Hi there. For those who may be wondering why Meltdown, the unnecessary sequel to my IO Fic Wound Tight, disappeared and this one took its place...This is essentially the original Meltdown storyline, but told the way I'd wanted to tell it before I decided against putting Riley through any traumatic event and chose instead to obsess over / develop my OC instead. That's the worst thing about OC's...especially those you explore from the inside. Thanks again to those who had chosen to follow it...I was just too disappointed with it to continue. :c I'm sorry.

Anyway, if you're reading this, I hope you enjoy what's below! I'll be updating slowly due to the approach of my wedding. Yikes!

Inside Out, its characters and its landmarks belong to Pixar, not me. And Pixar? I'm sorry. :c You inadvertently created a monster.
~KQSimply

Riley's peripheral vision dimmed as her skates skid to a halt on the ice. She became vaguely aware that she was clasping her hockey stick so tightly that her palms were aching, but in spite of how badly she wanted for her grip to relent, her hands wouldn't let her. She stared with grotesque intrigue through the thin forest of ankles and silver blades to the ghastly image beyond them, as though her muscles, dimwitted and stubborn as they'd become, had overridden her ability to reason by calling all of the shots instead of her brain.

Her coach rushed to the scene and spread his arms, demanding that the other girls move back. He dropped to his knees, using his teeth to yank off his gloves before lowering his hands to the body of the girl who had struck the ice, bereft of her helmet. Riley's eyes slowly diverted downward, tracing along what she could make of the fallen body, coming to rest and quiver on the tip of the blade of the girl's left skate. The foot was not merely still – it was unmoving. There was a difference, Riley thought numbly. There was a subtle, horrifying difference.

A stifling torrent of chaos began to take place inside of her.

One part of Riley wanted her to cry. Her eyes began to burn and her throat stiffened into a solid, painful mass. But she was quiet.

A part of her wanted her to scream and turn away. She could feel it clouding up in her lungs, and the temptation to run was overwhelming. But she was still.

Another part wanted her to attack something. She wanted to punch and kick and holler, as though this could somehow reverse or alter the present. But she knew better.

And a part of her wanted her to vomit. Her stomach reeled as she watched the pool of blood creeping its way across the ice. She nearly retched. But nothing happened.

And, a very strange part of her, a part of her that was dizzy and aloof and essentially unwilling to grasp what had happened, wanted her to laugh and close her eyes and fall asleep. Shut down. Wake up. Move on.

But no.

She couldn't do anything. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak, she couldn't blink, she couldn't will herself to deflect her gaze as life crept away from its former host, seeping into the thin fissures carved into the ice below her teammate's body.

She could only watch.

The five chairmen of Riley's Headquarters crouched tightly against one another, completely immobilized as they too witnessed the terrible accident. Their hands had arrived at the control panel as one messy collective of fingers and palms all at once, inadvertently causing the machine to malfunction and shut down. The Console was dark and temporarily quite dead. While Riley's five emotions were well aware of the fact, no one could let it go at first. No one could move. They were as stunned as Riley.

"…she…she's not moving," uttered Sadness.

"Th-there's blood," Fear stammered, gesturing with a free, quivering finger. "There's a lot of blood. She wasn't wearing a helmet. She's hurt, she must be really hurt."

"She has to get up." Anger spoke these words as though they were a rudimentary fact that the girl had simply failed to understand. "She can't stay down. Make her get up. She has to get up."

"Oh my God." Disgust was rocking her head back and forth incessantly. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

Joy couldn't say anything. She could scarcely draw her next breath. She stepped backward, being the very first to withdraw her hand from the Console. She placed a hand across her chest and attempted to reconnect her soul to her essence. She was cross-eyed and wobbly and felt an overwhelming need to wrap her arms across her torso and recklessly sob and scream in front of her colleagues, a need that was overwritten by who she was and what she represented.

Joy wavered on her feet and blinked her way back up to the Monitor, where the scenery had very suddenly changed. Everyone had lost their concept of time in the chaos, herself included. She watched as Riley's vision darkened ever still, and felt as Riley's father tucked his arm over her shoulder and pulled her body close to his. His hand was heavy and firm. "Jesus," he was saying, over and over again. Normally, they would have perceived the exclamation as a curse-word, but today, it could very well have been a crude prayer.

Riley's dad placed her, hockey gear and all, into the back seat of the car, and the family drove away from the rink. It would have been a silent ride, were it not for Mrs. Andersen's eventual, irrepressible sobs.

Sadness wanted so badly to power Riley into tears of her own. No level of heartache Riley had encountered in her thirteen years alive compared to the way she felt when her own mother cried. Desperately, Sadness attempted to power up the Console again, but it merely sparked at her, provoking Fear to guide her a safe distance away with lenient hands on her shoulders. Sadness bid a distressingly mournful glance up to him, and, as one could expect, Fear had no assurance or certainty to offer in return, but there was pity and a comforting degree of sympathy in his eyes as he walked Sadness to Joy's side.

Disgust and Anger exchanged belated, despairing looks with one another. Disgust's teeth were tucking painfully into her lower lip, and her free hand began to shake over her mouth. She heaved suddenly, tearing her other hand away from the Console at last. Anger bent to assist her at once, laying his hand across her back. It had been an unsuccessful attempt to purge not only her stomach, but any recollection of the event at all.

The Emotions came to gather in the middle of the main hub of Riley's Headquarters, studying the Monitor, or their shoes, or each other, and before any of them knew it, their hands began to interlock. They stood in silence and simultaneously closed their eyes along with Riley.

The Console hummed as it rebooted itself, and a series of loud, hollow clunks stole the Emotions from their moment of silence with each other, and their heads snapped to the east.

One. Two. Three.

Four, five, six, seven.

Eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen…

Tardy Memories of the accident began to roll in, one immediately after the other in rapid succession. Each one featured only the briefest of moments from what Riley had witnessed. Some seemed practically identical to one another. No Memory displayed the event seamlessly from start to finish. But, each Memory shared with its partners a surreal, high-definition quality, and each Memory shone bright enough to add new light to the room. They weren't about to fade, and their numbers weren't about to stop tallying up.

The Emotions could do little else but helplessly watch.

Riley screwed her eyes shut. She began to lift her hands up to the sides of her head and cover her ears, as though she could silence the sound of the girl's body hitting the ice from the outside this way. However, the noise was coming from the inside and could not be stopped.

It was to be an endless storm, and it was only just clearing its vile throat.

Her Emotions simply had no concept of what damage had truly been done.