Changed the cover art to something more moody that fit the tone of the story. The absolutely adorable original art was by user OhItsAubrey


Eleven Years Ago

When he opened his eyes, an encroaching darkness hugged him, faceless and unknown. He let out with a piercing shriek, and shivered as it echoed sharply throughout the vast emptiness surrounding him. His eyes darted about, trying to find a source of light; any kind, just something that had a form he could see. What was quickly founded peaked his own curiosity: an interesting structure nearby, lined with a metal track that looped and twirled and, through a series of floral-shaped whirligigs, led to a series of shelves housing blue and golden marbles. He padded over to examine them, occasionally looking back as he got closer and closer to the safety of the gorgeous little lights, afraid of something that would come out to grab and drag him back into the darkness.

As he got closer, he noticed that each orb held some sort of image within, the focus of each all being a little, squirming, pink creature, not at all like him in shape or stature. The thing was strange, almost alien in a way, but somehow, he was not unnerved by the strange being. In fact, he felt somewhat calm looking at it, as it giggled or cried in each orb, depending on the color, for some silly reason.

But what else was there to this realm? He slowly crept along the metal track, rubbing his hands together. Because clearly, someone already claimed this place as their domain. And in a place as horrible and dark such as this, this someone was probably so very scary. A swarm of bad feelings agitated his insides as his anxiety grew. Then, when he reached the end marked by a giant flower-shaped spinner, Fear saw it, and shrieked in fright: An enormous, giant, THING loomed before him, a device image not unlike the far smaller ones in the shelves, as it displayed moving images but of an endless line of fluffy white creatures with black faces hopping over a fence. What was this mysterious and strange new world? Where was he? WHO was he? And why was he here?!

Then, through the blackness, a loud and chipper voice scared the living crap out of him. "Wo-hao! A new guy!"

"GAH!" he screamed, before dropping down into a curled ball-form.

He heard a giddy set of footfalls skid to a stop in front of him, and a bright glow radiating from this assailant attacked his eyes. He squeezed them shut tighter and buried his head in his knees. "Please!" came his voice, hearing its shrill and nervous tremble for the first time. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Aw, don't be scared!" said the chipper voice. "There's nothing to fear from us!" Fear? He liked the sound of that. "I'm just Joy! And this is Sadness."

"Hello."

A second voice was most unexpected. "GAH-HAH!" Fear shrieked, leaping up into the air in a flurry of noodly limbs. "DON'T DO THAT!"

Now that he was forced out of his protective ball, Fear had to behold the two individuals of Joy and Sadness. He could easily tell who was whom by their appearance alone, and who the voice belonged to. That gloomy "hello" obviously came from the shorter girl, a pudgy blue thing with big round glasses and garbed in what Fear deemed were "comfy" clothes. The chipper voice must have come from the taller, smiley woman beside her, who glowed so bright she might as well have been a veritable star herself.

And she was barefoot.

That could be hazardous, Fear realized. But it seemed that Joy, given her demeanor and choice of clothes (as well as lack thereof in the foot department), she had not a care in the world.

"I'm sorry for scaring you like that," mumbled Sadness, eyes watery and cast to the floor. "I have a habit of being unnoticed by other people."

Fear felt a twang of pity for this girl, but greater matters plagued his mind. "Wh-What is this place?" he asked, hands rubbing together. This, he briefly pondered, was a habit he needed to break soon (if he didn't die before then anyway). "Who are you? What are WE?"

Within the next five minutes, Fear learned from these two girls about memory orbs (those glowy balls on the shelves), the Big Shiny Button in front of the screen, and that darling little creature Fear felt an odd sort of devotion towards when he saw her in the orbs. Her name was Riley, and it was Joy's duty to act as a sort of power source for her happiness.

Clearly, Joy always found something to be excited about, as, for some reason, she was happy to see this random intruder that popped into existence within her domain. Though Fear found her optimism charming, albeit a tad naive, as blissful ignorance can be a life-threatening personality trait, it would have quickly grown wearisome if Sadness's gloomy and down-to-Earth mopiness wasn't present to balance it out. She, at least, took things slow and steadily, which was a sharp contrast to Joy's bubbly and enthusiastic approach to everything that came her way. However, Sadness's purpose in Riley's life was much less grand or meaningful than Joy's, as she only made the girl cry.

Fear didn't understand why that would ever be useful, but, despite only being a couple minutes old, he prided himself as being a rational and wise individual, and assumed he would understand the "point" of crying in due time.

That brought forth another question from him. "Then... why am I here?"

Joy rubbed her chin in thought. "Hmm, that's a good question. I didn't even know there was supposed to be more of us!"

More!? Fear shuddered at the thought. The image of more than just the three of them living together in this scary-dark place put his nerves on edge. Here's hoping the others will be as pleasant and helpful as these two were.

Suddenly, a cooing moan shuddered across the darkness around them, and Fear gasped in unexpected terror. "What was that!?" he hissed, biting his fingers.

Joy looked over to the right, at the giant monitor leering over the Big Shiny Button. "Riley's awake," she said, smiling broadly as she skipped her way to the console. Sadness followed, but Fear stayed rooted in place, feeling safer with watching the screen from afar. It was no longer a looping image of white fluffs vaulting a fence, but instead, of a ceiling darkened with shadows, and a mobile hanging overhead several orbs of colors called "planets," had taken over. It spun lazily in the din.

It was an unsettling sight for Fear, there were so many new and strange things to take in at once. Only when Joy looked back and excitedly waved him over, did he join the pair.

"What is this?" he asked.

"It's the middle of the night," explained Sadness. "Something must have woken Riley up. Probably a shadow or a noise."

Fear sensed needles prickled his lower back. "Y-You don't k-know?" he shuddered. "Where are the parents you told me about?"

"Probably asleep in their room," said Joy, still grinning. "This is cool though! We're finally alone, and we can do whatever we want!"

Was this fairy-thing insane!? "Something woke Riley up and you don't even care what it is?"

Joy's face fell. "Uh... Well... I-I guess, when you put it that way-"

She didn't get a chance to finish; driven by purely frantic energy Fear threw himself on top of the button and pressed both hands on it, pushing it down dozens of times in rapid succession and never taking his massive eyes off the screen. Though it seemed like he knew what he was doing, in truth he was unsure of what it would do, but hoped the Big Shiny Button will somehow alert Mom and Dad that their child needed attention.

From the monitor, Riley let out a loud whine, trailing off into a couple nervous whimpers. Fear tensed at a pair of hands gripping him gently by the shoulders, and pulling him away from the Big Shiny Button. "O-kay, Fear," said Joy, straining to sound patient as Fear madly struggled against her, "you don't need to make Riley scream and be unhappy. One of us has already got that covered." Fear

"Wait, Joy, look!" Sadness pointed at the monitor, and both Fear and Joy quit their squabbling and directed their attention towards it.

Mom rushed into her daughter's vision, a concerned look on her face, despite her bedclothes looking ragged and her hair a tangled mess. "Oh, Riley baby, what's wrong?" cooed Mom, plucking Riley from her crib. She bounced her in her arms a little, shushing as Riley's moans slowly died down at the rate Fear of moving his fingers away from the console.

Mom hummed a little, and smiled tiredly down on Riley. "You've nothing to be afraid of, little monkey," she said. "We'll always be here for you."

Fear stared dumbly, entranced by the whole display the moment Mom first came into the room at the sound of her daughter's cries of terror, so much so the he didn't even notice Joy had released him and was giving an apologetic look. Those last words especially rang loud in Fear's nonexistent ear-holes:

'I'll keep you safe, Riley,' he thought. 'I'll keep you safe from all the scary things in the world. I promise.'


Eleven Years Later; Six Days after Incident

Fear woke up screaming and tangled in his bedsheets. He fought and writhed against his binds, the lingering dredges of sleep tricking him into believing they were restraints to his person. When Fear awakened fully, his button-down cotton pajama shirt and pants were drenched in the sweat of his night terrors. He groaned when his wits returned to him, cringing at their cloying sogginess.

Nightmares were every night of Fear's life. They were why he had numerous sets of pajamas, and clouds imported from Imagination Land covering his walls, so they would muffle his shrieks and not disturb his coworkers. They were why he had a tea kettle on his bedside, so he could have a warm, soothing cup of chamomile that would help return him to slumber the three-four times he awoke during the night.

But this particular nightmare bothered Fear. No, no, it didn't scare him, it was just a dream after all, as both Joy and Anger (in their own special ways) had made it clear that dreams aren't real and couldn't hurt him. But this one in particular really frayed his nerves and sent him over the edge, to where he couldn't help but find their images bloodcurdling.

Even in the "Awake World" he could still hear her voice. Why didn't you protect me? she moaned, in some dingy Minnesota alley that smelled of filth and degeneracy. You could have stopped this, you coward. The sickness ailing had taken away her strength, and rendered her voice a faint whisper. Fear, in the nightmare, didn't know what to do, except hold her to his chest and clutch her hand in his. It made no sense, as most fantasies didn't, but the weight of his failure literally sagging in his arms, dead and grey, was all too real a fear of his already. To see it manifest as something that felt as real as a nightmare, it rendered sleep in of itself as yet another thing to be afraid of.

Fear sat in his bed, remembering the way she smiled and laughed. It took a minute of convincing himself that Riley still smiled and laughed, and what happened in the nightmare was simply that, a nightmare, before Fear's breathing returned to normal, and his nonexistent heart slowed to the usual tempo of ninety beats per minute. Then he locked the nightmare away into a dark corner of his mind, knowing but ignoring its inevitable return later that night.

Or maybe not, he thought, getting out of bed and unbuttoning his shirt. Dream duty tonight. Never in his life did Fear think he would be happy to have dream duty, until after the Incident of course. In his mind, Joy's words echoed truer than ever.


Another day at the office.

That's the thought Fear always had, every day when he would wake up and emerge from the Emotions' shared living quarters, and from the top of the ramp he would briefly survey the rest of his coworkers going about their morning routine as Riley did her's. Yet, not too long ago, Fear would quietly echo the thought in his head with a bit of satisfaction, a content feeling that what he and his friends had was something to take small amounts of joy in. After all, it was Happiness Incarnate who always chirped, "It's the little things in life that makes the world go round!"

Fear would see Anger reading his paper with Sadness sitting on the couch, Disgust putting on makeup and Joy bouncing at the controls. It would be yet another typical day in the life of Riley Andersen, and for that, Fear has founded no greater pleasure.

But now, he saw Anger plopped down on the couch, no copy of The Mind Reader in sight, bitter and cranky, tired, with his mouth twisted in a grimace and dark rings underneath his eyes. Fear made a mental note to stay out of his way today. And probably until the end of time, just to be safe. Disgust, for once, did not have her nose in a makeup kit, and was standing by herself near the window overlooking the Islands of Personality, arms folded to her chest. Only Joy and Sadness seemed to be doing their jobs, standing by the console, but closer inspection revealed to Fear that such a thing was just too fantastical to be true:

"Joy," mumbled Sadness, her somber drawl carrying throughout the vast hollowness of Headquarters, "Mom got us a box of 'Frosted Corn Flakes' for breakfast. That's Riley's favorite."

"I dunno, Sadness," said Joy, placing a hand to her chin like she were pondering a life or death situation. "I mean, it still is Riley's favorite cereal, I mean, she's pouring herself a bowl right now." She gestured to the screen, where, Riley was, in fact, pouring herself a bowl of those sugar-coated cavity flakes. "But am I really needed? Does Riley have to be super stoked to eat this cereal? I mean, c'mon, Sadness, it's cereal." She pressed a single button, just to make Riley gain some satisfaction, then chuckled to herself.

"Are you alright, Joy?" asked Sadness.

"Great! Why?" Joy smiled down at her, hands clasped behind her yellow dress. From where Fear stood, it looked genuine. Then again, he wasn't standing very close.

"You just seem a little upset and out of sorts today. Do you want to talk again?"

She offered a hand, and a glance to the couch, but Joy just brushed it away with a flick of her hand. "Aw, c'mon Sadness! It's cereal! I'm fine, really! I've been fine the past two days, just stop worrying yourself over me." She ended with a wink, and a friendly pat on the back to Sadness.

"Alright," Sadness said at once. No pressing, no argument. If you wanted to talk, Sadness let it come naturally. She never tried grilling someone for a confession.

Maybe that's part of the problem, Fear thought, eyeing Joy. He felt like sighing, but couldn't muster the energy to even do that. Another day at the office. He went to go craft himself a mug of Morning Joe.

As he stood in the kitchen, pouring his coffee, something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. The waste bin sitting by his leg was full of letters, unopened. Fear's mind flooded with flashes of all the love Sadness had gotten, and the hate that Joy endured. Unable to resist the pull of curiosity, he carefully picked through the trash. Several letters were addressed to him. Fear did not need his imagination to picture what they all said.

He took every single one, folded them into a stack with one of many rubber bands he always carried, and tucked them into his pocket.

When he stepped out of the kitchen, everybody else was at the console. Fear silently took his place at the end of their old work station beside Disgust. No one seemed to acknowledge his presence. Up on the screen, Riley spooned cereal into her mouth, occasionally putting her silverware down to take a sip of orange juice. At the same time, Fear sipped his coffee, savoring its earthy-creamy taste.

The perfect pick-me-up, he thought, content.

From the corner of his eye, his teammates all stood at their stations.

Clang, Riley's spoon twanged lightly against the porcelain bowl.

Not doing anything.

Clang.

Just watching Riley.

Clang.

And none of them were smiling.

Clang.

It dawned on Fear, and he couldn't resist the painful urge to cringe: they were all standing in a dreaded awkward silence. His heart twisted and churned to what it said, yet he lacked the nerve to break it. Some small, sad part of him wanted to see how long this would last.

Not for long, however, as Joy seemed to take notice as well, and she always liked to make noise when none was happening. "So! How did everybody sleep?" Fear finally did cringe, at the forced pep in her tone.

"Good," answered Sadness.

Anger's voice was lower than it has ever been. "Fine."

Disgust flipped her hair, seemingly the only one still in character. "Like a baby."

Fear had the sneaking suspicion that everybody was lying, so he simply said, "As well as everybody else," and reveled pathetically in his cleverness.

Joy smiled. "Great! Now, let's get ready for another fun-tabulous day!" She pumped her fists in the air. No one ever mimicked her, though on occasion Fear would attempt to, but he could never even come close to matching her energy.

Today was one of the days he didn't try, which would be normal on a typical morning, but there was an underlying layer of tension hovering over everybody's head that just seemed to grow denser the more Joy tried to worm her way into it.

Fear looked down at his hands, and noticed the liquid in his mug shivering from his trembling hand. He took a sip of coffee. It was going to be a long day.

"So, Fear, that sure was a lot to get off your chest!"

A really, long, day. "Huh? What?" Fear asked dumbly, hoping by some unlikely miracle that Joy was referring to something else.

"Your interview with The Mind Reader!" she said. Joy put on a wry smile. "So it was you who gave Riley that idea, right?"

Fear's stomach plummeted into the Memory Dump and his own Train of Thought gleefully posed to join it. He had no idea whether Joy was trying to rub it in, or she was just making conversation. Fear instantly deemed that a ridiculous thought; anything regarding the unfortunate Incident will never simply be just mere "conversation." It was just one of those ugly, unspoken rules that leered over everybody's mind, but didn't want to acknowledge it.

After all, Riley was, for all intents and purposes, her baby girl, and from Joy's perspective it was Fear who almost ruined her life. But does she believe that? Does she still care? It was distressing to no end, how unreadable Joy could be at times. It drove Fear up a wall, and worse, he never even thought of how Joy would react to his false revelations on that stupid Mind Reader interview. He was so concerned with what Disgust and Anger would do to him.

That, he felt, was unfair and mean to Joy.

At the opposite end of the console, Anger was leaning over and looking to him with widened eyes. In front of Fear, right in his face with her back to everybody else, was Disgust. Her arms were folded, probably for appearance's sake, some sane part of his frazzled mind chimed in, yet her face that only he could see shared the likeness of curdled milk.

"Uh..." He tried looking above her, past her head, Sadness's, and into Joy's eyes, but his gaze kept falling onto that soft, anxiety and makeup-laden face. She deserves to know the truth, said one part of his mind, countered by another, But do you want Joy to be mad at Disgust and Anger?

He blinked to himself. That's ludicrous, Joy can't be angry. It was sound logic, and Fear felt a sort of obligation, a duty, to disclose the truth with his closest friend, his first friend. The one who was his veritable boss, for crying out loud! Yet, in spite of that, Fear's mind wandered back to the night before, how Anger didn't punch his lights out, and Disgust actually seemed genuinely grateful for his discretion.

In that instant his mind was set: he wanted more of that. Selfishness won out and Fear never looked back. "You're... not mad about it?" he replied, making sure to sound uneasy, so as to cover up for his hesitance to answer.

Joy let out a "pssht" and waved her hand in dismissal. "Aw, c'mon, Fear! I thought that was great, you trying to make Riley happy in case I never made it back to Headquarters." Joy gave an animated shrug. "Yeah, sure, a bit hair-brained and, no offense, heh, not your best idea, but hey! We were all a bit under pressure with everything going on, am I right?" No one replied, not that Joy cared. Then she took a step back and gestured to Disgust and Anger. "And you two! You guys are so sweet, keeping silent to protect Fear. You guys are such great friends!" Disgust and Anger nodded, the former uneasily and the latter hollow as a ghoul. Joy skipped over and slung an arm around Fear's shoulders. He squeaked as she pulled him close, his cheek squashing against her's. "Who knew our own resident worrywart could be so brave though! Am I right?!"

Anger nodded, grinning toothily. "Uh, yeah, he's..." the brick rubbed the back of his head, and cast his gaze to the floor. "...quite the guy." He refused to meet Fear's eyes for the rest of the day.

Disgust had her back to him, as she was facing Joy, but the nerve had a feeling she briefly shot Anger one of her typical, "Did you really just say that?" looks she normally sent in Fear's direction whenever he said something awkward or dumb. But when Joy beamed in her direction, Disgust did what Fear expected her to and gave her best, lazy shrug. "Eh, it's whatever. Those Mind Reader guys shouldn't have expected us to squeal on one another like a couple of backstabbers."

Fear wondered if that was a discreet bout of gratitude from her to him, or a warning. The unknown prickled him crazy. "So, Fear," Joy clasped her hands behind her back, "when you gave Riley the idea to run away, was it you who also made her steal Mom's credit card? Didn't think you had it in you!"

Fear blanked. Not even The Mind Reader asked him about that. He should have known it would come up soon, but hoped in at least a couple more days when Mom and Dad finally confronted Riley about it first. His eyes flitted briefly across the console to Anger, where the Emotion's eyes were staring blankly at the buttons glowering in front of him.

"Uh..."

"Ooh! Ooh! Tell me about Honesty Island, because Anger's interview never told us how that one fell apart! I want to heart it!"

Fear's particles began to frizzle. "Well, when that happened, I..." His words died in his throat, he just couldn't take his eyes off Joy's smile. It didn't look right. It wasn't a "Joy Smile," bright and excited, it was a thin smile, an impatient one, the kind she always used to wear whenever she was dealing with Sadness. For the first time ever, Fear was actually a little bit unnerved by Joy.

Well, second time ever. But that was eleven years ago. He didn't even have the mind to ponder why Joy was more interested in catechizing him about this than focusing on Riley. He needed to answer. "Well, ah, Joy, when Honesty Island fell apart, Riley-"

"Hey, here's an idea!" came a gravelly voice. Fear sighed in relief as everyone turned and saw Anger waddling over, carrying in his hands a purple and gold-colored memory orb, one of those new "mixed memories" that have been springing up over the last couple days. Fear looked at its swirling colors of his own and Joy's, and felt a stab of guilt in his stomach. He washed it down with more coffee.

Anger handed the orb to Joy for inspection. "How about we ask Mom or Dad if we can take that Alcatraz tour?" he suggested.

And on a dime it was like old times again:

"Ooh, that sounds awesome!" Joy bounced on her heels, eyeing the orb.

Fear thought about it and shivered. "Gee, I hope there are no ghosts!"

"Or cobwebs," Disgust muttered, shivering herself.

"The boat will probably sink and we'll all die," Sadness moaned.

"Aw, c'mon guys! It'll be fun!" said Joy.

Disgust let one arm slack at her side, and nodded. "Yeah, it would be actually."

"As long as we stay with the group," said Fear, though he knew Riley would go off exploring, Goofball Island flaring brightly.

Joy turned the orb in her hands, still looking into it. "Yeah, this sounds fun."

No one spoke another word, and after replaying the little exchange inside his head, Fear suddenly felt lightheaded and very, very dizzy, feeling another feinting episode was coming on. Talk about deja vu... When was the last time something normal happened? Over a week ago?

And it seemed the rest felt the exact same way; a hesitant, almost worried look briefly crossed everybody's face.

"Yeah, this looks great!" Joy insisted, holding up the twin-colored orb. "Spooky and fun, a whole day to take our mind off things!"

Silence again. Fear felt his stomach hollowing. 'To take our mind off things,' she said. Joy's not stupid. She knows we're all jacked up, and yet...

...yet no one wants to say it out loud. Should I?

He thought for a nanosecond. Fear took a sip of coffee.

It's going to be a long day, another day at the office.


I really wanted to write more, but this chapter has gotten long enough as it is (almost 4,000 words). This one was honestly a pain, because I really had no idea what to write after Fear got out of bed. Luckily, that means (hopefully) nothing's blocking me from writing the next chapter, when Fear has Dream Duty and he finally starts interacting with Disgust.

Thanks to everybody who gave this a favorite and review! I know this story is going to gain quite a bit of notice. Please tell what you thought in a nice, long review.