I'll just wait until the menu fixes itself, it's not like I can go anywhere right now, so let's just wait, okay? Sure, it's not particularly exciting, kind of boring even. But they can't all be winners, can they? Sometimes you have to take a break, lay down in a breathing carpet. Ho, right, the carpet is breathing now, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Breathing is a good sign if anything, that means it is alive, or maybe that's a bad thing? I'd ask, but I don't know if the true god of this place can form coherent sentences that aren't just stolen from me.

  What did I talk about in the last 10 universes again? I mentioned charisma and intelligence, I think. I may be running out of stuff to think about soon, I really should get more hobbies. But a lot of those hobbies aren't really possible when I change universes again, so I'm always afraid of picking up something new.

  Something shakes me, but my face is buried deep into the fleshy floor, so I cannot see them. I wave them away, hoping they will get the message. I'm very busy talking to myself here, okay? Very important stuff, because when I think something stupid I can just call myself out on it, it's like having a very cheap and biased psychiatrist. I've never been to a psychatrist actually, the more I think about it the more I realize there are a lot of things I haven't done even though I had all the time in the world to do them, but then again I still have an infinite amount of time to do everything, so it's okay.

  It shakes me again, but I don't get up, is that so hard to understand? Just leave me alone until I'm better. I know I'm probably the most interesting thing it has seen in its entire life, considering it built the same thing for who knows how long. But I still think it should respect my personal boundaries a little, yeah I did destroy a bunch of stuff it made, but it's not like they served any purpose.

  I roll around so that I can face the roof this time, except instead of a roof there's the face of a young man staring at me. I don't actually recognize that face at all, it's not even familiar. I'm sure I could see some facial features of people I once knew if I looked really hard, but I'd rather not.

  "Mo..more...good?" he asks in a surprisingly feminine voice.

  "Yeah, sure, more good than last time," I answer dryly.

  I can hear an annoying laugh from him. I wince, I'm already missing that laugh and it hasn't even been that long since I left her universe. He raises his hand as he's laughing, and suddenly, I can feel my head turn and a stinging sensation on my left cheek. It takes a little bit of time for me to realize what just happened, he slapped me.

  "What was that for!?" I awkwardly push myself off of the meaty floor, "I was being-"

  "Good?" he tilts his head in a normal way for once.

  "No, bad." I sigh, I think he just copied my slap from last time. I can't be too mad if I'm the one he's taking after. He raises his hand again and I stop his hand before he can slap me one more time. I look at him in the eyes, hoping he gets the message that this is not how you usually greet people.

  It takes a couple more slaps until he realizes I am definitely not enjoying this. Honestly, considering how violent I've been here he could've turned out much worse, I think I was pretty close to being stomped to death here.

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  I stare at him for a few minutes, and once I see he's not going to do anything else, I pull out my menu. Only to realize it's still unavailable. I really should've made it so I can check error logs when it's unavailable, but it's never been a problem until now, so I never bothered.

  Messing with my menu manually might mess a lot of things up, so I'll just mess with my soul instead, which believe it or not is actually safer. I try to augment my perception to get a better view of my soul, I won't raise it too high though or my brain may be overloaded with information again. Perception is a weird stat actually, it doesn't really function like any other stat. Stats use experience to function, right? But perception doesn't, it works on a percentage of how much your soul is willing to see. Technically, every soul, no matter how weak, can max out their perception whenever they want at no experience cost.

  The best comparison I can think of is how despite your eyes seeing a bunch of stuff at the corner of your vision, your brain is still focused on one thing, with the rest being blurry shapes and whatever. Souls instead process everything they can "see", which means that if they don't have enough intelligence, the sensory overload will cause a lot of problems. The way souls deal with that is by adjusting their perception to a manageable level, so they only see what they actually need to see.

  Now that I think about it, intelligence and perception should be tied together to avoid issues like this, but of course stats are an oversimplification of a soul's 'biology'. It's like saying all organs that depend on the brain to function should also be considered part of the brain because they don't work without it.

  Still, raising my perception by such a small amount should be fine, I just need to grab that string and pull...then it slowly opens...yup, a little more. Alright, I can see things a little bit more clearly now, and what I can see is-

  What.

  I check multiple times to see if I'm not hallucinating, but this universe has so many tendrils up my soul it makes me wonder how I never saw them before, even with my lower perception. But that's not what surprises me, it had to access my memories somehow, what bothers me is that the tendrils are...ho no.

  I try to cut the tendrils as fast as I can, it's awkward and messy but if I take too long then-

  I receive another slap from him, I'm pretty sure this one was supposed to hurt too, "S-stay? S-see, want...more." It says with what I assume is a worried tone. The tendrils just nest themselves deeper into me, every time I cut one a thousand more take their place. If I had a skill this would be no issue but-

  He slaps me again. I don't even have the time to acknowledge the pain, I'm scared, I'm actually really, really scared. My heart is beating faster, I raise my perception again to make sure I'm not missing anything. My head is overflowing with both useless and useful data, but none of it can be used to solve the situation fast enough.

  I can feel my consciousness fading as my heart and brain can't properly catch up with what I'm doing. I have such a massive throbbing headache, it takes every ounce of willpower I have to not puke. But eventually my body can't help but give in as everything around me turns dark.

  I d-

  We.

  I-

  WE!

  DON'T YOU DARE-

  WE

  AND

  I

  DIE.

  STORY:

  This universe was actually planned as far back as the first world, which is to say the white mist universe. However, I felt like there needed to be at least 3 universes before this one to properly cement Leave as a character and how dependent they are on their menu for it to work. It was always planned to be more or less what it is now, with minor variations.

  It was actually supposed to be even shorter, but because Leave often ends up info dumping talking to themselves a lot when alone, it actually ended up longer because things like soul bloat had to be explained here, which was only mentioned in passing before. Info dumping can certainly drag the pacing down, but Leave also has clear biases in the info that they do decide to share, so their purpose isn't just to pass down raw information. A lot of info is also teased and hidden way before they are actually brought up, so the info dump isn't always made the moment something becomes relevant.

  We also got a peek in one of Leave's memory, albeit one that readers already heard about. But it's something else to see it for yourself, no matter how distorted it may be.

  UNIVERSE:

  Liminal space are a cool concept, aren't they? While it was always planned for it to have some degree of body horror as the universe has a brand-new asset to make stuff with, it's not something that phases Leave immensely. One huge part of the horror of liminal space is this feeling of being alone and stranded in a place that never change, and since Leave isn't quite alone here. It can certainly lessen the horrors of liminal spaces.

  Why a hotel? It could've been anything really, but it being a long hallway that only go in one of two direction gives it a stronger focus, it feels more claustrophobic. But it's more obvious in the image than the writing I made here.

  I can't say more without spoilers. It's very funny because I imagine a lot of stories in my head so when I tell people I tend to talk about everything I can, but now I do have to contain myself a little.

  As always, thank you for reading this far.