It had been a week since Riley Andersen had mysteriously died, the coroner and medical examiner both vexed by the anomalous way she left the living. By all accounts, she was as healthy as a thirteen year old could be, especially given her knack for hockey. Yet there she was, in a coffin, surrounded by friends and family who could afford to cancel their flights back home to mourn her strange death, her face calm and with as large a smile as when death took her.
Among those mourning her were two girls crying rivers onto each other, the shorter, slightly older one being Riley's best Minnesotan friend, Megan "Meg" Davis, and the taller, slightly younger one being her best San Franciscan friend, Patricia "Trish" Richards. Both were Riley's teammates in life, both knew her well and both were heavily affected by the loss of their friend.
A ways away from the crying pair stood Angela, Trish's younger sister, looking at the coffin above her with sadly curious eyes. A week ago, while she was playing with her sister, she heard the sounds of sirens approaching, then stopping two houses up. A sort of morbid curiosity wrapped itself around the child, causing her to ask her sister to accompany her up-street.
Soon after, they were out and in front of the blue house, where Angela and Trish saw two men carrying a gurney out of the house, a blanket covering the dead figure on it. It only took Trish a few seconds to figure out who it was beneath the cloth, the depressed looks on the Andersens' faces being all she needed as confirmation.
Angela, however, was confused at the sudden sorrow of her older sister. To her, the figure on the gurney was just sleeping, although the child asked herself why they were taking it to the hospital. Nevertheless, she approached her wallowing sibling, not to ask of the figure, but because she felt the urge to comfort her, even if her young mind did not know what comfort was.
Now, before the figure in the coffin, Angela knew why her sister cried that day. Through nightly visits to her parent's and sister's rooms, the raven haired child noticed that when someone was sleeping, their chests rose and lowered. She figured that, since the girl in the coffin, Riley Andersen, as she had come to know her, didn't raise or lowered her chest, she wasn't sleeping. Nor was she holding her breath, as the child had long since figured that doing so for so long would be bad, having tried it herself once.
Crossing the only two choices she could comprehend from her small list of things the blonde could be doing, Angela wondered if she was what the adults meant by dead. A sudden sadness took hold of her, yet no tear fell from her eyes. Rather, she thought internally about things happening around her.
What was death? That question echoed within the raven haired child about as much as the sounds of crying and comforting words around the room. Within her, even her Emotions debated the concept greatly, none of them even near the console as their host stared at the dead girl's face. They each paced around, each one adding to or debunking other's guesses and theories. None of them noticed the eavesdropper listening in from outside.
"I'm telling you," Joy said as he hopped over the projector's tractor beam, "she's definitely not sleeping, Anger."
"Then, what is she? Huh? What the heck is she?" The red Emotion asked, almost as much of a nervous wreck as Fear beside her. "Is she really as they say she is? Is Riley dead? Is that why our sis is crying her eyes out with that redhead behind us?" At her words, Sadness turned the crank at the left side of the console, telling Angela to look at the two weeping figures in worry.
"There's no other explanation," the tear-like Emotion said, his own eyes about to burst.
"Are you all so sure she's not just holding her breath?"
"We scratched that possibility when Fear asked that question, remember?" Disgust explained from the Idea Shelves, Joy standing behind her with a curious look on his face. While most Ideas on the Shelves were childish and scarce, there was one that made Joy's eyes light up. Grabbing the blue Idea over Disgust's head, the glowing Emotion dashed over and picked up his blue companion and rushed the both of them over to the console.
"Oh, great," Anger exclaimed in an annoyed tone, "he has an Idea."
"Oh, will you hush now?" Joy replied before turning to Sadness. "Hey buddy, think you can do what you always do when we see someone in need?" Sadness looked at him with confusion for a moment, then realized what he meant and took hold of the Idea, placing it in the slot by the crank.
"Okay," the blue ball of tears began as his host accepted the Idea, "how do you want me to do it?" He turned to face Joy as the yellow star simply scratch his chin, a thoughtful look in his eye as he formulated a plan of action. Absentmindedly, the yellow Emotion pressed a few buttons, causing the raven haired child to put a hand to her chest and feel her softly beating heart. The light rhythm and calming nature of the feeling caused a plan to finally reach Joy.
"Alright, here's how we're doing this," he began explaining, the other Emotions coming closer as he spoke, "let's approach them, get their attention and, as best as we can, tell them that Riley isn't really gone."
"What?" the others exclaimed, Anger doing so much louder than everyone else.
"No, no, guys, guys, hear me out. We'll do it this way; we point here," Joy placed a hand on Sadness' chest, of-center to the left, "and say that she's there."
"And how are you so sure that'll help them?" Disgust asked, not really knowing what Joy was getting to. The tall, star-like Emotion simply looked at each of their faces for a second before turning to the console.
"Sadness knows. Right, buddy?"
Hesitantly, the blue Emotion nodded before getting to work, his host fully turning toward the nearest crying figure. Outside of Headquarters, unbeknown to the Emotions, Riley listened in to every word said, finding herself surprised at the maturity in the Emotions' words, especially Joy's, whose plan Riley found to be well thought out.
Earlier in the week, the blue haired spirit of the dead blonde found out that, if she put her mind to it, the physics of the world around her would stop applying to her. So long as she stayed in control of her own emotions, she could will herself into the air and fly to and fro between Goofball Island and Headquarters. The control part had a bit of a problem though; for some reason, Riley found herself easily brought to a state of glee and excitement much more than ever before.
During states of incredible joy, the teen found herself turning as yellow as Joy, her attire turning green and blue and her shoes vanishing temporarily. By contrast, whenever she focused on defying physics, her body and clothes all turned whiter than the whitest surface, her hair and eyes somehow retaining their deep blue colors. In both cases, she always had a blue glow, just like Joy; even in her default state it was there.
Currently, the young teen gripped the outer edge of Headquarters' clear aperture, making sure she was unseen. Something in the back of her mind told her it was dangerous to go in while the Emotions were there, and thus, she stayed were she was, listening in to the blue and yellow pair as they worked together in what could be the most mature plan a three year old could formulate.
Within Headquarters, Joy and Sadness pressed many buttons in perfect synch, their host slowly approaching her sister with a sympathetic look on her face. As Angela walked up to the crying pair and called out the name of her sibling, Sadness turned to Joy to ask which words would be best to say first.
"I really don't know what to what to start with," he said, his blue hands actually trembling with worry. "Do you think, maybe…? Oh, I don't know if we can…"
"'Don't cry,'"
"What?" the blue Emotion looked at Joy, confused and wondering the meaning behind the words before he saw the logic behind them. "You mean we should say 'Don't cry, Riley's here'?"
"Yeah," Joy nodded, head tilted in Sadness's direction. "Is that fine with you?"
The blue teardrop looked at the buttons on the console, his hands wrapped around the sleeves of his sweater. Sadness analyzed the words carefully, making sure that each one was right for the moment before grabbing the lever before him and pushing it slightly, Joy pulling the other one to add a small smile to Angie's features.
Outside, Angie looked into Patricia's dark brown eyes, her own beaming with compassion and empathy. She breathed in softly, her focus solely on the tears of her older sister, and exhaled all worry away before she spoke.
"Don't cry, Riley here," Angie whispered while placing her hand to Patricia's chest. The older girl had trouble comprehending her younger sibling's words the first time, so the amber eyed child repeated herself, just a bit louder. "Don't cry, Riley here." Within Patricia's mind, the meaning echoed briefly before fading to nothing. Seeing this, Angela repeated herself a third time, locking her sister in a warming embrace. "Don't cry, Riley here."
Now, the meaning fully reached the dark eyed teen, who looked at the raven black hair of her sister's small head in light wonder at her comforting choice of words. Letting out the last of her cries, Patricia returned her sibling's embrace, her heart lighter by many degrees, lifted even more when Megan joined in, also relieved by the child's words.
Within Angie's Mind, Riley watched as Joy and Sadness held each other in their own embrace, the both of them calmly watching the scene they'd just made unfold. With compliments and congratulations coming from the other Emotions, the blue haired spirit could practically feel the smiles on their faces as she quietly observed from the window.
All celebrations were cut short as a loud chime resounded across Headquarters, the light within dimming to near darkness as a bright blue and yellow orb came from where Memories came. A Core Memory, a complex one, a powerful one; it rolled up for a second before halting by a valve on the wall, a small trapdoor opening itself to allow it passage to the Module. While every other Emotion looked at the dual toned Memory with fascination, Joy looked at it with confusion, having read in passing from the Manuals that such Memories usually formed much later in a host's life.
"It can't be," he whispered to the air, his words missed by all but Sadness, who watched as Joy went to the Module, lifted it up and picked the Memory before it could arrive at a slot. Approaching his taller companion, the tear-like Emotion wondered why Joy's demeanor went from exited and exuberant to quiet and almost incredulous.
"What's wrong, Joy?" Sadness asked as the yellow star placed the Memory back in its slot. Joy simply shook his blue haired head as he walked around the Module to see what kind of Island the new Core Memory would make.
"Nothing, really," he replied as he made it halfway there, causing the hiding spirit to duck below view, "just that, well, complex Memories like that aren't really supposed to form this early. Memories formed now are supposed to be simple, arbitrary, made by the strongest Emotional Input at the moment, like the Manuals say."
"But you've said it before," Disgust said as the Island formed, its light pushing the other two apart, "the Manuals are just guidelines, not stone-set rules."
"I know. Still, it's surprising. I mean," Joy turned to his companions as the light dissipated to reveal a prominent statue of two ambiguous figures in a warming embrace, with many objects, both happy and sad, surrounding them, "how often does something like this happen?" The question left the other Emotions vexed for a moment before Joy decided to continue, walking back to the console as he did.
"I'm happy about this new Core Memory and I'm happy about Sympathy Island, but, still, this is so wonderfully confusing and mysterious, I'm shocked, in a good way."
"Then, how about we continue making this sad day a little bit brighter?" Sadness said as he and the others arrived at the console to continue the day.
"You wanna steal my job?"
"Nope."
"Good." Joy sighed a heavy sigh, his energies at an all-time high as he pushed several buttons, the others about to join in as he said "Let's go." Everyone gave a small cheer as they made Angela follow her sister toward their parents, who spoke small comforts to the Andersens.
As the child got near the dead blonde's family, Riley, from outside Headquarters overheard a few words that made her heart fill with a strange, happy sorrow. Deciding to return to Goofball Island, the blue haired spirit allowed a small smile to grow on her pearl white features, not noticing the blue figure watching her leave from the window as she said in a low whisper:
"I was going to be a sister."