If you thought Joy's adventure was getting going, It's time for Sadness to ramp it up more. WHOOO! GO SADNESS!

Chapter 7

Hello, It's Sadness again, and now you know that Joy had to take a break. I didn't really know what to make of this either, but one thing that I was sure about was that it was really bad for Harold. I got more console time, naturally, so did Anger and Fear, but what I didn't get was how easily Joy just gave up, and it didn't just make a blow on me, but it hit the rest of the team too, but especially Disgust. Disgust and Joy got along the most, laughing at each others jokes and having similar points of view and tastes, so the loss of Joy also removed part of Disgust, and she did less work about the place.

Harry was definitely not happy in the new placement, though he pretended to be. I don't know how we pulled it off, but somehow we faked being happy to the point that Harry actually believed he was happy. I think some failsafe mechanism for certain eventualities is mentioned somewhere in the mind manuals, but I'll have to go back and check up on that. Of course, we didn't get golden orbs of happiness rolling through, but we did get boosts of happiness from somewhere, maybe it was when we called up happy memories, or maybe from a boost in chemicals of some kind from Pineal Labs (These guys are famous for producing all sorts of great things. Sometimes they work with Pituitary Industries and Thyroid Solutions, but they work alone most of the time). The body and mind have overlaps in places and that's one of them, though I'm not sure why it is.

Back to the story though, otherwise I'll be told off for being nerdy again, and I don't want another swirly from Anger ever again *shudders*. Harry was barely coping, and another five months later we end up moving to yet another foster home, and we were really concerned that, since we were six we hadn't stayed in one home for more than three years, and as a result, our memories got really colourful, but with that comes a whole host of problems, and we weren't sure if Harry would survive through it, or if he'd crack under the pressure.

I had stopped crying. Crying is what I've done almost everyday of my life, but this was a complete and utterly new experience for me and I had literally run out of tears to cry, almost as if my eyes couldn't even make them anymore because I had cried too much. Disgust couldn't be sassy and Anger was out of firepower, and that left only Fear at full capacity. After a couple of days of this melodrama, I couldn't take it anymore and I did something that I had hoped I would never have to do in my whole life. I shouted. How I could shout was beyond me, I never had the energy before, I was always depressed and lethargic and sometime just walking made me collapse in a heap. But not this time. I shouted at anyone and everyone, and it felt good, and now I knew why Anger felt the need to do it all the time. It was a scream of pure me, and it got the others' attention all right. When I spoke next, not one person dare interrupt me, not Sass queen, not firebrick girl, nobody.

"Enough. I...have had...enough. Enough of the madness, enough of the complete and utter hopeless situation we are now stuck in, with no Joy to help us out of it."

I spoke slowly, my voice trembling, and me standing by the core memory capsule. I began to think logically about each one and make a note on what was wrong and how to fix it. I now had the others' complete attention, and I intended to use it to my greatest advantage.

"We need to do something here, but I'm no good unless it comes to reading manuals and making Harry feel sad, so I need your help…"I sniffed a little, and for the first time in days I had a few tears rolling down my cheek, and that told me that I was doing the right thing, I was getting there eventually.

As the dream continued in the background which we were all watching and arguing about a few moments before, Disgust was the first to speak up.

"Honey, I think that is the most useful and honorable thing you've said ever since I've known you."

"Sadness, I'll always try to help, you know that, keeping Harry safe and sound is what matters, and if helping you is what'll make that happen, I've got your back"

"You've impressed me tonight dude, primal screams and all, I think I'll take the chance."

I was so relieved that I did a Joyish thing and brought everyone in for a hug. Not as much energy, but a hug nevertheless.

"Thank you guys! This means so much! So, do you think there's a chance of finding Joy down there and bringing her back?"

Fear pondered this, doing some calculations on his fingers and announces

"The odds of finding Joy, bringing him back up here before something terrible goes wrong is around 3,720 to 1."

"Never tell me the odds" and when Anger said that I was certain that they were now quoting Star Wars, especially as they then high fived each other and Anger saying that she'd been waiting to do that for years. But hey, if it made them feel better, who was I to judge?

"No, but seriously, the odds are pretty slim, because only one person should go down anyway to minimise the potential problems up here. Harry still needs input from us, whether we like it or not."

The obvious was Fears forté, and this was something I had overlooked. Of course we still had to have people up in headquarters! Did I really think everything would continue normally if we all just got onto the train of thought and plodded off in search of Joy? Oh how silly of me, oh how useless I am, maybe I should just stop now, give up, lie down and never work ever again...that was what I was thinking, but I got shaken out of it when Anger spoke next, and not a moment too soon, otherwise I would have given up.

"So now we need to decide who is going to go. Someone with enough knowledge to navigate around, but also with not that much to do up here." and all the heads turn to me.

"You want...me? I don't know, maybe if…"

"Sadness, you know full well it's gotta be you, darling, you're the only one who's read the manuals for crying out loud, the only one who knows anything about anything down there. If anyone's going to find Mr. Happy it's you."

"Gee Disgust, you're right. If I do go though, I'm going to have to make a map up though, just in case, and I'm gonna have to have a pack for supplies and I'll need some good trainers…"

"Don't worry, I got it covered. You can have a pair of mine, my cupboard's full of them and I don't wear them that are trainers fashionable? Err, never!"

So she gave me her 'utterly horrendous' trainers as she put it, and Fear began to help me gather up my stuff ready for the journey ahead of me, because heck knows what was out there. He wanted me to prepare for the worst, and he certainly didn't want me to fail, failing was not on the cards. Failing maybe a part of life, but for once, I hoped it wasn't this part.