"Hello?"
"Hey Riley! How's it going?"
"I'm okay, I guess. Er, who is this?"
"It's Genna."
Riley straightened softly.
"…Oh. Hey, Genna. ...What's up?"
"I wasn't sure if anybody called you to let you know about this yet: A bunch of us from the team are going to try to get together and just, you know…talk. About what happened. We're aiming to book space at the rink some time in December, when everyone's free. It'd mean a lot to us if you came too."
Riley was supposed to be done with it. Talking about it defeated the entire purpose of being done with it.
She tried to force a little cheer into her voice and accept, but it the strength to fake it wouldn't come to her. Nothing happened as she tried to form words for a gloomy rejection either. She tried to explain that the idea seemed stupid, but she didn't actually feel that way. Soon, as the confusion surrounding the subject began to make her head spin, she wished she could just feel upset enough to whip the phone at the floor and watch it shatter. It didn't even occur to her to feel nervous about the invitation to open up, reminding her of the thing she forbid herself from remembering.
In the end, she just couldn't feel anything, and she merely stammered stupidly into the phone for what felt like a long, painful age.
Before, the feeling of nothingness had come with a bizarre, wonderful sweetness she developed an insatiable thirst for. This time, the feeling of nothingness felt…hollow. It felt like nothing. Tepid, dissatisfying nothing. Riley was coming down from the temporary high she'd achieved before, and the descent was far from pleasant.
She was going to have to fight this round for the sweet, temporary high of invulnerability she'd achieved before.
"…I'll think about it. Is that okay?"
"Sure. Let me know. But no pressure, take your time. December's a way's off." There was a pause. "…Hey, Riley? Are you okay?"
If only people would stop asking her. She closed here eyes.
"…I'm alright."
"Yeah? …It's just that…no one's heard from you in a while, now…so, if you ever want to talk – I mean, like, just you and I…you've got my number. 'Kay?"
Riley's voice was blank and flat as she answered. "...thanks, Genna."
"No worries. Keep me in touch."
It had taken Riley so much time to construct the structures of confidence around the idea that she had moved on, but painfully enough, it only took the faintest of innocent gestures from a friend, or Mom, or Dad, to tear them down, leaving her with the sad, smouldering wreckage that caused her to doubt herself.
Push back, she told herself. Just push back.
I'm fearless now. I'll move on eventually.
There was activity happening on Monitor, but Riley's four remaining Emotions simply couldn't focus. They found themselves glued to the windows at the back of Headquarters, laying their hands against the glass, watching in silence as the Train of Thought began its journey toward Long-Term Memory…taking their old colleague and friend along with it.
Sadness cringed with grief. Everything inside of her hurt as she watched the train's slow descent. "…he's…he's gone…he's gone..."
"Jeeze. I don't believe it." Anger leaned forward, pressing his forehead into the window's surface. "Just like that. Like he was yesterday's papers. Didn't even see it coming." His eyes dropped down to his shoes. "...And he took it like a champ. Kept it together a hell of a lot better than I would've. I had no idea he had it in him." Anger surprised even himself with these words. But they were true.
He began to idly strum at Sadness' hair, avoiding her eye. "Aww...c'mon kid. Don't cry." He simply hated it when she cried.
"…Do you think he'll be okay out there?" Disgust folded her arms over her stomach. She couldn't bear to look much longer, as the train began to move entirely out of view. "I mean – Fear hates change…he could hardly adjust to our annual bedroom re-decorations. The poor little guy…where would they even take him? Where else can an Emotion go?"
Disgust turned to Joy for a hopeful suggestion, only to discover that Joy had left her side.
She was slowly approaching the Console, her hands limp at her sides, gazing up to the Monitor with empty eyes.
Riley…why?
I never meant for you to do this. I never meant for you to cast aside the voices in your head who were only trying to help you. We love you.
Don't you love us?
All we wanted to do was silence those awful Memories for you.
Why did you have to do this?
Why?
And then, it slowly dawned on her that she had no right, no right at all, absolutely none, to blame this on Riley.
No…this was her fault. This was entirely her fault. The risks she had taken without turning back to speculate, the questions she'd failed to ask, her desperation to force a shattered piece of art back together without any tact or understanding…
She had taken a grisly circumstance and made it unimaginably worse, and Fear was paying the price in her place.
It was unjust. It was wrong. It was devastating.
And it was her fault.
"...Joy?"
Slowly, she turned around, discovering Sadness' sparkling eyes blinking at her. Sighing, she slowly made her way across the room again, laying her hand on Sadness' shoulder, sensing that it was trembling softly beneath her palm.
"...Joy...y-you don't think Riley would...forget Fear, do you?"
Joy's lips began to part.
Sadness hardly had the time to react before Joy's eyes fluttered and she became a senseless heap at her feet.
- • -
Fear huddled into himself, alone in a closed compartment with the train's cargo. His eyes, lost and afraid, trembled as he replayed the moments leading up to his current situation in his head. The Coordinator's words echoed inside of him like a broken record.
Desperately, he searched inside of himself for an answer to the question that burned on his tongue.
What did I do? What did I do to hurt her so badly that she wouldn't want me anymore?
Fear thought he'd been helping. That was all. If he'd known he'd do something along the way that could have put Riley in harm's way, he never would have volunteered to lift a finger. He would have stood off in a corner as he sometimes did, and quietly monitored Riley's peripheral vision for the little perils Joy, Anger, Sadness and Disgust often couldn't see.
He screwed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. Headquarters. He missed it already. Its little comforts, its familiarity, its security, and of course, its inhabitants. He missed Sadness's somber, understanding eyes, her warm hand whenever it fell upon his, and her willingness to listen to his problems or complaints, and Joy's enthusiasm, her quick wit, and even her random, startling morning hugs, and the scent of Disgust's perfume, or the way she would snap her fingers for him to bend so that she could fix his bow tie whenever it was askew…he even missed Anger, who so often put Fear in his place with his infamous temper and had a bad habit of being too rough with him, sometimes. He missed all of his former colleagues dearly.
But most of all, he missed Riley.
Fear didn't care that she had rejected his influence anymore, and he wouldn't have minded if he had simply been pushed to the back of Headquarters and had to sit there and watch as his teammates took over permanently. That didn't matter to him anymore. Riley mattered. He missed her so badly that he would have given up four of his five senses just to be near her. Just to hear her voice one more time.
He blinked, lifting his eyes from the floor as he slowly began to realize…he could just faintly hear it.
A crate stood next to his seat, carrying old, faded Memories no doubt headed for the Dump. Fear struggled to roll the orbs away from one another in order to fish out the purple Memory that he had recognized solely by its sound. It was one he had generated a long time ago, when Riley was hardly five. Fear held the Memory close to his face and strained to listen over the sounds of the train as it pulled him to his new destination, whatever it was to be.
It was a Memory of a nightmare.
Fear knew all of Riley's nightmares by heart. Thirteen years of watching bad dreams had turned him into somewhat of a scholar on the matter. He'd memorized the plotlines of Riley's nastiest dreams and reoccurring nightmares, and while he could scoff at the repetitiousness of some, he knew of the horrific endings of others, too.
Whimpering, unable to stomach the unsettling imagery, he drew his index and middle fingers across the surface of the Memory, fast-forwarding the footage. He drew his fingers away at the same moment Riley realized she was awake. Light flooded her bedroom, and it was now that the Memory's colour began to swell and cloud with bursts of sunny, heartwarming gold. The Memory was happy, now, because Mom had just entered the room, thanks to Riley's cries into the night for her attention.
Tears began to overflow and roll down his face as he strained to listen to Mom's powdery-soft, tender voice. How many years had Mom stood as one of Riley's most treasured sources of comfort? How many times, he wondered, had Fear been coaxed into pulling his hands away from the Console because Mom was there?
Careful not to disturb the flow of the Memory, he smoothed the backs of his knuckles down the image of Mom's cheek.
How? How would the others know? Would they know what to do if Riley was ever in a dangerous situation? Would they know who to call out for, and when, and how, and would they be sure to add the right pitch to Riley's voice, or to adjust her levels of shakiness and uncertainty accordingly?
"Wake up, look here. Oh…There, there, sweetheart. I'm here. It's alright now. It was just a bad dream. That's all. I'm here. Don't you worry."
Fear pulled the Memory snug to his chest, resting his cheek against the warm, smooth surface of the golden globe as though it were a security item, and wondered if he'd hear Mom's angelic, soothing voice in person ever again.
- • -
A Mind-Worker took his hand and helped him stepped off of the train.
"There we go. Watch your step."
Fear was now gazing up to the winding, curvaceous shelves and hallways of Long-Term storage. He'd always known that it was an expansive landmark in Riley's mind, but he'd never seen it up close before. Waves of vertigo threatened his balance as he gawked up at them.
"…Here? I'm going to live here, now? In Long-Term Memory?"
The Mind Worker who had assisted him sighed, turning his eyes to a crowd of his coworkers as they exited the train as well. They all appeared saddened and sympathetic as they let Fear have this moment to take it the overwhelming scenery of Long-Term's corridors and the distant rooftops of Dream Productions in the distance. Fear had always wanted to see Dream Productions up close, but not like this.
In the end, the Mind Worker simply failed to reply. His eyes began to drift down to the Memory Fear was holding in against his chest. "…What's that you have, there?"
Fear had forgotten he'd been holding on to it. His eyes fluttered down to the object in his hands and he stammered to explain himself. "Oh—this? It's just an old Memory. I, uh, I found it on the train. I was sort of hoping I could take it with me. Maybe. If, you know, if it's not an issue."
The worker looked worn…tired. Unimpressed, though not necessarily with Fear himself. The circumstance, perhaps. "…Eh...come on, now, you don't want to have to haul this Memory around. It's looking pretty faded. Besides, these here purple ones don't last too long in Long-Term these days. Here, hand it to me. I'll find a Forgetter to take care of it for you."
Fear numbly passed it over, his tongue fumbling over itself as his muscles tried and failed to protest and keep him from doing it. He was just so passive and terrible at asserting himself.
"Ah—wait! Hold on a minute. Don't—don't take it to the Dump. Not that one. It's still…it still has, uh…Here! Let me show you."
Fear hastily approached the other and bent to speed the Memory ahead for the Mind Worker, until it was a bright yellow again. He stood back, tapping his fingers together eagerly in the hopes that the worker would understand. "See? It's actually a happy Memory. Riley loves those ones."
He peered over his shoulder after a beat, up to Headquarters. He could just barely make out a corner of one of the dome-shaped windows, and he wondered what the gang was doing up there. He wondered if they could see him. If they were even looking for him.
A lump formed in his throat as he returned his eyes to the Mind Worker who was still holding the faded globe in his hands, watching the remaining events of the Memory as they unfolded before the footage looped and returned the orb to its original violet colour.
"…Listen…could you, uh…Do you think you could do me a favour?"
The Mind Worker looked up to him and nodded considerately. "…What's up?"
Fear wrung his hands together and struggled to gather his words. "When – and if – you get a chance… could you send that Memory up to Headquarters for me? I have a feeling the guys up there could still use it. They'll understand."
The Mind Worker blinked slowly. He sagged as he released a patient yet worn-out breath. "…Sure. Yeah. I can do that for you."
Fear weakly attempted to smile. "Thanks."
"…Alright, buddy," another Mind Worker was saying, a step or two behind him. His voice was low and movingly sympathetic. "It's time we got you to your new home."
Fear drew a deep, bolstering breath and timidly eyed a hallway that would lead him deep into Long-Term storage.
"Er…Fear."
Appreciating and loathing the hold-up in equal measure, Fear turned to the voice who had spoken up, becoming aware of the sheer number of workers that had come to gather at his back from the train. Fear's back straightened, and he blinked.
The speaker had closed his eyes as though he were fighting a deep pain in his chest. He moaned, and he gestured over his own shoulder.
"...It's this way."
At first Fear was confused. The antennae floating above his brow unfurled inquisitively as he passed his eyes over the rocky, barren stretch of land that lead to –
It hit him.
His vision blurred with panic as he took a single step backward.
"Oh no."
Someone gently took his hand from below. Fear passively allowed them do so, numb with residual terror. His arm became the worker's lenient leash. It limply stretched outward as the Mind Worker who held it began to lead him toward the ominous cliffs only a short distance away from where the train had stopped.
"We're sorry."
"Oh, no. No. Wait a minute. Please." He tried to plant his feet but his muscles still weren't functioning properly, refusing to co-operate with the screaming protests taking place in his head. His legs weakly steered him forward against his will.
"That's it. One foot in front of the other. Easy does it." Someone else gingerly took his other hand and began to pull. New sets of saddened, compassionate eyes flanked and crowded his sides. New sets of hands were tugging at his sleeves and pressing up against his back. He had no choice but to keep moving forward, toward the first step of a tall, crooked staircase.
"Wait. Wait! Please, please, I'm sorry—I-I thought I was helping Riley, I swear, I swear. I don't want to go. I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
His eyes shot up to Headquarters. Miniscule pupils locked onto the thin, barely-visible corner of the window his only sources of comfort stood behind.
"Joy? J-Joy?! JOY!"
