A/N: Back everyone! Finally starting to get back on the old update schedule again! Also, for those of you who reviewed last chapter when it was first posted, I changed the test confession outcome and thus the end of the chapter, so you may want to check that out. ;)
Side note, I saw Zootopia last weekend and I loved it! And Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!... though this isn't exactly the happiest of chapters. ^^;
So here, we'll see how psychology goes, and hopefully it's an improvement over the morning... onward we go!
The emotions looked at one another, then at the core memory for Possibility Island. While it had returned to a white shade as before, it didn't seem quite as bright as it once had been.
"Ahh!" Fear cried, looking wide-eyed at the dimmed core memory. "What's going on?!"
"I don't know..." Joy crept closer to the memory, reaching her hand toward it as if hoping it would react to her presence. It did nothing. "Maybe it's something with the console lockout..." She looked over at her glasses-wearing companion. "Sadness?"
The blue emotion looked at the core memory, then craned her neck to look over at the console. The dulled white glow matched. "I think it's because of Riley's console lockout. That core memory's linked to Riley, so her not being able to feel things as strongly is affecting it." Her blue eyes sparkled as if she were trying not to cry. "Riley doesn't feel as strongly about that time with us anymore."
"Great, so she hates us," Anger snapped.
Sadness shook her head. "No, that's not it, it's just..." Her gaze rest on the core memory, the color in it swirling like a fog. "She isn't sure what to feel about this anymore."
There was a silence shared among the emotions. They then turned back toward the console.
"Should we tell her?" Disgust whispered.
"She should know," Sadness advised. "Right now I don't think anything we try is gonna work. She's the only one who can fix this."
Joy nodded her agreement, hurrying over back to the main controls with the others.
How's things in there?
Riley's thought to them made it clear that she realized something was up, and she wasn't looking forward to hearing more bad news. If anything, her voice sounded more resigned. Not bitter, not hopeful, just... well, not quite apathetic, but nearing there. And that unnerved every one of the five in Headquarters.
"Well," Joy began slowly, "things, um, could be better—"
"More like could be way better!" Anger interjected. "Hate to break it to you, Riley, but Friendship Island's taken a hit, and Possibility Island's core memory's going out of whack!"
What do you mean? The console flashed a combination of purple and blue, with red joining it before those colors were absorbed into white once more.
"It was cycling through the different emotional colors, and now it's white again, but a bit grayer."
Following Anger's words, there was utter silence from Riley as she kept blankly staring at the text of her book, the letters blurring in her vision. The console stayed a misty white.
Riley glanced over as she heard a chair shift beside her and turned her head to face the source of the noise. Ann was sitting next to her and staring with an expression that was mix of worry and hurt.
"Riley?"
"What?"
"Why'd you lash out like that before?"
Riley shrugged.
Ann's voice grew a bit softer. "What's wrong?"
Riley only stared at Ann in response, blinking once before turning away with a sigh.
"Riley, please..."
Tears pricked at the corners of Riley's eyes as she covered up her face with her arms, but she didn't acknowledge her friend.
The psychology room was filled with the voices of students filing in and taking their seats. Joy heard a voice that she recognized as Tracy's, talking to another girl.
"I seriously think she has problems."
"Well, she has seemed kinda moody all day."
"I'm betting it's schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Probably schizophrenia, she hears voices!"
"Tracy, don't jump to conclusions..."
"I'll show you and ask Mr. O'Brian."
Riley propped her elbows on her desk, resting her chin in her hands. She dimly followed Tracy with her gaze, feeling a flare of emotion.
Her hands balled into fists. The console turned red and a new memory sphere fell into place.
In Headquarters, none of the emotions were sure what to say. Psychology sure wasn't going to give Riley or them any relief today.
Just as Joy opened her mouth to break the uncomfortable silence, Riley's voice echoed through Headquarters.
Can you fix the memory? There was that near-apathetic tone in her mental voice again.
"No can do, Riley," Disgust said, watching the red fade on the console. "You kinda need to be in here with us."
"Based on what Sadness did a few minutes ago, our emotional input needs to be perfectly in sync with what you want," Anger pointed out. "Otherwise all we get is this!" He slammed his fist on a console button and got the buzzer noise in response, the noise itself causing Anger to look like he wanted to explode.
Maybe I can sleep during psych, Riley thought to them, tiredly rubbing her eyes.
"But you can't miss a lesson!" Fear argued back, noticing that the teacher hadn't arrived quite yet. "What if Mr. O'Brian talks about something important?"
More stuff about memory and emotion, so? Riley snapped.
Fear jumped backwards a bit, his hands close to his body as if Riley had just smacked him. "I mean, you didn't even bring the outline—"
It's not like he knows what's really going on in my head.
Sadness cast a doubtful glance over at the console, the graying color admittedly unnerving her. "To tell you the truth, Riley... I don't think any of us know."
Fear swallowed, his chest feeling tight. It seemed like everything today was spiraling down, and what he had just heard from Tracy already crossed one possibility off his list. And class hadn't even really started yet!
Just as that thought entered Fear's mind, the door opened and Mr. O'Brian entered, his notebook in tow. The students placed their own textbooks and notebooks on their desks, Riley rummaging through her stuff until she found a pencil.
"Alright class," Mr. O'Brian announced. "How's everyone doing?"
"Good!"
"Fine!"
"Great!"
"Meh," Riley mumbled.
"Wonderful," the teacher said, not having heard Riley's quiet reluctance among the louder students. "Now for today, if you look at your syllabus—"
"I don't think you've even looked at it since you got it, Riley," Anger grumped in Riley's head.
"—we're going to be talking about how emotion and memory relate to another, somewhat more controversal aspect of psychology."
This seemed to grab the other students' attention. Riley only placed her book down and stared at him with a blank expression.
"Today we're going to segue into starting our lesson on various mental disorders."
Riley's head shot up at that, noticing Ann out of the corner of her eye trying not to look at her too much. A few seats away, Tracy craned her neck to look over at Riley, her eyes narrowed as if suspicious, like she could get some sort of joy out of taunting Riley right now. However, Tracy's eyes then seemed to have a flicker of fear to them.
Inside Tracy's head, her five emotions were unsure what to do.
"We oughta just stand up and say that Riley has schizophrenia!" said her Disgust, storming around their Headquarters and giving the others a stern look.
"Good idea!" Joy exclaimed. "Just wait until the teacher starts talking about schizophrenia, Tracy raises her hand, bam!" A grin lit up her face as she high-fived Disgust. "Riley's out of class and she won't hurt us!"
"Don't you think that's a bit, um, much?" asked Tracy's Sadness, adjusting the blue clip in her hair and giving the others a disapproving look. "I mean, she hasn't hurt us."
"Yet! But she could!" argued Tracy's Fear, practically shaking Sadness before he raced to the console. "She could lash out and hurt us, and regardless she could destroy Tracy's mind!"
"She did take Ann away from us," Anger snarled. "Then again, Ann wasn't as cool as we thought—"
"But she was still kind of our friend," Disgust bit back. "And now Miss Nutcase blew up at her! If she did that to Ann, why not us?"
"You're right!" Fear cried. "You heard what Ann said! Riley probably hit her or something or had a psychotic breakdown! And we could be next! It's only a matter of time before she snaps!"
Tracy's Anger glanced at Fear, then Disgust, before giving them a wave with her hand. "Argh, you guys just go over to the console and take care of this."
"Hey," Disgust said. "I'm the one who calls the shots here!" But the leader of Tracy's mind had to admit that Anger was right: not bother Riley Andersen too much right now, but keep careful tabs on her.
"Can't we just ignore her?" Sadness asked.
Tracy's Disgust sighed as she pressed a button on the console. "Sadness, what have we talked about before regarding empathy toward Riley?"
Sadness groaned.
"Joy, tell her."
Tracy's Joy made her way past the chairs and tapped Sadness on the shoulder. "Remember what we talked about?"
Tracy's Sadness let out a low sigh. "Riley is a dangerous friend-stealer."
"Exactly!" Joy beamed.
"But Riley's only 12," Sadness protested. "I feel kinda bad for her."
"Well, quit feeling bad!" Joy urged. "Reserve the feeling bad for other people. Now get back in your Sadness Circle until we're away from Riley."
"But—"
Joy pointed. "Circle."
Tracy stared at Riley, noticing the other girl meeting her gaze. She doesn't quite look like she's going to lash out and attack...
Holding her gaze for a moment, Riley placed her head on the table and covered up her face with her arms. She didn't even acknowledge Ann's concerned gaze beside her, only trying to tune out whatever it was Mr. O'Brian was saying.
Unfortunately, her partial curiosity and desire to not fail anything else prevented that from happening.
"Can anyone name for me any specific mental disorders?"
"Schizophrenia!" Tracy called out without even raising her hand.
Riley winced. Of course.
"Very good, Tracy. Any others?"
"Bipolar disorder."
"Multiple personality disorder."
"Depression."
"All very good examples," said Mr O'Brian, writing the names of the disorders on the board. "Now, I'm more flexible with which one we start out talking about first," he announced. "I think Tracy had a good point in bringing up schizophrenia because it's one of the more complex disorders."
Giving Riley a concerned frown, Ann slowly raised her hand.
"Yes, Ann?"
"Schizophrenia's just hearing voices, right?" she asked.
"That's often the popular depiction if it, yes," Mr. O'Brian said, writing auditory hallucinations on the board. "But that's only part of it. Visual hallucinations are also a major symptom."
Riley slowly lifted her head up, the writing of her pencil slowing. "Visual hallucinations?" She had to fight to get her voice heard above a whisper.
"Exactly, Riley." Mr. O'Brian turned away from her to jot down a few more symptoms on the board as he spoke. "Often visual and auditory hallucinations are so strong that some schizophrenics can't tell that a fantasy world they experience is an illusion."
"Illusion?" Riley's voice grew quieter, her gaze cast downward.
"In other words, for some it's so severe that they're unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. They might experience an entire world that's real only to them."
The emotions all looked at each other.
"Oh no..." Sadness said quietly.
"Don't listen to him, Riley!" Fear called frantically. "You know we're real!"
But Riley slunk into her seat, the pounding of her heart increasing in her ears as she dimly was aware of the other symptoms listen by Mr. O'Brian. Each one heard by the emotions caused their expressions to fall in horror.
"... an expressionless gaze, oversleeping or insomnia, extreme reactions, forgetfulness..."
Riley's mood sunk lower with each word, the console lighting up with blue and purple, a string of mixed memories coming to the shelves like bullets. Every single word was like a knife to Riley's heart and mind. She had tried to feel, but at this point, feeling seemed worse than not feeling.
Beside her, Ann's eyes widened, turning slowly to Riley but trying not to stare. She realized just as well as Riley did that almost all of those were descriptions of Riley's strange behavior lately. Some other students were glancing over too, and Tracy looked torn between wanting to race out of the room or knock Riley unconscious. Ann glared at Tracy upon noticing this, only for her gaze to return to Riley.
It fits... Riley thought miserably. It all fits...
"... social withdrawal, lack of motivation, reduced speech... about a fourth of schizophrenic patients experience depression..."
It felt like every single word the teacher said, depressive symptoms included, described Riley herself. Regaining some feeling back, several blue and purple orbs shot through Headquarters.
Maybe I am schizophrenic...
"Y-You're not, Riley!" Joy called desperately. "You hear us, you've visited the Mind World—"
And how do I know it isn't all an illusion too?!
Joy fell silent. A red memory orb entered amidst the blue and purple spheres.
Riley buried her face in her arms, barely hearing what else Mr. O'Brian said.
"Riley, listen!" Joy insisted, trying to think of any way she could improve this situation. "Okay, yeah, so maybe the symptoms kind of fit—"
"'Kind of'?!" Fear cried. "They all almost—ow!" A punch in the chest from Anger silenced the purple nerve.
"But that doesn't mean you have it!" Joy finished.
Recovering from the punch to his chest, Fear tried to take deep breaths as he paced around. "Okay... okay... Tracy's taunting her, Possibility Island's core memory's going weird, Riley has symptoms of schizophrenia and—"
He stopped short as he looked over at the memory orbs. Followed by a scream that caused Riley to wince. For once, an expression of concern and fear was alight on her face, though she fought against showing it to not draw attention.
"What's going on with the memories?!"
Fear's shout instantly drew the attention of the others, all of them swiftly turning to look at the memories as they saw his trembling hand. The one that had just rolled in was a mix of purple and blue, which given the situation wasn't surprising.
But what had caused Fear to scream immediately set the emotions on edge. For while there were colored memories like the newest one, many of the more recent ones present on the shelves were either much duller in color or completely gray. As unfeeling as Riley's old memories about phone numbers. And the sky wasn't looking quiete as bright as before either.
The alarm in Fear's voice brought Riley a bit out of her emotional stupor, feeling a stronger fear than she had managed all day. The dulled look in her eyes faded somewhat, replaced by alarm. What's going on?!
It took a moment for Joy to respond, trying to think quickly as she held up her hands. "Uh, just a second, Riley, we'll fix it!"
Fear felt as if his insides were turning to ice, staring with unease at the increasing number of dulled or gray memories. "S-S-Sadness!" he cried, gripping the smaller emotion by the shoulder and staring frantically into her eyes, looking back and forth from her to the wall of memories. "I thought you said that Gloom couldn't come back from console lockout! I don't know about you, but that's looking an awful lot like depression again to me!"
"Gloom shouldn't happen just because of the console lockout," Sadness said quietly, the light gray of some of the orbs giving more depth to her blue eyes as she approached them. "In order for Gloom to happen, circumstances would need to happen that would... bring it... up..."
She slowly turned to face the large screen, Riley's vision seeming blurred with tears. Riley's chest felt tight, the young girl having trouble swallowing, her hand shaking a little as her pencil jotted down the notes that Mr. O'Brian wrote on the board. The console lit up with blue as a colored memory clinked into Headquarters. As Riley tried to blink away her tears, that memory was followed by memories colored a dull red, purple, or blue, with gray mixed in among the colors.
Disgust gasped a little, turning sharply to Sadness. "So if today was going okay," she began, looking at the smoky white of the console, "Riley wouldn't feel as strongly but things would be kind of okay."
Sadness nodded.
"But because of what's going on out there, she's starting to..."
"Yeah." Sadness looked at the console. "Everything that's happening out there is making everything in here worse..."
The emotions felt their hearts break in the tense silence that followed. Only make worse by the fact that the console turned purple, Riley's mental voice suddenly a scream to them.
Can't you fix it in there?! The unease was so strong that Riley didn't realize she started saying her worry aloud until halfway through her sentence.
"'Can't you fix' what, Riley?" Mr. O'Brian called, looking over at her.
Riley could feel the stares of the others on her as she tried to avoid eye contact. She tried to focus on what the teacher had just been talking about. "C-Can't you, uh... fix schizophrenia with, uh, counseling or something?"
"That's a good question, Riley," Mr O'Brian said as he picked up his chalk. "Mental disorders like schizophrenia aren't something that can be immediately fixed just by going to one counseling session. Sometimes medication needs to be prescribed, sometimes there might have to be weekly counseling sessions—"
"What about the severe cases?" Tracy called out. "Like the ones who hurt people?" Her eyes narrowed at Riley on the last words.
"Well," Mr. O'Brian said, "if it ends up being really severe some might have be hospitalized to treat them. But most cases don't go that far."
Though the emotions had briefly frozen at Riley's slip up, Joy was quick to get moving. Maybe getting some feeling into the dulled memories would help prevent this from getting worse. "Just, uh, hold on Riley! There's some memory issues but we're trying to fix it!" Joy raced over to a gray memory, tossing it over to Sadness who caught it like a football. "Here, rub it, see if that helps!"
Caught off guard and nearly dropping the memory, Sadness tried to focus her emotional energy into the sphere. No luck. The gray remained. "Nothing's happening, Joy!"
"Here, let me try!" Anger exclaimed, shifting through the gray memories and picking one that he thought Riley might feel angry about, a gray memory amidst the mix of emotions when Riley had blown up at her friends. "This one's gotta work!" He pressed his fists so firmly on the memory he thought it might break, but all that happened was his own head becoming alight as he tossed the memory in frustration.
Fear's hands were shaking so hard he thought his particles would fly from his body and vanish as he grabbed gray memory after gray memory, nearly dropping them in his haste to change even one of them. "What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?!"
Joy's head lifted, an idea coming to her as if a bulb had been put into her head. "Quick, Sadness, come bring a memory over to the Mind's Eye projector!" Joy shouted, holding her own graying memory and racing toward the the projector. "Disgust, Fear, Anger, take your memories and head toward the console!"
"Why?" Disgust exclaimed, looking at their ringleader with a baffled expression.
Joy was racing around, speeding through the gray memories and tossing a few to each of the other emotions. "Riley's feeling every emotion on and off except happiness right now, and memory orbs can be multiple colors. If one of you guys can hit a button on the console at the same time as Riley's feeling that, maybe it will, I dunno, link up with her feeling sad and revitalizing the memory."
She looked over at Sadness, who was stretching to hold up the memory in the projector of the Mind's Eye, causing the memory to play for Riley. It was just after she had started walking away from Ann and Jordan after the brief fight.
"Got it?"
"Yeah," Sadness called, hold the memory as if for dear life.
"Okay, good, stay there, Sadness! Don't let go of that memory, and things will be, um, fine! I think..." The last two words were said so quickly that Joy hoped no one else caught them, not wanting to admit that herself.
"How will that help?!" Fear cried, the sphere Joy tossed to him nearly missing his reach, sending him toppling to the ground and just barely catching it in his palm. "All that will do is create a new memory, right? And we can't work the console!"
"The more she doesn't feel emotion in these memories, the harder it might be for her to continue feeling the rest of the day!" Joy cried. "If we can get her to remember them in a way that she feels something, then we might be able to get console control back and try to help Riley get through the rest of the day!"
"Is that even possible?!" Anger shouted back, slamming his gray memory against the console as he tried to focus his energy on both, getting nothing and becoming more frustrated as Riley lay her head down on her desk.
"I don't have any other ideas, so worth a shot!"
Noticing Ann and a few of the other students looking at her, Riley forced herself to try to focus and write down what her teacher was saying. But every bit of it was a struggle—if she paid attention, she'd see the others staring and feel self-conscious. But if she shut her eyes, she might get in trouble, and would seem more suspicious to her classmates.
Either way, she lost.
Riley shut her eyes for a moment to try to calm down, the words of Mr. O'Brian partially drowned out by the frantic voices in her head, trying to help bring her feeling back. The fear that had overtaken her about her current situation began to subside. It wasn't like she could do anything to stop it, anyway. She was helpless at this point.
"I don't think we can change these!" Disgust exclaimed, trying to focus all her energy into a memory from the shelves, primarily gray but with a rim of white as all of the day's were. "These memories are Riley's thanks to the console!". The green emotion fought to just not toss her orb on the ground in defeat, looking helplessly over at Joy. "I think Riley's the only one who can change these!"
"I got a better idea!" Fear cried. He pressed the single button on the console that Riley's lockout allowed them to push: the memory recall button.
"Good idea, memory recall!" Joy exclaimed. "That might help Riley!"
The group tensely waited, watching what memory would come up. Sadness pulled the gray memory away so that the new one, a blue-colored memory, projected from the Mind's Eye and enveloped the viewscreen in a blue light. It was the memory of skating with her parents in Minnesota, that had turned blue on her first school day in San Francisco
"That one?" Anger exclaimed. "How's that supposed to help? After this morning a memory about Minnesota and her parents is the last thing Riley needs!"
"Well it's the best we've got right now! Sadness!" Joy called, gesturing for her to come over. "Hurry to the console, now!"
Sadness raced there as if she were running a marathon, noticing the console's color begin to change from smoke-white to blue as Riley recalled the memory.
"W-W-What do I press?"
"ANYTHING!" Fear shouted, trying to press the console himself in desperation.
The console turned blue as Riley felt more melancholy, Sadness pressed a button...
And for a moment, there was a click as the beginnings of tears started to come to Riley's eyes, recalling the memory of back when times were happier for her. And weren't this.
"Yes!" Joy said in relief as a blue memory orb rolled onto the shelves. "We did it!"
But her happiness was short-lived as the blue on the console faded to red.
And suddenly Anger went over toward the recalled memory, as if driven by impulse.
"Wait, Anger!" Disgust called. "What are you doing?"
Anger stepped closer to the memory hanging from the projector, looking back at the others. "Riley's right to feel angry about this. "
They acted like they'd accept me no matter what, and now look what's happening!
Joy was stunned to hear the bitterness in Riley's voice. She realized that the impulse from the memories for the emotions to touch them was at work here. And in this case, it wasn't good. This wasn't like when Riley realized broccoli could be disgusting without being scary...
Beyond the memory, the view of Riley's sight was black as she shut her eyes, any thoughts of writing the teacher's notes abandoned.
Purple joined the red light on the console as Fear moved from his place to follow Anger.
"What the—" Disgust looked in bewilderment. "Why are you moving?"
"I gotta—"
But the answer came as words through Riley's thoughts.
What if Mom and Dad learn about what's going on now? We'll never go skating again, they'll send me to a mental hospital, I'll never see them again! They'll all think I'm crazy! What am I going to do?!
Fear raced ahead of Anger, the red emotion than shoving him out of the way.
The console flashed a mixture of red, blue, and purple, the first and last of those taking over as Fear and Anger warred, both emotionally and literally, in Riley's head as they each had a grasp on the projected memory.
As Joy looked on, from the fight between the emotions, to the memory changing a blend of colors, to the spectrum of memories that lined the shelves, Joy felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.
Fear. Real fear. Fear for Riley and fear for her mind.
Riley covered up her face with her arms, her eyes firmly remaining shut as she wasn't sure what to do. Among the frantic squabbling voices of the emotions, she thought she could hear others. But it was more of the confusing blend of all the emotions squabbling toward each other at once, and trying to focus on what the teacher was saying. Made all the more harder by the fact that her own thoughts were crowding in her head.
Why should I try to talk to them?
I'm going to get in so much trouble after today!
How can I explain this to them?!
Maybe if I just stay at hockey all afternoon and hide out an Ann's house.
I can't hide from them forever!
They skate with me like they love me and now they think I'm crazy!
They're being so pushy about it!
But what if something really is wrong with me?
What if they're right and I am crazy?!
It's not like they can do anything to help!
Riley had all but tuned out any noise from outside. All that she heard was inside, whether it be her own thoughts or the emotions.
"She's gonna get in trouble with Mom and Dad!"
"They need to not be so pushy!"
"They're concerned, I don't blame them!"
The tugging on the memory between the two emotions soon caused it to fly out of the pull of the projector, the sphere rolling on the ground, now an even blend of purple and red, as Anger and Fear were now sprawled out on the floor.
But the memory having changed wasn't the only thing that caused them to stop fighting. It was the crack they heard outside Headquarters.
Tensing up, Joy was the first to race over as she noticed the core memory that had faded slightly in brightness right before she saw the damage to the island.
"Family Island!" Joy gasped. "No!"
"Nice going guys," Disgust said, crossing her arms at Anger and Fear. "Now look what your squabbling did!" she cried, gesturing toward the dimmed memory and the damaged Island.
"Well don't blame us!" Anger snapped, brushing out the wrinkles in his suit and shoving Fear away. "Blame Riley for this mess!"
A sharp intake of breath from Riley caused all of the emotions to turn the moment those words left Anger's mouth. The smoky gray look returned to the construct as Riley's eyes were now opened. As they went back toward the console, they could feel Riley's chest struggling to get breath to her lungs. The influx of memories had stopped, as if Headquarters had suddenly become frozen in time.
"Uh oh," Sadness said.
"Uh, wait, Riley!" Anger raced toward the console, panic in his eyes for one of the few times in his life. "I didn't mean it li—"
But the console now shone a deep red, purple, and green, red briefly overtaking it as Riley suddenly let out a cry of frustration, anger, and fear. Before anyone could say anything or question what was going on, she gathered her things and raced out of the classroom as fast as she could.
As she left the room, the console became smoke-shaded again. The absence of any sort of memory following at Headquarters seemed just as silent as if Riley were asleep.
But the emotions' eyes widened when a new sphere rolled in. Because of the placement and chime that followed it.
While it was largely white much like the memory powering Possibility Island, if one looked close in the center it was a swirling combination of red, green, blue, and purple, with not a speck of Joy's yellow anywhere to be seen. In fact, the center colors seemed to be mixed with gray as well, quickly looking like a slightly dimmer version of Possibility's sphere.
"It's... a core memory?" Anger gasped.
"No..." It was Joy who had spoken, her hands close to her heart as she stared in horror at the rolling memory. The normally cheerful emotion was looking far worse than when the sad core memory a year ago had first rolled into Headquarters.
"Someone stop it!" Fear cried, racing over as the memory began to ascend the small upward slope before it would reach the holder. But the sliding panel opened up to let the core memory through to the path under the floor that would lead to the core memory holder.
Joy practically raced the memory as she desperately tried to reach for it before it could sink under the floor. She stretched her arm as far as it could go, anything to stop this new core of Riley's personality, but too late. The memory kept rolling underneath the floor of Headquarters.
"The core memory holder's still up!" Disgust pointed out as the other emotions raced toward it. "If we keep the holder up the core memory can't reach it and create another Island!"
"So what are we supposed to do?!" Anger demanded. "Not let it create an Island?"
"We have to!" Joy shouted, pulling at the core memory as it reached the bottom of the holder.
"But it's a core memory!" Sadness protested.
"Does that look like it would help Riley in any way?!" Joy demanded frantically.
Maybe it will.
The emotions ceased their squabbling for a moment to look up, but not daring to let the new memory move from its spot. They had been so caught up in the chaos that they had almost forgotten Riley could hear them.
"Riley?" Joy asked.
Riley said nothing. The emotions could see that her vision was blurred from tears as she stormed through the school hallways. She didn't seem to have a particular destination in mind, just anywhere that wasn't the psych room.
Joy shook her head, letting out a sigh. "Sorry, Riley!" she exclaimed. "But we can't let you hurt yourself like this! This core memory's got. to...go!" She trailed off, having tried to pull the new core memory out but each yank yielding no result. Blue eyes narrowing in desperation, she tugged at the memory, trying in vain to get it out. "It's stuck!"
"Hold on, I got it!" Fear called, bending down next to her. "I've got long fingers!"
"So do I!" Joy pointed out, her taking hold of the top while Fear stretched his fingers underneath the sphere to try to loosen it. "Okay, on three! One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
The two emotions tugged with all their strength, sending the core memory up and out of the holder. Unfortunately, the celebration was short-lived, as having pulled with more force than necessary, the memory was sent flying from their grasps.
"GET IT!" Fear cried.
The other four didn't need to be told twice, each of them frantically trying to get the core memory before it did any damage. Unfortunately, with all of them squabbling around the core memory holder, things got out of hand quickly.
As Fear tried to stretch his lanky arms to reach for the memory, his fingers grasped air, causing him to land on Anger instead. Fighting against burning the latter emotion to a crisp, Anger cried to push the nerve away from his face so he could reach for the memory, only for Joy and Disgust to both leap for it...
The next thing Joy was aware of was her side knocking two memory orbs down, a sound echoing through Headquarters as two of the light lines—one to Family Island and the other to Possibility Island—went dark. A few further zaps indicated the others had followed suit.
Fear looked like he was about to have a heart attack, barely able to even get a scream out.
The quintet frantically tried to pick up the fallen core memories, intent on not letting any of them get away.
Joy quickly started putting the memories back in the holder, muttering at each one. "Okay, here's Friendship, here's Possibility—"
"Um, Joy?" Sadness called. "I've got Possibility."
Joy stopped talking. Amidst the squabble to put the core memories back into place, another indent had opened right next to where Possibility Island's core memory had once been. And the memory that she had just put in the new holder wasn't Possibility Island's...
The other emotions turned, seeing the glowing white memory in Sadness's hands, her blue eyes looking at Joy with shock behind her glasses.
The glow around Joy's body dimmed as she stared at Sadness in horror. "... You have Possibility Island's memory."
Before Sadness could get a word out, she stopped, as did the other emotions, as a new light line spread out from underneath the holder and toward the Personality Islands hanging over the chasm of the Memory Dump.
Joy frantically tried to tug the memory out of its slot, knock it away, anything, but it was no use. Riley was getting a new island, a new aspect of her personality, whether they liked it or not.
"Oh son of a—"
Anger's curse was cut off as Riley entered one of the unused classrooms and slammed the door, shutting herself in before huddling against the wall. She buried her face in her knees.
"I hate my life," Riley mumbled.
A/N: Yeeahh, not a lot of hope as far as psychology was concerned, huh? I had quite a bit of fun writing that core memory scene, even though the circumstances weren't exactly good. ^^; So yeah, next chapter we'll see more of Riley's day, see if it gets any better (or worse), and see what's up with Riley's new Island. See you next chapter and remember to review!