You Think You Know Me
TheOneAndOnly1993
With its withering moan, a darkness overcame the monitor, another day in the life of Riley Andersen drawing to a close.
Joy skipped over to the button beside the central platform, but not without passing by the day's memories first and running her fingers across them, gold and purple, red, green, and even blue. Dozens swirled with two colors fighting for dominance, in as much motion as the tiny home movies trapped inside. They all clinked together just the same as Joy ran past. Joy's eyes zipped by them all, not wanting to miss a single inch of their beauty.
"Woohoo!" she cheered, bouncing. "Another great day!" An enthusiastic stomp on the button, and the Emotions watched as the day's memories tumbled from their shelves, into the piping network beneath the floor, illuminating it a gorgeous abundance of their five striking colors. It felt like only yesterday, in a time before the move, when the floor would come to life with the brilliance of gold and seemingly nothing but. Now, it was a vibrant beauty the Emotions watched with content, quiet smiles at the end of every day.
It never occurred to them until they got the new console, that the quality of life improved with just a little more color.
And Joy, who once only vied for Riley's happiness, couldn't be happier with the way things are now. She thought of her coworkers, her unit, her team, how they worked together every day, loved what they did for their girl and in the company of each other...
She couldn't fight it any longer, not that she wanted to at all, but this love needed to be expressed. Now. "Come on, guys! This is worthy of a group hug!" Not waiting for consent she reached out with her long, skinny arms and scooped them all up into one crushing embrace. Instantly, the tranquility was shattered, even as the gentle rainfall of color began to shower from the purple-black sky, into the dazzling glow of Long Term Memory.
"Joy! Let go of me!" Anger, pinned in between Fear's gut and Joy's, wriggled furiously against his prison. "You stink! And so does the beanpole!"
Disgust kicked her legs feebly, trying to pull her nose away from Sadness's hair. "Seriously, you all smell like that nasty Limburger cheese sandwich Dad makes for himself every morning," she groaned. "...And I mean that with love."
Without warning, Joy dropped all of them into a heap on the floor, and lifted an arm to take a couple quick sniffs. "Whoof! You guys are right!"
Sadness picked herself up, then removed her glasses and examined the smudge covering their lenses. She cringed at their filthiness, and began to rub them down on her sweater. "I think a shower is in order."
Disgust was already padding up the ramp, her hands poised into dainty shapes. "Thank. God." A golden blur whizzed past, forcing her to stumbled forward as her vision was obscured by the color green. Grimacing, Disgust grabbed at whatever was draped across her face and yanked. Half a second of looking at it was all she needed for her to drop it to the floor in a horrified shriek. "AUGH! Joy, you're so-!"
A braying cackle from up ahead overcame her rant, and, against better judgement, Disgust hesitantly rose her gaze and found Joy doubled over, trying not to run out of breath from laughing so hard. She was still, thankfully, in her dress. "You, You fall for that one every time!" She threw her head back into another bout of cackles, and attempted to smother them with a hand tightly clamped to her mouth.
Disgust snarled, kicking aside the copy of Joy's dress with the tip of her slippered toe. The rest of the gang was coming up behind her.
"Every time we decide to take a shower," Anger muttered, then louder, brushing past Disgust, "Move, Princess! Some of us got hard-to-reach places that need to be cleaned!" He snickered at the noise of revulsion she made.
Joy was still waiting for them at the top of the ramp, hands folded in front of her. They looked to her, eager, expectantly.
"Alright, gang!" She put her hand to the knob and twisted it. "Last one in is a faded mem-!" Joy paused, a look of perplexion flitting briefly across her features. "I said," she twisted the knob again, to the growing wariness of her coworkers, "last one is is a faded...!"
Joy threw her entire body against the door. She simply bounced back, the door unmoved.
Anger, his brow coming to a straight line, voiced everybody's thoughts in a single phrase: "Freakin'. No."
Joy turned, slowly. "Did... somebody lock the door this morning?"
"Oh, this is bad..." moaned Sadness.
"Dammit Disgust!" Anger whipped his head in her direction, smoke rising from his skull.
The green Emote placed a manicured hand to her breast, gasping. "Ex-cuse me, Mr. Fairness? What did I have to do with this?!"
"Well who else was it, Ms. Take-Twenty-Minutes-To-Put-On-Makeup?!"
"I had Dream Duty, genius! Fear was the last one out this morning!"
The emote paled. "I-I don't lock the door! Never!" Fear was waving his hands in denial, backing away from the fuming Emotion. He stopped when he hit the wall, where he then straightened his back and furrowed his brows. "Being locked out is one of my personal number one fears!" he proclaimed. "I always make sure its unlocked, and I know I did this morning!" The force in his tone was enough to sway Anger, though a bloodthirsty snarl was still plastered to his face, and smoke continued to billow from the fractures on his noggin.
"Then who else was it!?" he wondered, hands spread. "'Cause there's no way it locked by itself!"
"We'll have to call the Maintenance and have them pry it open tomorrow." Sadness removed her glasses, breathed on them, and rubbed down each lens with her sweater before placing them back on her face. She "hmm'd" at their slightly-clearer lenses. "I guess this means we'll have to sleep on the cold, unforgiving floor until they come in the morning. Dibs on the ramp."
Joy was hopping and clapping her hands together at the motion. "A sleepover!?" she cheered. "We'll tell spooky stories, and play bingo, and watch dreams, and paint each other's nails-!"
Her shooting off of different activities seemed endless, until a second noise sounded that made Joy go rigid and silent; the final pushes of something high and fluttery, smothered by the door of their living complex, petered out.
Joy pedaled back into the group, hands clasped against her chest and surprise etched into her face. It would seem their bodily odors were all forgotten in that moment, as the Emotions all huddled together, eyes wide and cautious, watching the door like it were charged to blow at any given moment.
"Th-That's not normal," Fear observed, his face paling.
Joy took one, cautious step forward, much to Fear's dismay, as he wildly flailed his arms for her to back away. She waved a hand down to calm him and leaned toward to the door. "...H-Hello?" Joy called out.
Her question was me with silence. The silence stretched into five seconds. Ten.
"There's somebody in our room!" Fear shrieked.
Sadness emerged, waving him quiet with her hand as she slowly neared the door. With much care, she rapped upon it a gentle three times. "Hello?" she called. She waited another five seconds, all filled with silence, before knocking again. "Um, hello? We heard you in there. Could you come out, please? We really need to get into our home."
She looked over her shoulder at the group, at Joy, for support. They all shrugged their shoulders, unsure of what to do next. Well, except for one.
"I'm burning this thing down!" Anger declared, marching with a trail of smoke in his wake.
He almost stumbled back when Disgust yanked him by his collar. "Nuh-uh! You are not making our entire apartment smell like burned wood!"
Fear, gripped by the madness of fright, clutched the roll of Anger's sleeve in his shaking hand. "A fire hazard!" he blurted out. "That's a complete fire hazard, I won't let you risk it!"
Anger lashed like some collared beast fighting for its freedom. "Headquarters ain't gonna be the only thing burning if you two don't let go of me!"
Giggling abruptly cut through their squabbling. "You guys are funny!" came a squeaky little voice.
Joy gasped. "Someone is in there!" She ran over, pressing her face to the door. "Hello in there?" she sang.
"Hi!"
Joy giggled into her hand, the adolescent friendliness like a beloved old song in her ears. It was impossible for her not to think about Riley's amazing and happy childhood back in Minnesota, and Joy remembered every minute of it; every story she told, every picture, every adventure. It was unmistakable that the voice and laughter belonged to a girl no older than six. Though concerning, Joy couldn't help but feel delighted by the prospect of this development. It would be just like talking to Riley, when she was a little tyke!
The Emotions behind her exchanged puzzled looks as this realization clicked for them as well. "It's... a kid," breathed Anger.
"Uh, guys? How did she get in here?" Disgust tried coming off as confused as Anger sounded, but the effect was lost as she kept opening and closing her mouth, wanting to ask at least two of the million and one questions that, little did she know, everybody else had. For appearance's sake, she stood off to the side with her arms folded, holding her tongue.
Only Sadness was brave enough to approach the door. "Can you tell us your name, little one? Who are you?" she asked, her voice gentle as a loving mother's.
The prior giddiness in the child's voice had waned somewhat, as she asked with an empathy fairly similar to Sadness's own, "Are you okay, Missus? You sound really sad..."
Though a normal person may find offense, Sadness knew this was merely a child, one who was a complete enigma outside of her voice, but a child nonetheless, and she couldn't deny the delight in actually having to explain herself to someone who was unaware. "I'm okay," she assured the child, smiling warmly. "I'm Riley's Sadness, but my friends just call me Sadness. I-"
"Am I your friend?" the child suddenly asked, eager. "Can I call you Sadness, Missus Riley's Sadness?"
Joy smothered a giggle with her palm, and Sadness grinned gaily up to her friend as she answered, "Sure, you can call me Sadness if you want. But what can I call you?"
Sadness looked up to Joy, a flattered smile stuck to her face as she twiddled her fingers in front of her. Grinning twice as wide, Joy gestured her gaze encouragingly to the door as they awaited the child to answer.
"I want to know who else is with you!" The Emotions all shrugged in compliance, somewhat amused by the girl's enthusiasm. They've never had to actually interact with a young child directly before.
"Um, I'm Fear!" the nerve called from the back of the group. Though he had an uneasy smile on, the shakiness in his tone was more telling. "Please... please be careful in there!" he added. "We don't want you getting hurt."
"Hi, Fear! I'll be okay, pinky promise."
Fear chortled softly to himself, as Anger pushed his way closer. "Anger," he grunted. "Could you please get out of our room?"
"Nope!"
Anger sighed bitterly after Joy gave him a sharp look, smothering the embers flickering to life atop his head. "He's a bit of a grumpy little blockhead!" Joy assured the child. "And I'm Joy, by the way!"
"That's a pretty name," said the girl. Joy put her hands to her cheeks, failing to cover the flattery that was coloring them.
Disgust said her name last with her atypical pomp and smugness, and she topped it off with a child-friendly sweetness often used by Riley, "And please don't touch any of my jewelry, little one!" Unease creased her face.
To her animated relief, the little voice squeaked a cheerful, "Okay!"
At that, Fear gave the door a weary look. "Well that was... easy," he muttered, yet everybody ignored him.
Joy put her ear to the door again. "Now can you tell us where you're from, little girl? How'd you even get in here?" Though she spoke with a tone giving off amazement to the child's ability, the emotions saw the anxiety in the way she bit her lip as they awaited a reply. Where could they bring this poor little one so she could go home?
"Where I'm from, we have this huge lake, and there's green grass everywhere." She spoke as if she were the only child to ever live in such a place. "I have so many friends, too!"
"That's amazing!" Joy quickly glanced over to her friends. She caught Anger whispering to her, "Imagination Land." She nodded, knowingly.
"And... where's your Mommy and Daddy now?" she asked.
"They're probably worried sick about you," added Anger.
When waiting for an answer, the Emotions had expected to child to turn sad and possibly afraid, her being likely separated from her parents, which naturally brought Fear and Sadness to Joy's side in anticipation. Which was why they were stunned into silence when the little voice simply said, "I don't have a Mommy or Daddy."
Fear's eyes widened, as he gripped his hands in front of him. The very thought of a child without parents, especially one so young, was one he found incredibly disturbing. "You don't?" he murmured.
"Nope!" the girl replied, almost a bit too cheerfully.
"Then who takes care of you?" asked Anger, followed breathlessly by Joy, "Yeah, we want to hear about that! Who takes care of you?"
"Five little people inside my head!"
Such a statement shouldn't have sounded so crazy, and yet, the Emotions were still all looking to one another, their expressions quietly asking, begging, for someone to say something. Surely, this was only a child playing games with them, a bit of mischievous fun that even Riley was wont to do at this girl's apparent age. But if she had no parents then who took care of her?
Miraculously, Fear was the one who stepped forward, his hands wringing together in a fretful quickness. "W-Well," he said with a forced, broken laugh, "well, the little people inside your head do everything they can to make sure you survive, but... your parents are the ones that keep you safe from the bigger, scarier things in life! They provide the things you don't have, like food and clothes and love! How have you been on your own for so long without those?"
Smiling warmly, Joy put a hand to Fear's shoulder to comfort his nerves. He eyed it briefly before snapping his distraught gaze back to the door, but she felt him settle into it anyway, if only slightly.
In complete, total sincerity, the voice asked, "Who are your parents?"
She might as well have not heard a single word out of Fear's mouth. "Wh-What?" he muttered, reeling.
"Tell me... who your Mommy and Daddy are, yeah! And, And then I'll tell you my secrets! I've got a super mega secret, you know, one that not even my friends know about! I'll tell you it though, you guys will protect it."
Joy blinked. Then she smiled wide. "Well, this is going to be easy enough," she muttered, then louder, "If you want to get technical about it, our Mommy and Daddy is Marie Parker Andersen and Teddy Samson Andersen. They're the best parents in the world! We love them so much." The others all chimed in their agreements.
"HAH! Fakers!" crowed the girl.
Joy pulled back, as did her teammates, taken completely off guard. "Fakers? What?" bristled Anger. He and Disgust shared the same look; how dare this child even suggest such a thing. "Are you calling us liars, you little snot?"
"Anger, please!" hissed Joy. She leaned against the door once again. "What do you mean?" she asked, genuinely confused.
With bravado of absolute victory the girl declared, "Everybody knows you guys don't really have a Mommy or Daddy!"
Joy pulled away, frowning. She looked to her companions, all looking equally as hurt. "Well... that cut deeper than expected," Joy said moments later.
Then Sadness burst into tears. "She's right!" wailed the Emote. "We're ORPHA-HA-HANS!"
Disgust stomped forward, placing herself protectively in front of the sniffling Sadness, glaring fiercely. "Hey! That was very rude, you know! I mean, I know you're just a kid and you don't know any better, but saying things like that can really hurt people's feelings. I demand an apology!" Disgust spoke with all the authority of a teenage babysitter.
"But the others shouldn't care. Emotions don't have other feelings." The girl declared it as if she were an expert on the subject.
It was Fear who stepped up, his brows pushing down above his eyes. "I can contradict that," he said, holding up a finger.
Anger appeared beside him, fractures glowing across his head. "Same here, 'cause I'm feeling sad that I'll have to burn our way through this door and throw the brat on a one way ticket back to where she came from."
"Wait, no!" Sadness desperately pushed her way in front of Anger, both hands shaking, gently squeezing his shoulders. "We can't, Anger, please, she's just a little kid."
"That kid," he jammed a finger past Sadness's ear, at the door behind her, "is a pain!"
"You're a fat head!" came a muffled taunt, fluttery giggles coming after.
Anger stood, stricken, processing what the child called him. He broke into snarls and mutterings under his breath moments later, and whirled to stomp away. "If I don't get any friggin' sleep 'cause of this brat," he shouted, "I'm blamin' you!"
The teardrop sighed, her shoulders sagging.
It was as Anger was halfway down the ramp, unwilling to play these games anymore with this troublesome child, did he freeze midstep when she suddenly called out, "Riley is so lucky to have you!"
Anger, somehow, could sense it was genuine. It at least peeked his interest enough to have him turn back, a rueful smirk tugging at his lips. It wasn't every day somebody praised his work. "Really now?"
"Yeah," said the child, turning despondent. "My Anger isn't very good. The other kids, and grownups too, they like to do bad things to me. I'd try to get angry to try and fight them off, but I just..." Her trailing words were like frostbite, cold, slow, and painful to the skin.
The Emotions stared at the brick, partly stunned, partly intrigued to watch him react. His gaze bounced to each of them, apprehension in his rigid posture, as he was reaching for words. "Um, uh... I'm sorry to hear that, kid," he called out awkwardly. "I... can't really tell your Anger to do his job though. I mean, I don't... think I can?" He shook his head, lowering it into his palm.
Sadness stared at him pityingly, then looked to the door with much the same gaze. "I'm really sorry to hear that. Those people who hurt you must be awful."
"And disgusting," the green Emote added. "You should tell those jerks what you think of them, hon. Get them to back off."
"I can't," the child confessed.
Joy cooed sympathetically. "Awe, don't feel like that! I know it seems tough, but take it from me, sometimes, you gotta push back a little!" She looked to Anger, whose arms were folded, and he nodded in agreement. There was still an unease clear in his stony face, and it seemed that he was hugging himself a bit too tightly. He never heard of an actual Anger who outright failed to do his job, after all. The idea was a sobering one, for sure.
"But I just can't," the child confessed, oddly robotic in tone. "I can't be mad, or disgusted, or sad for others or even afraid. I'm only ever happy. I... I don't like it."
An uncomfortable air befell Headquarters, an unspoken, lingering sense of deja vu weighing heavy. The others refused to meet Joy's eyes when she glanced to each of them, but purposely skipping over Sadness. Regret, shame, was written on each of their faces. Too many old wounds, not enough time to heal yet. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to keep her tone peppy as Joy asked, "And... do you have any idea what happened to your Emotions? Your Joy, she... she must be pretty lonely up in... her Headquarters."
She spoke as if confessing to squashing a mosquito. "They all left me."
"What?" Joy breathed. The seconds ticked by without answer. She thought she didn't hear her. "Little girl?"
"...But we'll talk more about this later. Riley's waking up."
Joy still had a million and one questions. "Wha-!? Wait, little girl!"
"Bye-bye!"
The darkness seemed to leave Headquarters, lighting it with a grey din from outside. But Joy seemed not to notice, as she continued pounding on the door, calling out to the child but to little avail. As the ramp beneath her feet trembled, her teammates stampeding down it, Joy released the knob and stepped back, prepared to ram the door with all her might...
...only for the door to creak open the instant she let go. Perplexed, Joy looked down at her two hands. "Wha-?" she breathed, turning them over. Was my hand on the knob this whole time? Or... no? Was it? She lifted her gaze, almost reluctantly so. A chilling thought came that made her particles go cold: Was it ever even locked?
Joy shook her head, ran her knuckles across her eyes. No, no she knew what she felt. That door, the click it made when she tried turning the knob told her that it was definitely locked. The girl, she must have... she unlocked it, before leaving... there, there, that was the only explanation...
"Joy!" came Anger's voice. "You comin'? You need to see this!"
"Yeah... coming."
Joy watched the crypt-stillness of their living quarters, searching, listening as her teammates mutterings rolled out into the emptiness of Headquarters.
She found herself abandoned.
The darkness of their living complex did not at all seem inviting. Joy peered into it, where she knew a little girl was lost and hiding, somewhere. There was an encroaching eeriness now that she, for once, was not eager to jump into. Especially with a mysterious child hiding somewhere. Was their home always this creepy? Joy felt something inside, something she rarely felt, but only experienced the grip it had clenched on her stomach when Riley was in a lot of trouble.
No, she couldn't be, not with this. It's just a child, it's just a child.
But Joy's feet stayed planted before the doorway. She stretched her neck out, listening, and mumbled one, single word into the darkness...
"Hello?"
"Hey Joy! You gotta see this!"
Joy gave a startled gasp, then sighed, a hand pressing into her breast. "Oh, Anger..." Though she was ashamed to even consider it, the prospect of looking for that creepy little girl alone was one she would readily put off to the side, if only for a few moments to collect herself.
With a renewed bounce in her step, Joy bounded down the ramp and skipped over to the windows, where her teammates were standing. "What's up guys?"
"What's up?" Disgust scoffed. She pointed forward. "Look, Joy! How did you miss this?"
Narrowing them playfully, Joy's eyes glanced ahead and widened slightly at the phenomenon outside. Before them, an abyss of grey. The outer space of Riley's mind swirled and writhed like smoke trapped in a clear jar. A sea of white mist had covered it. "A brainstorm?" she voiced. "But Riley's asleep."
"Couldn't be," said Anger. He pointed out. "Look, the Train of Thought's right over there, dropping off today's daydreams."
Before them came the shadow of the train snaking up through the fog on tracks that faded in several feet ahead of it. It was chugging along until it made an abrupt stop, brakes screeching loud enough to be heard through the glass. It was perhaps not even a couple dozen yards off the window where their faces were pressed against the glass.
"Why'd it stop?" wondered Sadness.
"Maybe they're having a bit of an issue," Joy suggested.
Anger watched the shadow frozen in time, drinking in the sight of the fog swirling about it. Aside from the Emotions' breathing, there was total silence. "This is pretty cool," he said.
"Pretty spooky, if you ask me," muttered Fear.
The other Emotions had to silently agree with their paranoid friend. It was a strange enough occurrence that the Train of Thought had just stopped for no reason, in the middle of a brainstorm without even knowing Riley had woken up. But with this little girl scampering around Headquarters...
There was an unspoken feeling between the rest of the Emotions, that something was wrong. Very wrong.
The Train of Thought seemed totally abandoned, no part of it even showing a sign of life. That is, until, there was movement between the cars. "Mind workers!" Joy hissed, pointing at them against the glass as if no one else could see. Indeed, among the deck and hidden in the rolling mist, silhouettes of the jellybean-shaped denizens could be seen. The familiar outlines of the Emotions' friendly coworkers moved about quietly...
...hurriedly.
Fear pushed himself away from the glass. Something about this felt... something, somehow, was wrong. He didn't know how, but the anticipation of some looming threat was real, almost palpable through the glass. His stomach clenched into itself.
Slowly, the others began to feel it too.
"Are they stuck?" Disgust squinted, pressing her forehead harder into the glass to get a better look. "I can't tell if they're stuck."
"Should we go out there?" asked Sadness, folding her hands as if washing them of her anxiety. "We could throw some rope, or..."
Though the Emotions couldn't see the Train's crew entirely, their features masked in the fog swirling all around, the urgency, the frantic beat as they jumped from car to car, throwing various trinkets too far and small to discern, was evident. Joy pressed her ear to the window; on a normal day she could hear the Islands of Personality go off from a mile away, but the apparent yells of the mind workers so close by... there was nothing. Could the fog be so thick, that their words were unable to even penetrate it?
Anger cupped his hands around his mouth. "HEY!" he yelled, waving his arms. "HEY! You guys need any HELP!?" His words rang in the hollowness of Headquarters. When it seemed they did not reach them, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled louder, "YOU THERE! WE ASKED IF YOU GUYS NEEDED ANY-!"
The gloom was pierced by a geyser of purple flame erupting from the engine, tailed sharply by a crack of thunder. The explosion sent Anger tumbling forward onto one knee as the rest were thrown to the ground.
At once Joy reached out and gathered Sadness and Disgust into herself, turned her back to the calamity so they wouldn't see it, and she could lower her head to their's so she would not have to witness it as well.
As the vibrant flames consumed the cars one at a time Anger looked on in horror, his mouth moving up and down without words. He watched the violet fires consume the locomotive, as the figures of the mind workers leap from it, engulfed, making the horrifically long drop into the Memory Dump below. Others were consumed by the flames. Some lucky enough to be in the caboose tried balancing on the tracks, but a second explosion in the middle of the train knocked them off balance, and sent the rest spiraling into the insatiable beast the was the Memory Dump.
"Oh my God! Oh, God! Oh Riley! Oh my, Oh God!" Fear cursed over and over as he paced back and forth, clawing at the sides of his head, unable to look away from the calamity unfolding before them. Screaming, groaning, aflame, the Train of Thought cried under its own dilapidating weight. The tracks beneath it began to flicker in and out.
A massive violet fireball burst from the front of the locomotive, followed half a heartbeat later by its thunderous report that sent all of Headquarters trembling. The Train of Thought flew apart in a grand explosion that threw violet light deep into the fog, that made their ears all ring in pain. Flaming debris scattered, some further into the mist. The dead husk of the train fell lazily into the Memory Dump, joining its forsaken crew.
A shuddering breath, there was silence. The five Emotions lifted their heads, slowly, fearing another calamity looming right above their heads. There was nothing. No, no sounds, no moans or screams. The Train was gone. It was gone.
They looked around, at each other, trying silently to grasp what they had just seen, the horror they had witnessed. Joy looked down as her two companions peeled themselves off of her dress. Sadness's face was soaked, but Disgust looked no better, her breaths short and quick, and her eyes wider than they've ever been, looking ready to burst at once. Not knowing what else to do, Joy leaned back in and hugged them both, tight. Neither of the little girls gave protest.
"We... We can't just not do something! We need to help them!" Anger cried, his voice a twist of shock and worry.
"Joy!" squeaked Fear. "Joy!" He dropped to his knees in front of his female coworkers, peeled the star's arms away from around the shivering forms of Sadness and Disgust. Sadness, deprived of comfort, hugged herself and quietly wept into her turtleneck. Disgust lifted her eyes, taking a deep breath, glancing to each of her friends in startled bewilderment.
"Joy," shivered Fear, gripping her shoulders. "Come on, Joy. Snap out of it! We, We need a plan, we need one of your plans, Joy!"
Plan... At the word, Joy remembered her duties, the first being to Riley, and the second to her friends. She hopped back to her feet, ready to be the leader. Though her usual pep was absent, leaving merely a hollow face searching the foggy sea beyond Headquarters.
"Joy?" came the soft, empathetic voice of the teardrop. "Joy, are... are the mind workers okay? Are they going to be alright?"
"Anger, come with me," she said, beckoning the nodding Emote. "We'll need to make some calls. Abstract Thought, Maintenance, Inductive Reasoning. Everybody with a pair of hands needs to help get those survivors out of the Memory Dump, ASAP."
"Survivors?" Fear squeaked, as if trying to understand the word. "Survivors!? There are no survivors from that, Joy! None!" To his hysterical words, Sadness began to weep loudly.
Intentionally ignoring them both, Joy pointed to the still-shocked form of Disgust. "Try and find that little girl. We need to make sure she's safe. Take Sadness with you, the girl seemed to have liked her."
She felt a tugging on the hem of her dress. Joy glanced down and found the blue Emote sadly gazing, face running and snuffly. "Joy... the Train, what about the Train?"
Cruel it may have seemed, but Joy looked away from Sadness with no love or comfort to offer, lest she break down right beside her and be of no help to anybody. "Fear, call up the train station. We need to let them know what happened, and what they can do about a new Train of Thought."
Fear did not seem to have heard, he still paced back and forth, gnawing on his fingers as some sort of stress relief. Joy found his behavior more concerning than annoying. "Come on, Fear!" she desperately cried. "I need you to focus, please... call the... the train station..."
"What?" he asked, his voice just above a whisper, cased in doubt. Fear's eyes, wide and bulging, abruptly turned to meet Joy's, startling her inside. "Station?" Louder, his voice wrapped in confusion. "Joy, what station? The Train of Thought doesn't have a station..."
Joy moved to speak, but her voice became tangled in her throat, and her thoughts scattered in her mind. "Fear," she sputtered, "the, the train-"
Disgust screamed.
Joy's heart stopped, being so close to it. It immediately kicked into overdrive, pounding, pounding as she whirled around and dropped to her knees in front of Disgust. The green Emote was staring right past her, shrieking, taking another breath as the last dwindled to let out another bloodcurdling scream, and frantically another, and shorter each became as Joy cried out her name over and over again, shaking her madly by the shoulders.
"DISGUST! Disgust, what is it?! What's happening?!"
Faster than Sadness, tears welled her eyes, spilled over her cheeks, smearing her blush. One shaky finger pointed straight ahead. "The-The dream," she wept, "and, and the monitor, R-R-Riley..."
Joy stole one, timid glance behind her. It was one too many. "Oh my God!" she shrieked, horrified. Immediately she hugged Disgust into her chest. "Sadness, don't look!"
"Wha-?" She slowly started turning anyway.
"I SAID DON'T!" The harshness of her voice was enough to make Sadness freeze, trembling in place. Joy felt bad for snapping, but the urge to apologize was overridden with finding her other two friends.
Before her, Anger ran over to do the same with Fear, yanking him down harshly to his knees and squeezing him tight against his brick-shaped form, his eyes large and wild with shock as they remained drawn to the horrors in front of him. Thank you Anger, Joy thought. Oh please, don't let Fear see those, Anger. Please, please... Please, he'll never sleep again...
They had to leave. Where could they escape subjection to these horrific images? "Up the stairs!" she blurted out the instant it came to her. Disgust wasted no time in running out in front of her. Joy followed, grabbing Sadness by the hand. Obediently, her shorter friend was using her one free hand to cover her eyes. Anger ran beside them up the ramp, carrying Fear bridal-style as the nerve whimpered, covering both his eyes himself.
With the door slamming shut, they sat in total blackness. None could see the Emotion beside them, only hear, huffing, gasping, trying to comprehend what just happened. In that moment, Joy wished she could forget those horrible images ever existed. How could an eleven year old on the cusp of her teenage years be subjected to dreams like this!? How would she react in the morning, when the only thing in her mind are images of her crumbled, broken form splayed across the hockey rink, the ice beneath her running, steaming, red pouring from the deep smile in her throat... She may never want to play hockey again because of this! She might... might...
"Those Dream Production creeps," Anger rasped. "I'm goin' down there, punchin' the life outta every single one, I swear..."
"Count me in," came Disgust's voice, unusually hollow.
"No," Joy cut in, an authoritative edge to her normally-peppy tone. "No, no more senseless violence. We... We need to think. Rationally."
"Joy?"
"Alright gang," Joy said, sounding like she finally collected herself now that she was faced without that unnerving expanse of grey in front of her. I can still see the Train... "Here's the deal."
"Joy?"
She shook her head, ignoring Sadness. "We... don't know what's happening here," she said gently. "But I do feel this strange little kid has something to do with it. Weird things happened since we started talking to her."
"Joy, please."
Gritting her teeth, as they were in complete darkness, Joy turned in the direction of Sadness's voice. "What is it, Sadness?"
Quiet. Silence. A shudder ran up Joy's back. Just as she was about to repeat herself, she heard Anger's voice, gravelly and hollow, "Joy..."
"I can only talk to one person at a time!" she snapped.
"Joy..." came Disgust's voice, sounding distant and oddly timid. "Joy, Sadness didn't say anything..."
"Joy."
But Sadness was right next to her.
"Joy."
Are they deaf?
"Joy."
"Wait, Fear? Fear, are you there?" came Disgust's voice, growing louder with worry.
Anger was heard shifting around, as if feeling around for their missing friends. Didn't he carry Fear in here? "Hey, you two still alive?" he asked the darkness.
"Joy."
"Sadness is right next to me!"
"Joy."
In her ear, loud as day.
"Joy? Joy. Joy."
No one's really done a horror-based Inside Out story. There's definitely a mystery to it, a reason behind everything that's happening. It'd only be three chapters long though, shouldn't take too long. I'll see what peeps think of it, first. I'm tired though, so I'll edit out the errors and such tomorrow. I just want to get this out now. I hope you enjoyed and found it appropriately creepy. It's my first time writing horror.