Hello, readers just to say I am really sorry I haven't been updating regularly, life kind of took over for a while. Anyway I'm back and I have many stories to write! Not just for this fandom but for others too.
Anyway, enjoy this chapter!
As that very evening came to a beginning all the emotions except Anger were crowded over Courage, who's grey particles had covered most of her chest overnight. Leaving only her two hands and her face left with her natural, pale creamy colour.
"We need to fix this," Joy said with determination, even if she had already used up most of her reserved positive vibes.
"Like what Joy, we've tried everything" Disgust moaned in response, tossing her hair to the side as a sign of her built up irritation.
"Well, not everything," said a weak voice from the corner.
The three other female emotions turned around to face the fading pale emotion, confusion displayed on their facial expressions.
"There is … someone else who can provide the support we need" Courage said, her voice breaking a little throughout her small sentence.
"Who?" Sadness asked in a small voice, hiding behind her white jumper while the others continued to stare at Courage.
Courage took a while to respond as the vicious lash of pain travelled through her veins as the dull, grey particles continued to spread over the remaining part of her chest.
When she did answer it came out as a simple squeaky gasp ,"K-ka- Katrina."
"Katrina!" Disgust exclaimed in horror before hastily adding, "we can't ask her, we only have the minuscule amounts of what's left of our reputation to think of here."
"Disgust," Courage began weakly before grabbing the limited opportunity to reclaim her voice.
"Our reputation is irrelevant right now, sometimes we need to forget about our issues and give up some time for other people's." Courage explained earning everyone's, including Disgusts approval.
"But we shouted at her, that's sad" Sadness stated as the angry memory replayed itself towards the spotlight. The echoes of Riley's yelling filling the atmosphere as each emotion cringed as the memory which seemed to last forever, finally came to an end.
"Courage is right guys, we have no other choice" Joy said as she walked up to the console with determination. However, her rush of confidence soon plummeted.
"Joy?" Sadness questioned as she saw the yellow emotion stood on the spot in silence.
"Uh, whats up with you?" Disgust joined in.
Having successfully gained the yellow emotions attention, she said in response to their questions, "uh I'm not sure how to go about this…"
Joy hesitated for a second, before it dawned on her what or in this case who was required for the job.
"Courage we need you" was all Joy offered as an order. Courage slowly looked up at the star as if she was mad.
"Forgive me for saying this but I can barely reach down to scratch my left leg, let alone all the way up to the console."
"Then we will help you" Joy responded quicker than usual, causing everyone's attention to once again drift towards her.
"Too right we will!" Anger exclaimed as he approached the others for the first time since Fear's disappearance.
"Oh yeah, as you did such a great job of it last time" Disgust retorted sarcastically, displaying her well-known eye roll.
Anger glared at the green emotion as furious thoughts entered his mind. But before it could escalate any further Courage held up a frail hand and practically whispered,
"Now isn't the time for this" was all she could say, just before letting out a body heaving, strangled cough.
"Come on gang we have to do this quickly as we can!" Joy demanded as she gestured for the others to help her roll Courage over to the left-hand side of the console, placing her finger on a button as Joy took charge of the remaining buttons and levers, with Sadness beside her.
Disgust and Anger both stood in silence as they let the three female emotions do their jobs, without any interruptions.
At first, Riley was hesitant to going out just an hour after the hockey fiasco, this soon changed as she felt her determination to do the right thing overpower her inner fear.
Carefully and cautiously Riley made her way out of the house just after leaving a brief note to her parents regarding to where she had gone.
"This is it gang, we have twenty minutes tops so we must find her!" Joy called out confidently.
However, as Riley kept on walking without a real clue of which house was Katrina's, her frustration grew a little more each time she got the wrong house.
"This is ridiculous!" Anger snapped.
"Let's face it, Joy, we have no clue where she lives" Disgust added unhelpfully, earning an irritated sigh from the yellow emotion.
"Guys we can't give up now, we're really close I can feel it!" Joy replied in her usual positive tone, even if it was slightly acted out.
"I knew we should have listened to Katrina when she told us the day before her sleep over" Sadness whined, hiding her head behind her jumper once more.
"Oh yeah, you know? The one we didn't turn up to" Anger spat, a hint of guilt secretly entering his mind.
"Hang on, that was your idea to make up some lame excuse because we didn't want to go" Disgust angrily responded towards the red emotion, her green eyes glaring into Anger's ruby red ones.
"You didn't say no" Anger mumbled in a dark tone.
Fiercely interrupting the off topic conversation Courage managed to spit out a, "look all of that is irrelevant! All we need to do is gain the confidence to ask someone if they know where she lives."
Pressing the button as hard as she was able to Courage leant over towards the console in agony as she tried her absolute hardest to maintain her position until she could no longer hold it due to the vicious stabbing pain travelling through her body and mind.
Just then Riley's eye caught the sight of an elderly woman walking towards her, she didn't look up at the woman straight away but she soon found herself asking, "excuse me do you know where Katrina Williams lives?"
The elderly woman gave her a sweet smile. "Oh course dearie, she is my granddaughter after all."
Riley's eyes lit up at her surprisingly good fortune.
"Follow me, dear, my name's Susan, I'm so thrilled that Katrina's made a friend!" the woman said as she gestured Riley to walk behind her as she lead her over to a red door which displayed Katrina's home.
Unlocking the front door Susan called out, "Katrina darling a friend is here to see you!"
Katrina didn't make a move.
"I'm sorry sweetie what's your name?" The woman asked gently , whispering so Katrina didn't hear.
"Riley Andersen," Riley admitted, guilt rushing through her veins.
"Maybe we should just go" Sadness suggested, frightened of what could happen next.
"Who made you the new Fear?" Disgust questioned sarcastically.
"It's Riley!" Susan called out for the second time which distracted the emotions. , This time proving to be a to success at luring Katrina out from her room. However, her face looked anything but welcoming.
"Hi," Riley said, making an effort to be nice.
"Hey," Katrina replied bluntly, luckily for both the girls her grandmother interrupted.
"Why don't we let Riley inside and you can have a little chat with her" Susan kindly suggested, Katrina only nodded in response.
Once officially inside the Williams household Riley timidly sat on the sofa beside Katrina, just before Susan came around the corner and offered cookies to the two girls. Neither girl refused her offer.
While munching on a cookie Katrina bluntly asked, "look get to the point, why are you here?
Riley sighed as she explained, "I know I haven't been that nice to you lately but-"
She was cut off with Katrina's sharp interruption.
"Riley no offence but when have you ever been nice to me!" Katrina spat, her blue eyes the portrait of fed up.
Riley sighed guiltily, as all the memories of her either shouting at or whispering about Katrina sprung to mind.
"I'm really am sorry, I've just been having a hard time lately and I guess I'm not used to being the social reject."
"Welcome to my world" Katrina harshly spat as she suddenly turned to face the guilt-ridden Riley Andersen.
Riley looked up, raising her eyebrow at her sudden remark.
"What do you mean by that?" Riley asked more firmly than she intended to.
Katrina rolled her eyes in frustration before explaining herself.
"Riley all my life I have been the one to drag along the social reject title on my shoulders, and more. I have been mocked, whispered about, felt abandoned, I've had it all, so none of this is new to me."
Katrina sighed as she carried on with her rant.
"But when life takes a turn for the worse, that's when the magic happens," Katrina said sarcastically before adding,
"I try to make the effort to be nice to my so called friends, even though I know it's a total waste of time. But what do I get in return? I either get yelled out, used as a punch bag to have their anger taken out on me, and I take it all because I don't want to feel abandoned… again."
Riley looked up at Katrina who didn't look back.
Katrina then stood up and walked over to the window that sent a faint flash of street lights gleaming through the glass.
"Every single person I have ever known to be the last friend in the queue has either treated me like trash or suddenly left without any reason."
Katrina awkwardly cleared her throat.
"Even my own parents deserted me" Katrina admitted in a whisper.
Riley emotions let out a gasp of horror.
"I couldn't imagine life without mom and dad" Joy sadly stated.
Riley sighed guiltily before saying, "I'm really sorry , I didn't think my behaviour would affect you that badly."
She then added, "but despite my horrible attitude towards you I hope we can be friends again."
Katrina took a minute to consider her offer.
"You say that now but what if it doesn't work out and things go back to where they were yesterday? I'm sorry Riley but I can't risk that chance, just forgets I exist everyone else does."
"No!" Riley almost yelled before rapidly calming herself down. "Katrina I may never say this but I value and need your support, besides your the only one I can truly trust now."
What about Sam?" Katrina questioned emotionlessly.
"She ditched me" Riley responded helplessly.
Katrina's facial expression softened.
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't realise," Katrina said sympathetically before kindly adding,
"You know what, don't let her dumb theories overrule the support of your true friends and family" Katrina smiled as she reassured Riley through her tough times.
"Thanks" Riley responded softly as a smile of her own crept across her face.
"Your starting to sound like my parents" Riley added as she giggled quietly, the two girls then exchanged smiles as if it was their silent way of saying friends again.
Meanwhile far from the outside of headquarters Fear stood near the recall tube which had been cracked in the middle, the purple emotion huffed as his hopes of getting back were smashed.
"No, that was my only way back" Fear whimpered to himself before a rush of sudden panic dramatically entered him.
"I mustn't panic, I mustn't panic" Fear repeated to himself more than a few times before his words eventually sank in, his earlier shaking came to an end soon afterwards.
Looking up at where the front of headquarters stood, Fear let out a small sigh as he struggled to come up with a plan B.
The purple emotions eyes then darted across to the long term memory lanes, in hope of being able to get back quickly. On the other hand , looking at just how huge the memory lanes actually were all he could bring himself to do was gawp silently at the never-ending distance.
"No that would take too long," Fear mumbled to himself, before considering that it was by far the safest option to take.
The thin emotion groaned as he was about to face his fate and get himself into a maze of multicoloured memory balls against his own will.
However, he was soon dragged away from his terror as a sudden white glow shone across the ground he stood on, pointing towards a long thin metal pole that travelled across family island to the front of headquarters.
Gingerly stepping over to where the glow had guided him towards, the purple emotions eyes widened at how daunting and potentially dangerous it looked. Sweat began to trickle down his forehead as he continued to stare at his only possible way back.
Fear shuddered as he took a step closer towards the pole that seemed to go on for eternity.
"This is ludicrous, climbing a tower of memory balls is one thing but going across this…" Fear trailed off as he found himself unable to finish his sentence.
Suddenly he felt an unexplained nudge towards his arm as if it was signalling him to get across the pole. Fear gave it one last look before heavily gulping and making an attempt to getting onto it.
During that moment the pole made an alarming creaking sound, then having found out that it didn't mean anything the purple emotion could have kicked himself for wasting valuable time.
Come on you spineless coward, you always go on about needing to protect Riley from all danger and now your opportunity to prove that has come along and what are you doing? Hiding behind the chance like the big baby you are! The harsh voice inside his head spat viciously.
Now deciding that he'd had enough of wimping out, he put on a face of determination as he lowered himself down onto the pole, refusing to look down.
At first, he began to shiver as the stone cold air blew against his lavender coloured skin, he soon made himself stop by forcing back the obvious fear that haunted him.
"You can do this, just don't look down" Fear whimpered to himself while slowly making his way across the purple pole, so far doing a good job at holding back his instincts.
Although Fear had mentally promised himself not to look below his feet that dangled against the slim side of the pole, he couldn't help himself as his eyes darted towards the bottomless pit, leading to the dreaded memory dump.
"I've already ended up there once, I will not end up there again or at least I'll try not to" Fear whispered to himself, as he clutched what little part of the pole he could grab to steady himself as he shuffled himself across the thin metal trail.
It was a slow process, to begin with, but with every single move, he made he gradually became closer to his destination, despite his earlier discomfort of the whole idea.
Having now shuffled more than halfway, Fear felt a tiny sense of relief at the fact he had almost flawlessly accomplished his mission to save Courage along with the others.
"I'm coming Courage, just a few more shuffles to go, just hang in there," Fear said to himself out loud, the determination and confidence echoing through his voice.
As soon as he finished his sentence the purple emotion heard a loud creak from the bottom of the pole, instantly beginning to panic, Fear shook and whimpered from the terrifying impact of the scary experience.
Focus! Pull yourself together! The harsh voice inside the purple emotions head hissed as it made an unwanted return.
But even Fear couldn't deny that his conscious was helping him push his fear back when overcoming his sensitivity to unexpected occurrences, despite its slightly odd way of showing it.
"Slowly does it," Fear whispered to himself before suddenly exclaiming with more confidence, "wait a minute there's no time to be slow!"
Having let out the unexpected outburst, the purple emotion practically jumped into action as he continued to at a quicker pace tackle crossing the pole, hoping to avoid any more unnecessary delays.
Becoming closer towards the end of the tediously long crawling session, a tight squeezing sensation filled his stomach as if it was about to burst at any given moment.
"What if I'm too late, what if the others have already lost faith in themselves and me…"
Fear trailed off at the last word of his sentence, before being drastically pulled back to reality as a memory of the events back down the memory dump forcefully replayed itself inside his mind.
The powerful image of Courage disintegrating to dust alone made the purple emotion automatically shiver in terror. Then without hesitation, he pushed his concerns to the back of his mind, as he continued to conquer the beginning of his mission to put what he had admittedly done wrong right.
The sounds of laughter filled the entire atmosphere of headquarters, on the other hand, the same couldn't be said for the emotions themselves.
"Why isn't it going away?" Disgust questioned as she pointed out that the grey particles invading Courage still continued to make their way up to her face.
Joy groaned loudly with frustration, her usual positive vibes and upbeat attitude clearly wearing thin.
"It's getting worse!" Sadness wailed as she burst into tears for the third time in the space of an hour.
"So… what do we do now Joy?" Disgust asked as she approached the worn out star.
It took a few seconds before Joy let out a rather loud, "I don't know guys, why does everyone think I know the solution to everything!"
Soon after that outburst, the other emotions remained shocked as Joy sank to the floor with tears shimmering in her eyes, the pressure of getting Courage back to normal clearing eating at her.
"Were sorry Joy," Sadness said sympathetically. The urge to add something to her sentence was tempting, however, at times like this, it was better to avoid complicating things further.
Joy looked up at the teardrop as she gave her a minuscule smile before softly sighing.
Having finished getting wrapped up in her own sorrow Joy glanced over to Courage, whose body had slightly shifted away from where the others had rolled her over in attempt to pluck up Riley's courage.
With Sadness now sat next to Joy, the remaining two emotions distanced themselves as Disgust stood by the console ,while Anger sat at least three spaces away from the now mostly grey emotion with only a hint of her natural pale skin tone left.
While most of the emotions were distracted by their own misery, Sadness on the other hand slowly got up to where the core memory table was placed. The thought of letting her blue hand hover around Courage's first memory was soon pushed away, as she vaguely remembered what had happened multiple times during the previous encounter with the core memories. Instead, she called the rest of the emotions to gather round the core memory table as if she and Joy had swapped roles for a pure second.
"Whats with the sudden group get together?" Disgust asked, folding her arms like a sulky teenager.
"The last thing we need is a pep talk" Anger added, her low gravelly voice making the teardrop feel slightly uncomfortable.
But it was Joy who came over without saying a single word.
"I need to tell you guys something" was all Sadness allowed herself to say before pointing towards the very first memory Courage had created.
The other emotions just stared at the teardrop blankly.
"Remember the day we met Courage?"
All the emotions nodded.
"It was also the day that Riley scored the only goal during the latest hockey match" Sadness responded.
"And now look at us," the green emotion mumbled darkly, Sadness did her best to ignore her comment.
"Only we didn't think we had the confidence to be able to score once Sam got injured, in fact Riley got scared just by thinking about the consequences."
This time, none of the other emotions made an effort of asking any questions, allowing Sadness to continue her talk.
"But when we put our head down and focused we suddenly felt this urge of confidence allowing us to score for the team, which we wouldn't have done if things had been different."
"And your point is?" Anger interrupted.
Sadness was about to reply when Joy got there first.
"What she's saying is that Fear and Courage must have created that memory together!"
Sadness nodded, grateful for how Joy had figured it out so quickly.
However, it didn't click with Disgust or Anger straight away.
"Uh, I hate the break this to you but if that's the case why did the memory only contain the colour of Courage?" Disgust asked, her eyebrow raised as if she was suspicious of Sadnesses theory.
The blue emotion felt her chest tighten from the impact of Disgusts question, as her instincts to hide behind her jumper became an almost automatic reaction. Although it was tempting, the blue emotion took it as an opportunity to say what she really thought of as an answer to her understandable question.
"Maybe they just didn't realise that they were both involved when the memory was made."
A kind warm feeling spread across Sadness as the motions who had questioned her before now began to understand what she was saying.
Having now got her point across Sadness along with the others turned their stares to Courage who was lying lifelessly on the floor, one hand sprawled out across the edge of Joy's door to her room, the other placed on her stomach where the grey particles had first appeared. Her facial expression radiating the definition of suffering, one look at how Courage was displayed told them that the once outgoing ,confident pale emotion was now weak and feeble.
But this only triggered another idea to Sadness.
"Guys, I know this may seem like a stupid question but why do you think this has happened so … suddenly?"
The blue emotion hesitated throughout the whole process of asking her question, unaware of how it got the other emotions thinking for themselves.
Joy was the first one to share her answer. "You know it's got me thinking…" however her sentence remained unfinished as she told Sadness to grab Fear's laptop and dictionary.
Disgust and Anger were both left with confusion marking their facial expressions until Joy along with Sadnesses help explained everything.
"Come here, look at this" Joy exclaimed as she gestured to the remaining two emotions to come over to her.
"It's a dictionary Joy," Disgust said unhelpfully.
"We know but look at what page he's left it on," Sadness said as she read out what the page displayed.
Courage is the power or quality of dealing with or facing danger or pain.
"Now look at the bottom half" Sadness instructed, the others made no hesitation to do what they were told.
Opposites or antonyms of courage- Cowardice, timid, weak, fear.
The emotions gasped as the sudden realisation hit them like a train.
"No wonder he didn't get on with Courage, he thought she was trying to replace him…" Joy trailed off as Disgust and Anger felt the same sorrow she did.
It took a while before anyone spoke.
"Well I don't think any of us can exactly cover ourselves in glory this week," Disgust said, placing an arm around the star whose glow seemed to have become a fainter shade of yellow.
Anger nodded his agreement while Sadness seemed to have remained silent. Until all of a sudden, it had all become clear once given some time to think the whole situation over.
"Joy, I think I may have figured out why this has happened!" Sadness shouted, her levels of confidence at its highest since the day Riley had lost hers.
"Riley can't appreciate the true feeling of happiness without me right?" The blue emotion asked her question specifically aimed at Joy.
The teardrop knew full well that her question didn't need answering.
"Then Riley can't be courageous without Fear!" Sadness called out just before Joy added in a quieter tone,
"Because without Fear, Courage is irrelevant."
Then without warning Joy rushed over to the large window that showed all Riley's personality islands, the yellow emotions sea like eyes scanned the area until the others heard her whisper,
"Fear where are you?"
Within the distance, the purple emotion heard his name being said, which for him was a sign that his fellow emotions needed him more than ever.
Fear took a deep breath as he pulled himself together to fulfil his purpose. However, he was stopped in his tracks when noticing the tiny space between the ground that leads to headquarters, and the disturbing gap which he couldn't stomach visiting for the second time in his life.
"Come on, believe in yourself, the team and Riley are depending on you," Fear said to himself quietly but forcefully at the same time.
The purple emotion closed his eyes and kept them squeezed shut as he scrambled towards his fate. Despite the thoughts of him being able to somehow fix things, he began to lose his grip, as he hands got sweaty from the impact of his mixed thoughts and feelings of the current situation.
Then just as suddenly the purple emotion was nearly driven to a panic attack as he felt himself slipping off the very edge of the ground that headquarters stood on. Although he now believed that this was the end, he was greeted to a very bright and as equally blinding white glow shone over him just before disappearing just as quickly. Then in a matter of seconds, a feeling of relief soon entered him as he realised he had made his way to the front of headquarters without ending up in any sort of danger.
"Who-hoo, yes I did it!" Fear cheered just as he noticed a recall tube that had been built there since Riley had settled in San Francisco.
Not wanting to waste another moment Fear climbed into the recall tube that sent him flying up into headquarters in a matter of seconds.
Having heard the noise of a recall tube Joy along with the others ran over to the centre of headquarters as they were greeted by the sight of Fear.
"Fear your here!" Joy cheered.
"Are you okay?" Sadness asked.
"Did you get back alright?" Disgust questioned anxiously.
Anger said nothing.
Fear ignored all three of them as he walked over to Courage whose eyes had drifted shut and her body resembling a cat in a deep sleep.
"What have I done?" Fear whimpered to himself as he stared at the grey particles that had now made their way to her face, her creamy colour having become a distant memory for him.
Fear fumbled with his words from the shock of the moment before finally being able to let out a squeaky question of,
"What am I going to do?"
As if on cue Sadness patted his shoulder, pointing towards the core memory that Fear had placed a purple streak onto.
Struggling to hold back tears of remorse Fear wiped a hand across his eyes before walking over to the core memory , gently grabbing hold of the purple part of the memory. He then walked over to where Courage was, softly placing the faded pale side of it within Courage's hand and the purple on his own.
The other emotions stood in silence as they hoped for the miracle of the plan working so Riley could return back to normal. Unfortunately, as they continued to wait they began to face the fact that they were too late, which meant they would be unable to save Courage.
Fear could feel more tears building up against the inside of his eyes as he too lost faith in himself. A single tear splashed out of his eye and onto Courage's dull grey arm while silently cursing at himself for being too slow, along with harsh thoughts circling around his mind of how he had cost Riley her confidence.
Slowly beginning to make his way from the limp form of an emotion, Fear sighed shakily as he took a walk of shameful misery to defeat. The other emotions gave him a look of sorrow as they too felt his pain.
The misery-stricken purple emotion remained wordless as he refused to look at the other emotions due to the distressing fear that he had let them down. In his mind he had, until he along with the others heard a sudden muffled question of,
"Fear?"