It has been a few months since the events of those first three days in San Francisco for 11-year-old Riley Andersen. Ever since Riley tried to run away, but was thankfully stopped by Sadness, who finally found her purpose in Riley's life, Riley was able to return to her parents and confess her severe homesickness.
Her parents surprised Riley and confessed feeling the same way that Riley did.
Riley's parents were worried about Riley, following her revelation. So, they signed Riley up for therapy, and within a few weeks, Riley was starting to feel better, and had come to accept San Francisco as her new home.
And with that, things got better. The moving truck finally arrived, and the house was finally livable. Riley made friends at her school, found a junior hockey league, and resumed playing hockey. But it didn't just get better for Riley.
Inside Riley's mind, Riley's emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust were all back together, after Joy and Sadness were sucked out of Headquarters. Sadness had found her purpose, and Joy took a step back from having Riley be happy all the time.
The emotions were now closer than ever. Anger, Fear, and Disgust took their moments to apologize to Sadness for their previous treatment of her. Sadness was able to forgive all of them, and finally feel included.
Joy herself gave Sadness the most heartfelt apology she could, as she had the most to apologize for, from her mistreatment, to attempting to abandon her (and Bing Bong) at the crumbling Family Island.
Sadness held no ill will towards Joy for all that she had done, as she knew that Joy was who made Riley happy, and it was understandable to not want to have their host feel sad.
Riley's Islands of Personality had all been restored, and had a few new islands, thanks to the creation of new Core Memories.
Life had gotten better for both Riley and her emotions for a few months and was pretty good now.
One day, after Riley got home from a victorious hockey game, she and her family had a quick dinner, and Riley went to sleep.
Inside Riley's mind at Headquarters, the emotions were getting ready to go to sleep as well.
"Good job everyone! That was a good day!" Joy said with a cheerful voice. "Fear, you have Dream Duty tonight. Good luck!"
Fear groaned. He did NOT like Dream Duty at all. He would rather do anything else.
"C'mon Joy. Do I have to do Dream Duty?" Fear asks in a whining tone. "It's so mundane and boring!"
Anger looked at Fear in, well, anger, then stepped forward, and grabbed Fear by his sides.
"Look bub, we all gotta do it. You don't hear us complaining about it! Now stop whining and just do it!" Anger said, as he shook Fear rather violently, and then shoved him back, thankfully not hitting anything."
"Yeah, and you better not wake us up again. You will not like what happens if you wake me up early again!" Disgust stated as she walked away.
Anger smirked then said, "Then go to sleep diva!" as he turned in Disgust's direction.
Disgust fired back with, "Sure thing ugly brick head." irritating Anger, and Disgust walked away with prideful satisfaction.
Anger hissed, as both he and Disgust started walking to their rooms. Sadness and Joy had just finished cleaning up the remainder of Headquarters, while Fear was making himself a cup of coffee, mentally preparing for, in his words, "stupid Dream Duty".
At Dream Productions, the director was giving the actors/actresses the script for the day, while also looking around for the three disturbances that caused Riley to wake up, making sure that they weren't there.
"Alright, get the hockey set ready! Skaters, to your places!" the director said.
An assistant to the director came in holding the camera. "Here's the camera." Said the assistant. "Good. Prepare the Reality Distortion." The director said.
"And Action!" said the director as the dream began. The dream was Riley playing in the hockey game she played in the hours prior.
However, what the director didn't know, was Riley was somehow lucid dreaming. She appeared to be aware of what she was doing in her dream. This caused Dream Productions problems, as the director noticed that things weren't working right.
"What's going on? The Reality Distortion isn't working right!" the director shouted in frustration. "Stop the scene!" the director said, but much to her chagrin, the dream wasn't stopping. Something was interfering.
Inside the dream, Riley could actively control herself, as she appeared to be what the camera was supposed to be. She was confused but kept going with what she was doing.
"Fix the camera! There's something wrong with it!" the director said as the technical workers of Dream Productions tried to fix the camera.
The director was losing patience, as the tech workers tried everything, they could think of to fix whatever was wrong with the camera, but nothing was working. Then suddenly, one of the workers hit the Reality Distortion feature on the camera, which somehow managed to open a portal inside of Riley's dream.
"What did you do?" the director shouted.
"I-I I don't know!" one of the technical workers said.
Back inside Riley's dream, as Riley was skating, she saw a portal open out of nowhere. "What is that?" Riley said, as she was moving closer to the portal.
Before she had more time to think about what to do, regarding the portal, she was suddenly pushed in the portal.
Back at Dream Productions, the crew noticed that now nothing was working at all. "Why is nothing working?" the director said, as all the staff looked around, looking lost.
Riley screamed as she traveled through the portal. Eventually, the portal opened again, and Riley came out, now barefoot and in her pajamas. Riley stood up, noting that she had her consciousness, and looked around, noting the glowing bookshelves, the giant island-like structures, the different areas, and the tall structure standing above everything.
"Where am I?" Riley asked, looking out at the strange place she was in.