"I think I've lost my audience," the tall girl exclaimed in a soft whisper, looking at a tall ivory tower in the distance. She held a chisel against a block of marble taller than her form, her breathing slowed and focused, and lightly tapped the head of the chisel with her hammer. In a puff of dust and stone, the marble crumbled and left behind the rough shape of a girl holding a hockey stick in both hands. She repeated the actions with the other two blocks, both slightly larger than the first, and got a man surrounded by prototypes and a woman holding an office clipboard, all in as rough a form as the girl.
Alice stepped away from the Andersen statues, her automatonophobia suppressed by her desire to complete her dreaming work as accurately as possible. She looked at the ground beneath her, where still memories of each member of Riley's family lazily rolled about, each one from a different angle, each one golden with a tinge of blue. As she picked one up, a scream echoed throughout her mind, distorting the reality around her to almost reveal the craggy landscape that made the actual ground of her mental World.
"What is going on up there?" the girl asked into the air, ignoring the blue dressed boy who was now shaking behind her. She stared in the direction of the ivory tower that was in reality Headquarters, keeping both ears trained for any more noise emanating from behind its walls. When no such sounds came, Alice turned back to her work, smoothing out the roughness of the statues and giving them detail and the appearance of her friend's family. She was about to finish with Riley's gapped teeth with a large, white beacon erupted from Headquarters, causing her hand to slip and break the upper-middle-left incisor.
Frustrated, Alice turned toward the tower a third time, muttering to herself that someone up there was going to be unfelt for tomorrow, and took notice of the previously unseen Island between her and Headquarters. Confused, curious and amazed, the silver haired girl analyzed the details on the floating structure, the three statues, the random, curiosity-inducing objects, the various fantastical things and machines that asked to be investigated and accepted.
ACCEPTED…
ACCEPTANCE…
The words echoed in Alice's dream-head, reverberating their meaning all over the mind. She recognized what the Island was before and what it was then; the curiosity that once filled her in her childhood before she became frightened at her true self and denied it, and the changes that lead her to now accept the truth, the knowledge of the fantastical, and go on living alongside those who also accept her. Allowing herself a small smile, the silver haired girl decided turn toward an ice rink her mind had formed long ago, opting to finish the statues later on.
-3-
Headquarters was in chaos!
One minute, Riley Andersen was sitting down across from Sadness as they discussed Riley's effect on Alice, the next; she's taken by a portal to the City with no one being able to follow.
By the console, Anger sat next to Disgust, the red Emotion plotting out a Search and Rescue mission that would most likely never be implemented as her hair lit up in a half-meter flame. The green Emotion simply stared at her companion's exaggerated motions in disbelief of her extravagant and energy intensive ideas that would put Fear's to shame. She almost wanted to say something, but kept quiet out of kindness toward her peers.
On the other side of Headquarters, where the Core Memory Module resided, Fear was attempting to pull out the renewed Acceptance Core Memory from its slot, but found his efforts futile, as the Module rose a barrier every time the spindly Emotion got close. A few moments ago, Sadness had left to search the Mind Manuals for the probable reasons as to why the Module behaved like that, but suggested that it was what Alice truly wanted.
"Fear," Anger called, her flame dying down, "do you want to end up being thrown in the Dump by that thing?" Her purple companion froze with a pole in hand, body warped to look as though the world had motion blur on an extreme level. Slowly, Fear turned to meet Anger's eyes, a heavy dose of panic already burning his veins.
"W-w-what?" Fear asked through petrified teeth, his body slowly loosening itself into a limp doll.
"Well, look at it this way; our new window is still in the making. If the Module were to rotate where in a half-circle, given where Wonder…"
"Acceptance," Sadness corrected as she read a note left among the pages of the "Personality Islands Vol. 63: Living with Multiple Personalities via Mutually Shared Realm-Space within the Same Mental Dimension" Mind Manual.
"Thank you, Sadness," Anger politely said through grating teeth. "… Acceptance Island's Core Memory is, and if you were to charge at it and get repulsed by that barrier, you'd end up falling into the Dump with nothing to save you!" By the end of her sentence, the brick's head had a two meter high inferno dancing like a mad demon, which vanished into nothing as she walked up to Fear, who cowered like a child beneath a large tormentor. Calming down, the red Emotion continued, "Look, we shouldn't even be pulling stuff out of there, not unless we want Alice to recall those specific moments of her life.
"What we should focus on is what the hell happened a few minutes ago. How did Riley end up in here?" She turned to face Sadness, "and why are you reading a Personality Island Mind Manual, Honey? Shouldn't you be looking at 'Mental Realms and Dimension Vol. 3'?"
"Know that one by heart, Anger," Sadness responded while glancing at a spot in Headquarters the Emotions had come to know as "Spawn Point", given the fact that that was where the majority of them manifested. There, underneath the second fork on the Memory Shelves, just before the first rabbit, existed a soft, blue glow with a yellow core, a glow so dim, Sadness had to focus intensely to see it. "I'm actually following up on something interesting I saw in Personality Islands Vol. 62: Dissociation."
"And what might that be, Darling?"
"Extremes," the tear-like Emotion answered as she pulled the note out of the Manual and urged everyone to the middle of the room. Once everyone was there, she began forming a plan. "Alright, here's how we're saving Joy and Riley.
"Anger," the red Emotion saluted, "When we wake up at oh-five-thirty, you're to place this Idea," Sadness presented a gray bulb to the group," into the slot. Once set, Alice will be running solely on the City. Once we're there, take to the air. Fear," she called before the nervous Emotion could ask anything, "You'll be on the rooftops. If you need to go across anything, grow wings to do so. Stay close. Disgust," the mentioned Emotion imitated her red companion, "since you and Joy have the same architectural manipulation abilities in the City, you're to manifest a wall far larger than any structure there."
"What are you gonna do?" Anger asked, feeling a familiar sensation that no one had felt since Alice was nine months old. She waited as Sadness looked past her, toward Spawn Point, and gestured to a silent swirl of yellow particles. Everyone not angled to see it turned to face it, looks of surprise plastering themselves on Fear, Anger and Disgust's faces.
"I'm going to look for our friend with the new Joy, isn't that right?" The swirl coalesced, a black, grey and white long-sleeve shirt and black jeans forming around the particles as about four percent of them turned dark blue and formed hair and irises, some turned white to finish the eyes and the rest formed the body. Her hair fell down to her neck in a fringed bob cut, some strands turning silver as she stepped forward, tired yet energetically exuberant, and her eyes showed a lazy splendor that filled the room with a strange, mystical, whimsical energy that the new Emotion seemed to hide behind a laid back demeanor.
As the new Emotion approached the gathered ones, most of whom were stuck in a perplexed trance, Disgust broke the pregnant silence as she once again let voice pass through her lips.
"What the f-?"
-3-
"-un, right?" Andre the Dream Actor asked Alice as the silver haired girl glided across the rink, a pink drink in his hand. The Blue-dressed Mind Worker watched as the towering girl twirled, leaped, figure-eight-ed and danced to a song only she heard. Slowly, Andre saw Alice change from a tall human girl of milk white skin to an equally tall creature of pearl white fur, long ears, large wings and a long, dragon-like tail. Gone was the girl dressed in black and white, there stood a lovely dragon ready for flight.
"Maybe not for you," Alice replied to the boy's inquiry, her left arm over her head and her right one gripping the curled tip of her tail. She stood still, ready to free herself in the motions of the skate, to dance to the majesty of the song, to feel as she should've felt. There, in her dreams, she escaped her pain, her depression, her broken view of the world outside. As melodies finally played throughout the rink, the fay dragon slid across the ice, gently, slowly, gracefully.
In her ears played an acoustic song of belonging, of love, of desire, of desperation and seeking acceptance, and her motions matched the words, the feelings, hers and the singer's. The song played throughout the Mind World with how strongly it resounded in her heart and echoed to the ears of a lost girl.
-3-
Riley walked across an empty street, a wall of Light behind her, her steps light and cautious. All around her, the voices of her mind were heard echoing their feelings toward the situation, each one of them speaking of a negative and a positive. One thing was for certain, Fear hadn't said a word about "spontaneous mental implosion" or "loss of reality".
Behind her, a rumbling occurred, drawing the attention of the blonde and her Emotions. As they turned, they saw the outer five islands glow brightly in their main colors, duplicates of the floating landmasses manifesting above and a bit to the left of each of them. Every new Island was in flames, blue fires licking the air in varying intensity. It was a beautiful spectacle, a magical show, a saddening display of the wonders of the Mind. It pained the blonde and her Emotions greatly; knowing who the new Islands belonged to.
"Wait," Fear's voice echoed through the streets, "why are those Islands forming? What happened?" Riley looked around in response to the voice, taking note of the signs and shops around her, the six representing Alice's personality on her side of the Square, while four representing someone else barely visible across the Veil of Light and the Island within. She studied what she could about those four, from the blues of the signs to the motif of flames predominant on all of them. Even if she couldn't see them clearly, she could feel their meaning as she stepped backward, yet she also felt as though one was missing.
That's when she looked at Music Central's sign, white and blue with a hint of black and yellow in the right corners. On the left was a bass drum with three eighth notes on its face, a white flame crackling behind it. As she looked further away from the drum, Riley saw representations of the other classical elements forming the letters, as well as other elements. The word "MUSIC" was formed by the flame, bubbling water, cracked stone and a curved funnel cloud, giving the girl an impression of nature making songs with its various facets. Meanwhile, the word "CENTRAL" was composed of frigid ice, of sparkling bolts, of shimmering light and of overtaking darkness, filling the girl with a strange completeness as she wondered what kinds of music could that portion of the sign represented. The entire sign was surrounded by the white flame, which lowered drastically in its size as it got off the drum, but returned to its original size as it reached the other side, turning blue as it got there.
"What do you think it means?" Sadness' voice asked along the streets as Riley entered the building.
"Why don't you go check the Mind Manuals about it?" Joy's worried tone answered back as the blonde observed the many instruments.
"Check the ones involving personality; those may hold better ground," Disgust said to her blue companion as the teenager took note of a stage and a bar, where Despair stood cleaning a glass. Approaching the counter, Riley noticed how the echoes matched her thoughts somewhat; the words of what could only be her Emotions referencing the current situation. "Ugh, why is this place part tavern?"
"Well," Despair responded to the voice's inquiry, "sorry if you don't like my design. It just feels suitable." The former Emotion set the cleaned glass on the counter, beside others with similar shine, and looked at the young blonde. His particle skin was completely white, like the moon's surface, and he let his hair fall in its full length, reaching down his neck with its messy silver locks. His dark green vest now sported a neon blue trim that glowed softly in the dark, the light drowned by his blue flame, which had reduced in size.
"Wow, what happened to him?" Anger's gruff voice reverberated around the barely lit room, the vibrations affecting the nearby drums solely do to the nature of the City. Despair simply kept looking into Riley's blue eyes with his own blue and red ones. With a sigh, the former Emotion picked up another glass and looked out to the streets, where a Subconscious Figment passed by, unable to enter the local.
"So," the gray boy began, his right eye turning to Riley, "what'll it be?"
"What do you have?" the blonde asked back, not knowing if it was a good idea taking anything from the establishment. Still, she decided it was respectful to at least see what was available.
"Oh, lots of good stuff for a mind." Despair said as he turned to face her again. "There's dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline – it's sort of the coffee of the Mind World –, endorphins," he looked at the ceiling, "really, anything the body makes to make you feel good and active." Riley looked at where the gray boy stared, finding nothing on the wooden ceiling to keep any semblance of curiosity, and looked back down.
"I guess I'll take the adrenaline, with a small shot of endorphins." A realization occurred in the blonde's mind. "Aren't those hormones or something?" Despair's gaze lowered at the question, his dullened features startled as though he'd just been snapped out of a trance. He looked at the girl before him, nodding slightly before heading for a back room, leaving Riley to her thoughts and the voices of her emotions.
The blonde mused her situation; within Alice's mind, hearing voices from within herself, waiting for a drink as acoustically sad music played in the background and hoping that she could find out why Alice's Joy was in the state he was. As she thought, her Sadness returned from the Manual shelves, volumes 62 through 66 of the Personality Island Mind Manuals in slightly chubby blue hands. She handed each one to her coworkers, volume 66 in for Disgust, 65 for Fear, 64 for Anger, 63 for Joy and the 62nd one for herself, and began to read its contents as fast as she could. Having read most of the Manuals before, the blue Emotion sped through the pages she found familiar until she reached an interesting point long before anyone finished the introduction pages of their Manuals.
"Guys!" Sadness called upon confirming her finding, causing a bunch of stunned "already"s from the others. She plopped the binder onto the console, a page filled with enough words to make a person look away presented to the left of diagrams of Emotions with various elemental effects countering and cancelling with their apparent ones. "Listen to this;
"At any point in life, an Emotion or Mental Entity may become an Extreme. Extremes are special Mental Entities that are made from concentrated Aspects of a Host's Mind, such as dangerously higher than usual concentrations of an Emotion's own Energy, a personification of a Personality Island, or a Core Memory absorbed upon creation by the nearest being, that are capable of seceding and becoming their own personalities. Extremes are usually born of trauma, though they can be born of other life-changing events or deliberately made by choice of the Host, an act that puts a lot of strain onto the Mind World for the following reasons.
"First, the forceful creation of an Extreme requires the desired Aspects to be pulled from where they lay, causing structural damage to Personality Islands, Long-Term Memory, Headquarters, etc.. Second, the forceful creation of an Extreme may cause the very foundation of the Mind World to crumble. Lastly, the very act of pushing the created Extreme out of the Mind World and into its own Realm within the Mental Dimension has a chance of causing a Mental Reset, possibly destroying the original Host and leaving the new Personality to control the Host Body. Extremes, and, by extent, new personalities, made this way are usually done so as to hide the original Host.
"Extremes born of trauma, or Extremes born of life-changing events, are more than capable of leaving the Mind World to form their own Personality without causing any damage to the Mind World itself. This is due to their natural essence…"
"That's all we need to hear, Sadness," Joy interrupted as she noticed a dark glow emanating from just out of view. "Fear, tell Riley to…"
"I can hear you," the girl interrupted in a whisper, "and I'm turning to it." As she did, Disgust mumbled something about paying more attention to something while Fear spoke.
"So, Alice's Joy became an Extreme of her Sadness and is now Dissociating? Is that right, Sadness?" The mentioned Emotion nodded. "That would explain the new Islands and the establishments' co…"
Everyone in Headquarters froze at the sight of Despair standing before Riley, an empty look plastered on his face as her looked through her. The console went ashen black as static covered the edges of the Mind's Eye, all light and color in the room behind the gray boy vanishing the closer they got to his oddly bright form. Riley found herself entranced by the boy's presence, her mind dulled as his mouth opened, causing the Mind's Eye to become further consumed by the static.
Twelve hours.
The words echoed within Headquarters in many voices, some identifiable as the ghostly child's new Emotions', while the rest sounded dark, twisted and even angelically impossible.
Twelve hours from half past five.
Riley and her Emotions felt disorientated, each being feeling a different kind of discomfort as the ghastly, yet beautiful being before them spoke.
That is all we're giving you to convince us…
"Convince you of what?" the blonde asked through the blurriness, surprised at how un-slurred she spoke. A moment later the Despair in front of her turned blue, his vest changing accordingly and losing its glow.
"To convince us *o* t* d**," Despair's Sadness told the girl before vanishing, the real gray boy entering the main room with two cans, an espresso mug and a jar with a milk-like substance just a second after. As the static cleared from Riley's Eye's Mind, the gray boy took out a cup's worth of beans from the first, larger can, the beans being whitish yellow, and placed them in a grinder, setting the machine to very fine.
"So," the Once Joy began, opening the smaller can, which resembled a soda can, "how about we go to Imagination once the cost is clear? I know a shortcut we can use." He turned to Riley as the grinder finished with the grains, a light, pained smile on his features. Just as he placed a cup to collect the ground grains, the music playing stopped. "Can you press that button by your left before Alice decides on another song?" Despair asked as he leveled the grains and set the cup on an expensive looking machine.
Riley looked at the button, a single gray button on a predominantly brown wall, unsure of whether or not she should press it as was asked of her, her Fear voicing concern as to its effects. Finding reason in the voice's words, she turned back to the gray boy, who threw his emptied can of serotonin at the button without even looking away from his task. As the can fell, loud rock pulsed out of the nearby speakers, quieting down a few seconds later to allow the voice of the singer the symbolic silence her words needed. Just as the previous intensity returned, Despair handed Riley her drink in the espresso mug, its contents glowing a creamy white color.
"You know," Despair began as he pulled out a mirror from behind the grinder, a red comb manifesting in hand, "many mind workers usually come here just for that exact drink." The gray boy waited for Riley's response, untangling his blue and silver locks into a bob with a fringe. The blonde, on the other hand, took a tentative sip of her caffeine analogy, finding a pleasant kick in its sweet taste.
"Is it because of the sweetness?" her Joy asked, knowing that wasn't the reason, yet wanting to make some conversation with the Once Joy. Despair, to his credit, chuckled lightly as he grabbed a pair of scissors from a nearby cabinet and cut off most of the fringe, leaving only enough to cover his forehead.
"Nah," he replied. "That drink is like coffee mixed with thick caramel, makes you feel good and alert." He turned to the blonde as strands of his hair turned dark and continued as a nearby television whined itself to life, revealing a tall, long eared creature figure skating to the song currently playing. "In fact, a single shot of that – about as big as that teacup you're holding – in enough to trigger a sort of FoF response on some workers." As he finished, the figment outside looked toward the south and left, the Winds of Change picking up drastically as it left.
"Huh," Riley's Anger voiced in mild amusement, "guess something big is happening." The gray boy beside Riley nodded, some blue returning to his hair.
"And just as the song was ending," he remarked solemnly. "Alice is awake."
"What?" Riley asked, her Joy bouncing with excitement within Headquarters.
"Yeah, and it's only three," Despair said, causing all Emotions in Riley's mind to stop. The blonde just looked at him, confused as to the gray boy's knowledge of the time. "Something must be going on outside."
"How can it be three?" Riley and her Fear inquired in unison. "We've only been here for fifteen minutes." Despair began walking out, another can of serotonin in hand. Riley followed him out, not wanting to leave the Once Joy alone, fearing he might do something to himself if left to his own devises.
"I'd say more like forty-five," the gray boy said as the blonde caught up. "Although, you were unconscious for a couple of hours before you ended up here."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that Veil had been there for an hour and a half before I made it to the Square. It somehow took me that long to even get here, what with all of Subconscious Figments moving about." To prove his point, Despair pointed at several Figments heading southeast, each one of them ferocious looking and yipping wildly, like foxes on the prowl. Riley and her Emotions stared in their direction as they followed the gray boy northward. "And though we are going through these streets, I'm sure we won't encounter them much."
"Why?" the blonde asked, looking at the cloud-covered sky in wonder.
"Because they usually prowl the heavily conscious areas, you know? To catch Alice's attention." If one were to look into Despair's mind, they would see his Anger, Joy and Disgust mirroring each other in the motions they wanted him to do, but couldn't due to the Sadness-dominated console. Riley somehow got that image in her mind.
"I wonder if we can catch her attention," Riley's Joy said to no one in particular, finding herself surprised at the absence of an external echo. Turning toward Anger, who for some reason was walking from the other side of the Idea wall, the star-like Emotion tilted her shining head inquisitively.
"What?" the blocky Emotion shrugged. "His Sadness was holding a sign that said "Tape the Intercom button, it will stop the echo"." At that, Joy seemed content, until she realized how that shouldn't make sense.
"Wait, what?"
-3-
Alice awoke with a start. One minute, she was figure skating to the most unexpected of songs,, Flyleaf's Sorrow, of all the songs in her memory, the next, she felt a dark presence in the waking realm and found herself standing by Riley's vanity. As fast as she realized she was sleepwalking while a terrifying entity was about, her Emotions had gotten up for the second time that night – first, for a certain star-like one- and were at their respective seats at the console. With Fear taking over and adrenalin coursing through her veins, Alice rushed out of the room and quickly shifted into Logic Mode, the console instantly becoming white and unresponsive as everyone got to planning the course of action.
"Alright," her Sadness began, "she toned us out. What's the plan?" To her left, Fear sat back on his seat and reviewed the facts that Alice gathered from the few seconds within the room.
"Well," the nerve-like Emotion started, "it appears we've…"
"Got nothing?" Joy asked as she stood behind her companion.
"Yes! This is like nothing we've sensed before, and we've sensed the minds of serial killers and tormentors when we visited Jabberwok! And look," he pointed to the console's white glow, which faltered and wavered every second, "Alice can't maintain Logic Mode. Even without me, she's too scared!"
"Holy – you're right!" Anger exclaimed, her nightgown and chair barely hiding her fearful vibrations. Suddenly, the console returned to the last color it held, purple, and Alice's voice tore through the Mind World louder than a sonic boom.
"WE NEED TO GET MR. ANDERSEN!" She screamed from behind her Emotions, her mental image as young as she was on the day her mom died. Her body shivered violently, so much so that her hair bounced like grease on a stove, and her eyes were filled with scared tears. In an effort to comfort her, Sadness and Joy walked up to the frightened child and latched onto her in a warm embrace. The rest looked at the scene from their negative colored chairs.
"Okay," Anger said as she fully turned to face the girl, "what do we tell him, if that's all you could think up?"
"Everything!" Alice shouted. "If he's to understand the danger his daughter is in, he must know EVERY relevant thing!" Joy whispered some comforting words into the girl's imagined ears, managing to calm her down a bit.
"B-but Alice," Fear began, only to be cut off by Disgust.
"No, Fear. She's right," she said monotonously, her teacup devoid of its former contents as the weight of the situation hit her.
"We need to tell him everything we've just accepted," Sadness continued for her green companion, slowly making her way back to the console after Alice vanished from Headquarters. "It's what he needs to know before we tell him…"
"Tell him what!?" Fear asked in the most scared voice he could muster. Sadness just looked at him, into him, as she took her seat at the center of the console, Joy joining her in the staring soon after. They both gave tired sighs, their voices harmonizing as they typed the Recall codes for all the memories of Alice's true nature that were once suppressed before the tear-like Emotion continued.
"Tell him that," she gave her spindly companion a look so stern, it belonged on Anger's face instead, "…"
-3-
"…his daughter's mind is lost."
Riley and Despair heard the echoes roar across the City as the blonde dragged the gray boy down Song Ave., the Once Joy hopping to his feet as soon as the weight of this particular problem became too much for him to bare laying down. They looked around, confused and scared; surely, Alice knew of Riley's presence within her mind, right? She was within Headquarters not an hour ago. Maybe Sadness was voicing the facts; that Riley's mind wasn't in its own body.
Despite those thoughts as reassurance, Riley couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't actively felt, nor could she stop the flow of untold knowledge rushing into her. Visions of other's minds showed themselves onto the girl's Mind's Eye, each blurry and transparent, but gaining clarity and opacity as time went on. Slowly, she realized that the minds she saw belonged to three different people, the Once Joy before her, the tall girl whose Mind she traversed and the parent the pale girl was about to awaken.
