More times than not, the human mind is running at a reasonable pace. On any given day, yours is likely synced up to the world around you perfectly. As you walk down the sidewalk, you experience the thumping of your feet without a second thought. As you drive to work, you take note of the cars around you - and their drivers take note of you - exactly as they come and go. On an average day, you'd feel everything happening in-tempo, marching along like a drum major leading a band.
This isn't always the case, though. See, the human mind is a flexible thing in some regards, time being one of them. You're probably aware of how it feels in the morning, when you're just waking up, unable to process anything around you thoroughly as those workers in your head slowly get back to their regular tasks. The cobwebs of the night slowly clear away while the morning breaks in, and - before you know it - time has skipped ahead a whole hour! The day goes by in a blur, your brain scarcely keeping up with it all. A meeting, a discussion, an emergency, a veritable hurricane of activity envelops you on the suddenly busy day, and your brain just can't keep up, regrettably out of touch with the speed that time seems to be firing past.
Then there are the other moments; small, fleeting ones, where your mind's tempo revs up to an incredible speed, and you find yourself thinking far ahead of everyone and everything around you. You see the cup falling off the counter, and you're able to catch it. You slam on your brakes, sparing you a collision with the careless driver in front of you. Quickly thinking, your mind seamlessly transitions into a high-speed, slow-motion state, and you are able to do things that (on any other day) you'd never think possible.
A certain twelve-year-old named Riley experienced such a moment once.
There she was - out on the rink. Her new team, the Foghorns, were in a precarious spot. Victory meant the playoffs would come to greet them, and they'd be moving on to something they hadn't tasted in years. Defeat, on the other hand, meant another unhappy end to a short-lived season, everyone wondering what could have been. On the ice, Riley was only aware of a handful of things at the moment. Amid the backdrop of the opposing team, so fast that they were a smear of purple, yellow, and red, she saw the single most important object in the arena - the hockey puck.
One of the opposing players, in their haste to score a goal and win the game for their own team, had fumbled with his stick, and sent the puck soaring in the opposite direction. Specifically, over the rink's cold surface, straight to Riley Andersen. Nobody on either team had counted on this. Not the foghorns, not their opponents, not even Riley.
In her mind, her gears began ticking and the situation began dawning like a sunrise, a gleam of hope echoing across HQ, where five little friends stood at the console, heedless of how slow timed seemed to be moving on the outside. They were much too focused on the fact that the puck was now coming towards Riley.
"The puck!" Fear screamed, "The puck! It's coming! It's coming our way! Don't miss it! Joy, don't miss it!"
He'd latched onto her, shaking her by the shoulders, intense, panic-ridden eyes staring her down in utter terror. The thought of missing this golden opportunity, handed to them on a silver platter, was too much for the frayed nerve to take.
Smack!
Disgust's hand had smacked him across the face. The little purple thing glanced at her.
"Calm down!" she said, "If we panic, we mess up. If we mess up, everyone will know it!"
"Oh, yeah, like that one time..."Sadness pressed a button. A memory was brought to the forefront of Riley's mind; the Prarie Dogs. Loosing the playoffs. Thanks to her. It was a frozen blue hue, as cold as the ice they stood on.
"Ahh! Okay, okay, I get it!"
A purple hand slapped a button, and the orb went away, and the hockey puck had gotten closer. What's more, as Anger noted, "Great! They're noticing! Look at the goalie!"
The opposing team player had a growing trace of alarm on him, his body twirling slowly around, sprawling limbs caught mid-scramble as he began making a move back to where he needed to be.
"Heh, he does a good impression of you," Joy said to Fear.
Fear squeaked in horror. "He's gonna block us!"
"The puck's getting closer, Panic!" Anger snarled, "Are you gonna help Riley, or what?!"
"Hey, I like that!" Joy chirped, a finger pointed in the air, "We should all have nicknames! I can be Happiness, you could-"
"What?" Anger asked, confused, "No, no. No, it was from a cartoon, a movie, it- there was this bad guy who was skinny and- look, never mind! We gotta move, and now!"
As Joy remembered the score (and, more importantly, the time on the game clock), the gravity of it all set in. "Oh... oh! Oh, crud! We gotta-"
"Here's the plan!" Fear shouted, eyes ratcheted to the monitor as his hands seized a lever. What followed was something unheard of as Fear took charge and shot out words like so many bullets from a machine gun, each faster than the last, it seemed. "Joy, other end, pronto! Keep Riley reminded of the goal and us winning! Anger, by me, now! We need your aggression now more than ever while I scare her with how close the game is - if you're not there, she'll lock up instead of using me to make her move. Disgust, Sadness, eyes on Hockey Island and the Core Memories! The last thing I want is it getting loose! Joy, on my signal, you make Riley swing like she's never swung before! 'Kay, everyone got it?!"
Dead silence while each processed it, some nodding, others not, but another yelp from Fear brought their attentions to the monitor. The puck was inches away, and would soon be out of range.
Joy flung herself at the console. Anger grit his teeth and helped Fear with the lever, while Disgust and Sadness scrambled back to check on the Core Memories. The console lit up and time closed in. Joy slammed a button, and a fire ignited in Riley's chest. As she swung the stick across, hitting the puck and sending it shooting off in a new direction, a vibrant orb of red, yellow, and purple rolled to the shelf. Just as it clinked against the others, the hockey puck slammed into the netting.
From first seeing the puck to that sweet, final victory, less than a second had zipped by in Riley's mind. First, she saw the chance that nobody else did as the little black thing went shooting her way. Next, she remembered a similar situation to this one, years ago, when the Prairie Dogs lost their own chance at the playoffs. The thought was unwelcome, and it's what caused her to glance over at the goalie, whose horrified, bulging eyes reminded her so much of that little blue monster from "Hercules," (except this one bore the red, purple, and yellow emblem of the Bay Dragons). Just then, she saw the opportunity line up, and she felt an aggressive wave of heat hit her chest. 'That goal,' she thought, as she swung, 'Is mine!'
Clack!
Buzz!
And a volcanic roar while the crowd cheered the winning goal. She let loose with a laugh and a smile, and her teammates swarmed her with matching expressions.