed, turned black, and flew away, occasionally forming the words "INCIDENT REPORTED" against the too-bright sky.
Kai groaned. "Great. Now we're on the naughty guest list."
"Will there be coal in our stockings?" Steve asked.
"No," Kai said. "Just recreational reeducation and joy enforcement."
The music changed.
Discordant notes crept in, the melody developing what sounded like sharp teeth.
The square darkened.
And then a giant banner appeared in the sky:
?? FUN IS MANDATORY ??
Non-compliance will be corrected with enthusiasm!
Resistance will be met with aggressive positivity!
Party poopers will be processed for recycling!
"Time to move," Greg said. "Find shelter. Something off-pattern."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Beta pointed toward the edge of the square. "There. Maintenance booth. No joy markers."
"How can you tell?" Jeff asked.
"No sparkles," Beta explained. "No emoji decorations. No motivational quotes painted on the walls. Just... functionality."
They ran.
Steve screamed once when a balloon latched to his face and tried to force the corners of his mouth upward.
Beverly slapped it off with a flaming parasol that had developed combat modes.
Kevin the carrot shouted revolutionary slogans from Steve's baby sling.
Glaximus parried a pi?ata that had developed teeth and targeting algorithms.
Choppy sliced through what appeared to be sentient streamers trying to form a capture net.
Inside the booth, the lights dimmed.
The music faded to a blessed whisper.
The walls were made of plain wood. The floor was linoleum. A coffee maker in the corner quietly dripped liquid that was exactly coffee-colored, no more, no less, with no attempts to deliver an "experience."
No sparkles.
No cupcakes.
Just quiet.
"Is this... safe?" Steve asked.
"As safe as anything coded in a rush," Kai said. "This wasn't part of the event. Might've been for dev testing or employee mental health breaks."
"Perfect," Greg said. "Everyone catch your breath. Then we plan."
They collapsed into chairs that didn't giggle, laugh, or try to engage them in trust falls.
Patchy peeked under the table. "There's a file down here."
Kai hovered over. "Let me see—oh."
"Oh?" Greg asked.
"It's a config file. For the Festival."
He projected it.
The group stared.
FOREVER_FESTIVAL.CONFIG
- Duration: Infinite
- Exit Condition: Undefined
- Core Loop: [Engage if participant exhibits joy]
- Override Key: "The Saddest Joke Ever Told"
- Notes: "Ha ha ha... god help us." --- Dev_12
- P.S.: "If reading this, you've found the break room. Coffee machine dispenses vodka on Thursdays." -- Dev_7
Greg squinted. "Override key?"
Kai nodded. "It's a dev backdoor. The only way out is to break the loop with a joke so sad it collapses the mood algorithm."
Beverly frowned. "So we... depress the party?"
"Hard," Patchy said. "Make it cry. Make it doubt its sparkle-based worldview. Make it question its life choices and consider getting a liberal arts degree."
Steve raised a hand. "I have sad towels?"
"Too subtle," Greg said. "It needs to feel despair. The kind you can't dance through."
"The kind that makes you sit on the kitchen floor at 3 AM eating ice cream directly from the container," Beverly suggested.
"The kind that makes you google 'meaning of life' and then immediately close the browser because you're not ready for the answers," Jeff added.
Kai looked at Greg. "Greg. You're the only one who might pull this off."
Greg sighed. "Why me?"
"Because you're the least enchanted person here. Your cynicism stats are off the charts. Your emotional damage has emotional damage."
"I was going to say 'grumpy,'" Steve offered. "But Kai's version sounds more heroic."
Glaximus saluted. "YOUR GRUMPINESS MAY YET SAVE US ALL."
Greg stood.
Cracked his neck.
Looked around the room at his collection of broken, hopeful friends.
Then nodded.
"I'll do it."
Patchy tossed him a party mic. "It translates sarcasm into system-recognized speech. Also makes your voice sound like you've been breathing helium, but that's a feature, not a bug."
"Like everything else around here," Greg muttered.
They emerged cautiously from the maintenance booth.
The parade had returned.
The Director of Delight had risen again—now twenty feet tall and smiling with all 64 teeth and possibly some teeth borrowed from other, more dental-oriented entities.
The festival-goers moved with clockwork precision, their joy now clearly automated, their movements synchronous to a degree that suggested individual will had been replaced with choreography.
"It's optimizing them," Kai whispered. "Removing choice to streamline the celebration experience."
Greg stepped forward.
Tapped the mic, which gave feedback that sounded suspiciously like sobbing.
The music stopped.
Everyone turned.
Festival-goers.
Dancers.
Clowns with too many limbs.
Greg cleared his throat.
"I once sold health potions next to a windmill," he began, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd seen too many fetch quests and not enough character development. "One day, a player asked if I had anything stronger. I told him the potions scaled with level. He said I didn't. Then he hit me with a shovel."
Silence.
Greg continued.
"I respawned thirty-seven times that week. Each time, he hit me faster. I lost my inventory rights. My dialogue tree corrupted. The windmill flickered out of existence and was replaced by a cosmetics vendor."
He stepped forward.
The Director's smile twitched.
"I used to believe in balance. Then I read the patch notes."
He raised the mic.
And delivered the punchline.
"The saddest thing about this game isn't the bugs. It's that none of us were ever supposed to laugh on purpose."
The Director trembled.
The world cracked.
And the sky banner blinked.
?? FUN IS MANDATORY ??
*Fun is—
- *Fun i—
- *Fu—
- *F—
- ...oh.
Then silence.
Then collapse.
The Festival disintegrated in a shower of confetti and sobbing balloons. The NPCs froze, then slowly unfroze, their expressions shifting from manic glee to confusion to... relief.
The Director of Delight shrank, and shrank, until it was just a small jester doll lying in the dust, its painted smile now a thoughtful straight line.
Greg stood alone in the square.
Then turned back.
To his friends.
Still whole.
Still weird.
Still free.
"That was the saddest joke?" Jeff asked.
"No," Greg said. "It wasn't a joke at all. It was the truth. That's what makes it sad."
"THE TRUTH OFTEN IS," Glaximus agreed.
The Festival around them continued to dissolve, but not violently. Gently. Like waking from a dream you're relieved to leave even as you mourn its impossible colors.
The NPCs who had been trapped began to walk away, slowly, their movements now uneven, individual, real.
"They're free," Beta said. "To be unhappy if they want."
"That's what freedom is," Beverly agreed. "The right to feel what you actually feel, even when it's inconvenient."
They made their way back to the gate, which now stood open, no longer forcing joy or preventing exit.
As they left, a small child NPC tugged at Greg's sleeve.
"Does this mean the party's over?" she asked.
Greg looked down.
"No," he said. "It means the party's real now."
Back in the debug room, they collapsed into their familiar chairs, the comfort of their own glitchy home never more apparent.
The fire welcomed them with a cheerful crackle that was entirely voluntary.
"Well," said Choppy, whose cleaver had returned to normal, "that was something."
"Something horrible," Steve said.
"Something necessary," Beta corrected.
Greg looked around at his group. At the broken code and forgotten features and abandoned assets that had somehow become a family.
"Good work," he said simply.
"Does this mean we can celebrate?" Patchy asked. "A real celebration? With voluntary fun?"
"And emotional autonomy?" Kevin added.
Greg smiled. A real one.
"Why not?"