Things had been going well for Riley Andersen one twenty-second of January; her teammates threw her a surprise party, her parents gave her some new skates and her friends, both from San Francisco and from Minnesota, joined in on celebrating her thirteenth birthday. Everything was perfect; life seemed wonderful as she and her parents said their goodnights. That's when she felt lightheaded.
Moments before then, her emotions were celebrating the happiest day of their host's teenaged life when, suddenly, their words became more slurred than a drunkard's speech. Joy danced around dizzily, enjoying the feeling in a carefree manner. She didn't feel her body fading away, particle by particle, nor did anyone else who faded at the same rate. Fear was, as usual worrying about what they were feeling; by all accounts, Riley, in her laying position, shouldn't be as dizzy as she was. His near incoherent ramblings of the possible dangers became slowed and slurred as he slowly vanished.
Across from the console, Sadness was having trouble reading a Mind Manual she had randomly picked from the shelves, having decided to read the rest of the day away, as there was no need for her to be at the console those last few minutes. Growing tired of trying to focus her blurry vision, she looked at her companions and became aware of their fading forms. She became as panicked as Fear the instant she noticed that she, herself, was fading away as well and knew quickly why. As fast as she could, she ran past the annoyed Anger, who grumbled about the nausea and sort-of drunkenness, and the lightheadedly overjoyed Disgust, who seemed as though she fell in love with the most dreamy of boys and had lost enough of herself to actually float on the feeling, and shook Fear out of his frightened madness, only to point him in the direction of a new fright.
"Fear," she screamed, holding her hand to his face, "look!"
And Fear did, noticing the see-through-ness of Sadness' form before wearily and fearfully looking at the other's fading forms, finishing with his own. In a mild panic that was soon washed away by lethargy, he tried to warn Riley on the danger the dizziness brought, barely managing to press a button before his host fell asleep and slowly died in her dreams. Fear and Sadness both looked at each other, then at the others before walking up to the window across Headquarters to confirm their fears.
One by one, the facets of Riley's Mind shut down, grew dim and disappeared without a trace in a wonderful and scary reversal of how they originally manifested. Everything turned to dust and lifted up into the black sky over the course of an hour, an hour Fear and Sadness spent watching, the both of them crying until Fear vanished right after Disgust. In his absence, Sadness redoubled her crying and walked up to Joy, who lay on the coal black ground of the place she called home, depleted of energy and her element. As realization finally reached her pale yellow face, the star-shaped Emotion let out a loud, proud laugh as she saw her first friend in Headquarters approach her.
"At least we gave it our all, right?" she asked her glum companion, who just sat beside her, sniffling her tears into some semblance of control. Joy gave Sadness a small pat on the back, a tear sliding down her fading particles as she felt the blue teardrop-like Emotion disappear. Within moments even Joy had run dry of energy as she slipped into Death's embrace alongside her host, not knowing that Death would leave them behind, lost within someone else's Mind.