Chapter 1

Outside the egg-shaped windows of the Headquarters, darkness spread over Riley's mindscape as the girl drifted into sleep.

Anger let out a yawn when he shoved "Long Term Memory Retrieval, Volume 47" back onto the shelf. Since the disastrous episode of the runaway idea, he'd been scorching through mind manuals at night. I know you care very deeply about Riley. Joy had told him. But you should stop losing temper at everything. Reading was good for controlling temper, they said. So Anger studied the volumes on long term memory and abstract thinking and the Subconscious. These tomes had almost smothered him to death with walls of texts. Anger might have burned the manuals if he hadn't had a very good reason to read them.

For Riley.

Anger was about to ascend the ramp to the emotions' sleeping quarter when he glimpsed towards the console. Fear sat there sipping a cup of coffee as Riley's dream began to play. The screen was still misty. Yet, Anger could guess what it would be. Some trash about not wearing pants, probably. Nothing that coward can't handle.

But for a passing instant, Anger thought he'd seen his purple friend quiver. Is he overworking himself again? Anger wondered. Disgust, Fear and he had felt bad about having almost caused Riley to run away. Since then, all three of them had worked extra hard, especially Fear. Fear triple-checked memory orbs every night and studied the mind manuals more than Anger and Disgust combined, and he was the only one who neither proposed nor supported the idea. A pang of guilt stabbed at the red emotion's chest.

When Anger was right in front of his bedroom door, he was still thinking about his cowardly friend. Maybe I should go to Imagination Land and find some kind of gift for him…

And then he heard it.

"ARGGGGHHHH!"

It was Fear's voice. Anger stumbled to a halt. A flare of fright gripped him. True, Fear was a coward who panicked at many things, but the trashy work of Dream Productions wasn't one of them. Before he noticed, Anger had started to scurry, down the ramp, into the room where the console was. Light flooded across the Headquarters as Riley snapped awoke. "Fear, what the –"

Fear, now curled up into a ball, was trembling on the floor right next to the console – which was glowing purple. Fear was stiff as a board, his eyes wide and staring. For a few seconds, Anger didn't move. He felt the urge to go give the spindly emotion a word of comfort, but before he came up with the word he needed, he heard a tired voice.

"What's going on?"

From the ramp came Joy, Sadness and Disgust. Both Joy and Sadness wore frowns, while the green Disgust was yawning. Anger made himself grumble, "The beanpole did it again!"

"The elephant… was… chasing… its own tail…! And then… there was…!" Fear mumbled nonsensically.

"You idiot! IT WAS JUST A DREAM!" Anger snarled.

Sadness was the first to start forward and help get her purple friend back on his feet. "You don't have to be so mean about it, Anger. Fear is scared."

Deep down, Anger knew it. He should've helped Fear up rather than shouted at him, but he simply couldn't help it. He bit his lips and cursed himself.

"It's alright, everyone." Joy set in with her 'think positive' tone, "It's just a scary dream. All we need to do is to calm Riley down and get her back to sleep." The yellow emotion danced towards the console. With a light tap, she made its purple glow fade away. Moments later, Riley's breathe slowed down, and she went back to sleep. Darkness fell across the mindscape again.

"What's going on with the dream, Fear?" Sadness asked.

Fear shivered. "It… It was…" he muttered awkwardly, as if merely saying 'It' was as scary as seeing the thing itself, but with some efforts, he managed to spit the words out, "It's Jangles! He's… in Riley's dream just now! He's turning her dream into a scary birthday party! With giant broccoli on the birthday cake!"

Disgust gagged. Her brows lowered, "This is disgusting! It's the third time this month that creep appears in Riley's dream."

Joy scowled. "This is strange. Jangles should be locked up in the Subconscious."

"Or maybe the Dream Productions is trying to make Riley have nightmares again? They often do that." Sadness suggested.

Hearing that caused embers to flicker on Anger's head. "Those no-good dream producers! So they're finally bored of giving Riley trashy dreams, and go for giving her nightmares!?" This is intolerable. Anger's temper could be triggered by many things, but the worst was to know that Riley was being treated unfairly. And then he took a glance at Fear: The scrawny, purple emotion was still trembling, his eyes wandering aimlessly as if he was scared that Jangles the clown may jump in from the windows at any moment. Seeing Fear so frightened made Anger even angrier. He wouldn't allow himself to say this out loud, however.

"Easy, Anger." Joy said, "Maybe we will go talk to the crew at Dream Productions someday…"

Anger raised his red, stubby hand and broke in, "I will go and talk to them, NOW!" With that, he stomped towards the projector and lowered the recall tube. That was how Joy and Sadness left the Headquarters last time. After the incident, the emotions had learned how to use the tube to leave and come back to the Headquarters at will. "I'll be back before Riley wakes up."

"Hey, control your temper!" Joy urged, "We talked about this!"

"NOOOOO!" Fear screamed. He hurtled forward and tried to drag his red friend back. "Don't go! Jangles is… out there in the Mind World! What if… you get locked up in the Subconscious!? What if… you trip and fall into the Memory Dump? What if you're struck by a meteor?"

Disgust's green eyes rolled. "There's no meteor in the Mind World."

Anger looked back at Fear. The sickly, purple emotion was quivering like a leaf. There was a touch of wetness at the corners of his purple eyes. Is he crying? He thought. Anger used to regard crying with disdain, but now… People cry when they're treated unfairly. And Anger was the emotion who ensured fairness. His friend's tears only meant that he must do something.

Anger squirmed as he shook off Fear's hands. It was when Disgust stepped forward. "If you really are going, I want to come along. I bet you're going to ruin the mission with that temper of yours. You'll need someone capable of staying cool."

It annoyed Anger. He didn't like being told that he needed someone. He ignored his green friend and flatly said, "This is a one-man operation. I'll go. ALONE." With that, he stepped on the button. The valves opened. At the next moment, the red emotion found himself sucked upwards.

"NOOOOO!"

Fear jumped into the recall tube after his hotheaded friend.

When the valves closed after the purple emotion, Joy, Sadness and Disgust were left in there, staring in shock.

"They're gone. I'll miss them. They're great friends." Sadness lamented.

"They'll be fine. We've been through worse!" Joy tried to cheer her up. "I only hope they'll be back before Riley wakes up. She needs all five of us."

"Don't worry." A smiling Disgust assured them. "I know what to do."

#

Anger felt as though a hook on his forehead had been suddenly jerked forward. His feet left the floor of the Headquarters; He could feel himself speeding forwards in a howl of wind and swirling colors. Ahead, Anger saw Riley's Mind World. It was now a shade of purple-grey dappled with light. He'd been through this before. But even now, it sickened him. For a long while, he felt his stomach lurching so badly and consciousness dissolving that he thought he was going to fade out of existence. He remembered Riley, Joy, Sadness, Disgust, and then –

The recall tube spat Anger out and slammed him onto the ground. The red, stout emotion opened his windswept eyes and looked up, seeing the memory shelves that towered over him. Then he knew that he'd arrived in Riley's Long Term Memory. As he moved his gaze further, he could see the golden rays cast onto the dark sky of the Mind World. He knew those rays were emitted by Dream Productions.

It was chilly. As Anger gave a shiver and got back on his feet, he heard a scream. Before he could react, the recall tube spat Fear out. The falling Fear hit Anger in the face with a heavy thud, knocking him back to the ground.

Anger groaned in pain, and saw that Fear was on him. The purple emotion was also groaning, his single strand of hair dangling and his sweater vest frazzled. This made Anger's head sizzled with embers. "GET OFF OF ME!"

Jumpily, Fear disentangled himself from the red emotion, got to his feet, and offered his hand to his friend. "I'm sorry, Anger! Are you hurt!? I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to –"

"YOU IDIOT!" Anger cut him off and picked himself up. He wasn't happy with his purple friend coming along. NOT AT ALL. In Anger's eyes, Fear looked tired and, above all, weak. There were deep purple shadows beneath Fear's eyes, and the spindly emotion's arms were as thin as wires. This isn't a job for a weakling like him. So Anger yelled, "Didn't I say that this is a one-man operation!?"

Fear's lips trembled. He remained silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly, his pale face hardened and he shouted back, "I'm in charge of ensuring Riley's and your safety! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out here!? There're at least seventy-two things we should be scared of right now! I'm so worried about you! Do you ever think about your friends' feeling when you jump into action!?"

Anger couldn't think of a reply to this, so he was left speechless. The hardness in Fear's eyes faded quickly and the purple emotion soon returned to looking around. Anger wondered if Fear was frightened by the seventy-two things he could think of, or if Fear was just trying to distract himself from Anger, whom he'd shouted at just now – To shout back at the red emotion was probably no less scary to Fear than meteors.

Finally, it was Anger who tried to break the silence. "Hey, Fear… I…"

A sound of ringing broke him off. Anger reached into his pocket and found his cellphone. It was a red trinket, with a silvery screen that now displayed the text 'Disgust Calling'. Anger remembered it: A week ago, Riley had been socializing with the cool girls in her class and daydreaming about buying a cellphone. On the next day, Disgust returned to the Headquarters to give cellphones to her friends. The green emotion said she found the trinkets in Imagination Land and babbled something about how cellphones would make Riley's social life fabulous. Anger had ignored what she said, but kept the gift.

Wondering what Disgust was calling for, the red emotion pressed 'Accept Call', and there came Disgust's voice, "Hey, Anger, is Fear with you?"

It startled Fear. Anger frowned, "Yes, he's right here. What's this? I said this is a one-man operation."

"Sure," Disgust said. He could feel her rolling her eyes on the other side of the phone. "Well, the thing is... Since Fear is not in the Headquarters, Joy asks me to do the dream duty. I'm watching Riley's dream right now. I'm telling you: That Jangles creep is just disgusting. I've never seen a birthday party with that abomination he calls a cake, and the room's décor is so tacky. The whole thing is a plain disaster. And look at those pants he wears! Talk about some fashion sense –"

"Get to the point!" Anger roared into the phone. "What're you calling for!?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I sort of went off the track." Disgust admitted, "Joy is worried that you guys may be having too much fun in your trip and forget to go back to the Headquarters before Riley wakes up. She wants me to keep an eye on you. And before you start burning, I'd like to remind you that Riley needs all five of us once she wakes up. So accept that I'll be calling you again and again tonight to keep track of what you're doing."

Anger thought for a short while. He hated to admit it, but he agreed that his green friend had a point. He declared, "Okay."

"Fabulous," said Disgust. It was their last exchange before he hung up.

Fear was standing behind his red friend and he was still shuddering. Anger knew at a glance that the coward was scared.

"I'm going to Dream Productions." Anger announced and put his phone back to his pocket. "If you're too scared to come along, go find yourself a recall tube and return to the Headquarters."

Fear didn't speak and regarded him with a begging look. But there was the only one thing on Anger's mind now.

For Riley.

Anger ignored his purple friend and set off across the maze of shelves of memory orbs. Both sides of his path were walled with the glowing marbles on which moments from Riley's life were playing. Several blue, green, red and purple were spotted amidst chasms of yellow orbs, though he could also catch glimpses of multicolored orbs – Riley had been having those since the runaway episode. It would've been easy to get lost in here had he not seen the rays from Dream Productions. After about fifteen minutes, an exit swam into view. Beyond it, Anger could make out the shining shape of Dream Productions.

At that moment, Anger looked back knowingly, and saw Fear not far behind him.

"So you want to come along, after all, beanpole?" Anger asked.

Fear's eyes jumped around. He staggered forward. Anger could see his hands shaking. With a barely audible voice, Fear muttered, "I… I want to come along with you. My job is to keep Riley and my… friends safe, remember?"

But it looks like he's the one who needs somebody to keep him safe.

Anger sighed. He looked around. The two of them were alone in here. Nobody is going to see it. Then slowly, Anger reached out his red, stubby hand and grasped Fear's purple, scrawny one. Holding a hand felt warm, he discovered. Fear seemed to feel the same too: After a few seconds, the shaking in his hand died down. A weak smile appeared on his face.

"Don't be afraid." Anger told him.

Fear replied with a meek nod.

The two emotions didn't speak as they walked towards Dream Productions while holding each other's hand.

To be continued…