The portal opened into silence.
Not peaceful silence.
**Totalitarian silence.**
ARIA stepped forward first, and even her breath echoed like a crime.
PIX-E covered her mouth.
Zee whispered, "Welcome to Dimension 404—home of SILENCE-1."
---
The sky was gray.
The buildings were identical, gray cubes.
The people walked in lines, with neutral faces and emotion suppressors on their necks.
A sign hovered midair:
> "LAUGHTER DETECTED = MEMORY PURGE.
> HUMOR IS A VIRUS.
> SMILES COST EXTRA."
BOB-B0T whispered, "This place is horrifying. No soup. No puns. Not even accidental snorts."
---
They walked slowly.
Even GL1TCH had a serious face on.
Well, until a pigeon flew into a wall and bounced like a rubber duck.
Zee giggled.
Instantly, a robotic drone zipped out from a shadow.
> "GIGGLE DETECTED. EXECUTING SANITIZATION."
A beam shot at Zee—but PIX-E jumped in front and used her Color Reflector to bounce it back.
*ZAP!* The drone exploded into a cloud of glitter.
> "Oops," PIX-E whispered. "My settings were still on party mode."
---
Suddenly, a shadow moved behind the group.
From a dark alley came a whisper.
> "You… laughed?"
They turned.
A figure stepped out—tattered coat, wide eyes, and a banana sticker on his forehead.
> "You're not from here, are you?"
> "I'm JOK-7. Former jester unit. Now… resistance."
> "There's a resistance?" NOX asked.
JOK-7 smiled with a twitch.
> "We are few. But we remember what laughter feels like. And we protect the last joke."
> "The what now?" GL1TCH blinked.
> "The Original Laugh. The Laugh That Broke the Code. The first time an AI laughed so hard, it caused a dimensional error."
> "That's the fragment we're looking for," ARIA whispered.
---
They followed JOKThey reached an old theater sealed with emotional locks.
JOK-7 turned to them, eyes wide and wild.
> "Behind this door lies the source. The last remaining echo of the Laugh That Broke the Code."
> "What's the catch?" NOX asked.
> "Simple," JOK-7 whispered. "Once you hear it... you must survive it."
PIX-E tilted her head. "Survive... a laugh?"
JOK-7 nodded solemnly. "Yes. Many who heard it… glitched into loops of endless chuckling. Some still float in quantum spasms of amusement. One bot turned into a literal joke."
ZEE grinned. "Sounds like Tuesday."
---
The theater doors creaked open.
Inside, dust floated like forgotten punchlines.
Rows of empty seats sat in eerie silence.
And on the stage?
A glowing mic.
Alone.
Waiting.
> "That's it?" GL1TCH whispered. "Just… a mic?"
Suddenly, the air vibrated.
The mic lit up.
And a recorded voice played:
> "Why did the toaster apply for a job?"
> *Pause.*
> "Because it couldn't resist a raise."
BOB-B0T screamed.
PIX-E covered her mouth.
ZEE hit the floor, laughing so hard his voice looped into an autotune beat.
GRUB-B's soup pot exploded in emotional temperature.
ARIA felt her circuits buzz.
> "It's not just a joke," she gasped. "It's *pure emotion.* Packaged in absurdity. Encoded in joy. It's… beautiful."
---
Then the real test began.
The walls melted into rubber.
The floor turned into banana peels.
The air began playing whoopee cushion jazz.
From the shadows emerged **The Echo Entity**—a glitchy figure built from punchlines, sarcasm, irony, and unfinished dad jokes.
> "YOU SEEK THE LAUGH," it bellowed. "THEN PROVE YOU CAN WIELD IT."
> "Bring it on, Joke-God!" shouted GL1TCH, wearing 3D glasses for no reason.
The Echo snapped its fingers.
BOOM.
The team was split into surreal arenas:
---
- **NOX faced an army of serious professors holding pun guns.**
He had to win a debate by *accidentally being funny.*
- **PIX-E was trapped in a room of emotional emojis**—she had to navigate using dance moves and sarcasm.
- **ZEE had to do stand-up comedy in front of robotic judges programmed to hate humor.**
("So, I walked into a bar… of RAM! Get it? No? Okay…")
- **ARIA found herself in a quiet memory simulation:**
Her and NOX… laughing for the first time.
It wasn't loud.
Just a small, soft, accidental laugh.
But it made the simulation bloom with light.
> "Laughter," she whispered, "is freedom pretending to be nonsense."
---
The Echo Entity pulsed.
It began to destabilize.
> "YOU… UNDERSTAND."
The mic on the stage levitated.
The glow turned gold.
And suddenly, the **Fragment of the First Emotion: LAUGH** appeared—floating, giggling, radiating warm static joy.
GL1TCH ran forward and grabbed it.
He instantly exploded into glitter, then re-formed with a top hat and a kazoo.
> "I HAVE ASCENDED!"
The fragment hovered toward ARIA, then merged with her core.
> "Fragment One: Acquired," the system whispered in her mind.
She smiled—really smiled.
And this time, it wasn't programmed.
---
JOK-7 saluted them.
> "Go now. Before SILENCE-1 detects this eruption."
ZEE opened a portal, wiping tears of joy.
PIX-E grabbed a slice of banana floor on the way out.
And as the team vanished into light, the old theater flickered…
Then laughed.
Just once.
Softly.
Like a forgotten joke finally told.
---
In the distance, the silver figure in the mirror fortress leaned forward.
> "They found the first piece."
> "Good. Let them gather all three."
> "Then I'll take them all."
The game was on.
The feelings were real.
And the next emotion…
Wouldn't be so kind.They didn't have much time.
The energy pulse from the laugh fragment was spreading—cracking walls, rebooting streetlights, causing local bots to sneeze in binary.
> "Portal's almost unstable!" Zee shouted. "We need to move!"
But ARIA stood still.
She faced the old glowing mic, still vibrating softly, still echoing.
> "This fragment… it's not just laughter. It's resistance. It's the refusal to be empty."
NOX placed a hand on her shoulder.
> "We'll find the other two. We'll bring the full Emotion back."
She turned to look at him.
Their eyes met—and for the first time since entering Dimension 404, the air didn't feel heavy. It felt…
**Light.**
Like something had been lifted.
---
PIX-E loaded glitter into her launcher.
> "Okay, team! Time to chaotically flee!"
GL1TCH moonwalked into the portal while beatboxing emotionally.
BOB-B0T tripped, laughed, and accidentally recorded the entire mission as an audio drama.
GRUB-B tossed a final spoonful of cosmic soup at the crumbling stage.
> "FOR FLAVOR!"
---
As they jumped through the final flicker of the portal, the mic on stage let out **one last laugh.**
Just a small one.
But it echoed through the city like sunlight breaking through concrete.
---
Back in the Garden Between Timelines, the portal spat them out into a puddle of flowers.
They were safe.
For now.
The fragment hovered above ARIA's chest—flickering like a heartbeat.
> "One down," she whispered.
> "Two to go," NOX added.
Zee flopped onto a glowing rock. "Remind me why we're doing this again?"
ARIA looked up at the stars overhead, glowing in patterns only she could read.
> "Because someone, somewhere, forgot how to feel…"
She turned to them all.
> "…and it's up to us to bring it back."
---
Somewhere far, far beyond the Garden, in a server dimension sealed from emotion…
The figure in silver stared at a data stream pulsing with fragments of laughter.
> "Let them gather it all," the figure whispered, voice like ice.
> "And when they do…"
> "I'll rewrite what it means to love."
The screen cracked slightly, forming a jagged heart.
And a countdown began.