A.N.: Steveles and ErinMilne noticed me! Yay! Seriously, though, their stories are great and I thank them for their support. I also thank Steveles for his constructive criticism of chapter one. I hope I fixed the problem, and look forward to more from him. And without further ado, Chapter 2 of Guess Whose Mind.

This one's from a comic.

It wasn't normally cold in HQ. HQ was a place of comfort- of cozy chairs, soft blankets, and bright rays of sunlight. The emotions didn't like the cold, and so they made sure to keep HQ as warm as they possibly could, only stopping short of lighting a fire near the box of the core memories. Despite all this, one morning it was cold in HQ.

Fear shivered and looked around the room for a blanket. There were none available, however- they'd all been taken by the other emotions. Joy had three, the hog, but all the others had at least one. Disgust had supplemented the blanket by curling up onto her chair, making herself as small as she was able. The only thing Fear could see of her was her eyes as she watched the screen to the outside, seeing if she would be needed.

All the emotions except for Fear were in their chairs at the console, and Sadness beckoned for Fear to join them. But first, Fear wanted his own blanket, so he took the one that was the cover for the core memories. He knew that he wasn't supposed to do that, but it would only be until HQ warmed up again, and he also knew that none of his fellow emotions would really care. With his blanket situation taken care of, he joined the rest of the emotions.

It was just in time, too, for it seemed that he was needed. Something out there just didn't feel right, and Fear began pressing buttons to give their host an unsettled feeling. Something was off, and they needed to investigate. It wasn't long before he discovered the problem:

"We're alone."

This got the attention of all the emotions. Joy glanced from Fear to the Mind's Eye and back again, nervousness showing on his face before he offered:

"There must be a reason for this. They might not be at home. They're probably shopping or something."

Joy left his chair to go find an idea bulb, holding one of his blankets around him like a cape. He selected one, brought it back to the console, and plugged it in, where it was accepted. As their host explored the situation, purple memory orbs rolled into short-term memory, occasionally interrupted by a splash of blue.

Fear was not normally the most prominent at the console, but now he took the lead. Sadness, despite normally having the least to do, was the second most active. Joy and Disgust, the normal leaders, were idle, and Anger was tensely observing the situation, waiting for his chance.

Suddenly Joy noticed something and flew into a flurry of activity. Yellow orbs clinked into short-term memory, their light playing over Headquarters and making strange splashes of color on the curtains, which hadn't yet been retracted for the morning. The emotions perked up for the first time that morning, hopeful that their situation was over.

But alas, it didn't last long, and Joy's influence soon subsided again, to be replaced with Fear and Sadness. Joy fell back into his chair and once again swaddled himself in blankets against the pervading chill, which wasn't just a drop in temperature. It was partially the feeling of hopelessness which had invaded the hearts of all the emotions.

Anger then spoke up.

"There's only one thing left to do now," she said. "Everyone, at the ready."

The emotions knew what she was talking about. It was their final 'panic button' plan for when absolutely nothing else worked. They all knew their parts, and got ready to produce the strongest feeling their host had had that morning.

In the outside world, Garfield the Cat had had enough of the time when he no longer existed. He summoned up all his emotion and willpower to use his final weapon: Denial.

He called out to no one in particular: "I don't want to be alone!"

The illusion was broken. The house returned to its normal state. Garfield was on a table, and Jon and Odie were there. Jon offered him breakfast, but he didn't really care about that at the moment. Garfield hugged Jon and thought happily:

"Who needs it? I need you!"

This time, I chose Garfield. I decided on using the (in)famous 1989 Halloween series because it was genuinely creepy and elicited strong emotional reaction from Garfield, and because it's well known and easy to find online. With that out of the way, here are the clues:

1. My description of Headquarters. It's usually warm, cozy, and full of sunlight. The sort of things that a cat like Garfield likes.

2. The Core Memories are in a box and covered by a blanket, sort of like Garfield's bed.

3. The emotions' usual levels of activity. Joy is used the most, because Garfield's a hedonist. Disgust is the second-most prominent, reflecting Garfield's behavior and his sardonic nature. Anger is next, because Garfield can get easily annoyed. Fear is uncommon, because Garfield is (pardon the pun) no scaredy-cat. Sadness is barely used at all, because Garfield's pretty selfish and not one to feel sad often.

4. It's minor, but Disgust is curled up in her chair- like a cat.

5. The closed curtains. According to Davis, the Halloween arc was all just a dream. To have Garfield react the way he does, I needed a way for it not to be immediately apparent to the emotions that what was going on was not real. After all, the sky at HQ darkens whenever the host is asleep, so it would presumably stay darkened throughout the series. I thought that closed curtains would prevent the emotions from immediately noticing that something was wrong, and the freakiness of their situation would distract them from actually opening the things.

6. The events, of course, match the strips. Garfield notes that it's cold, and then he realizes that something's wrong- he's alone. He explores his now-abandoned house (Joy's guess that 'they'- Jon and Odie- are out shopping is reminiscent of Garfield trying to assure himself that Jon's probably at the grocery), and then has a hallucination that Jon's there and about to feed him (this is Joy's burst of activity). After that vanishes, he tries denial, which works, and everything is restored to normal.

So here you are, folks- Chapter 2. Please read and review, and stand by for the next chapter.