Chapter Text
On a dark and rainy night, the Anderson's car drove down the path to San Francisco after a long journey. In the car, Riley sat in the back, slumping her shoulders and sighing, bored out of her mind. In her mind, her main nine emotions sat inside headquarters, all waiting to get back home. Joy was at the lounging couch, the others were around the Sense of Self and Ennui was sitting on the console, her phone in her hand.
"Ugh, are we there yet?" she sighed. "This panel is tres uncomfortable."
Anxiety, the orange frantic emotion zipped right past, her eyes wide with worry. "We didn't get lost, right? What if we miss our hotel reservations? What if-"
"We are too bored to worry right now," sighed Ennui.
Anxiety gave her a stern look and slowly sank back away from the console, murmuring. "I'll kill for your chill."
Sighing in response, Ennui pressed a button, making Riley sigh once more. It was a very long and cold trip and everything has been so boring recently. They were not sure how long they were going to be home and the rain continued on raining down.
"Can't we tell dad to step on it?" Anger grumbled, losing his cool.
Fear poked his head behind the couch along with Anxiety. "In this rain?!"
"Absolutely not!"
Sighing, Joy stood up. She never wanted everyone to be down on such a cold rainy day. Her instincts told her that she has to stay positive all the time, even if it was hard to stay positive. "Come on, guys," she said cheerfully. "Cheer up! We'll get there before you can say you like getting pina coladas and getting caught in the-"
As Joy continued on talking, Fear noticed something on the screen. Riley did the same, and he thought he saw something coming this way. It was bright and the sound of a truck honked in the rain. Suddenly, he knew something was happening, something that he did not see. Frantic, he stood up from his spot and shrieked, "OH MY GOD!"
Like a sparrow swooping down, he shoved Ennui out of the way and pulled two levers to pull down. However, there was a loud crashing sound and the entire screen went black. He stood there, completely frozen in his place. The HQ went completely dark, the lights turned out and the console had stopped working. The emotions looked up in confusion, startled by the loud sound.
"Excuse me?"
"What the heck?"
Confused, Joy looked at the screen, raising an eyebrow in confusion. She was sure she heard something, but she was not sure what was going on and why the HQ turned dark so suddenly. "Did we take a nap? Why is…"
Anxiety turned her attention to Fear, still gripping on the lever and his eyes still wide in shock. He didn't speak, or did not let go of the console. "Fear! Fear, are you okay?" she cried, rushing to his side.
"What's his deal?" Anger shouted. "Let go already!"
But Fear just stood there, still completely frozen. Joy went up to him, getting worried about his condition. "Is he stuck? Pull him off!" The emotions did their best to pull Fear off but he just gripped the lever.
Meanwhile, Ennui pulled herself up, completely mad and dazed by what Fear did. "Casse-toi! Imbécile!" It was very rude that Fear pushed her, since he did knock her out of the way. She really did not like anything bothering her or have her phone taken away but her attention was drawn not by them, but to someone. Envy was standing at the window, looking outside at the long term memory at the other side.. She slowly stood up and began to approach the tiny girl emotion while the others continued arguing, trying to pull Fear off.
"Pull harder, Embarrassment!"
"What- is he glued on there? Let go!"
Once she finally got to Envy, she she looked down to see the girl's worried expression. "See something, mon ami?"
"Ennui, what's that?" Envy asked, her eyes looking quite worried.
"What is wh- What?!" Her words came too soon. What they saw was a strange black substance slowly creeping up the HQ and approaching their window. It was coming from the Memory Dump and it was reaching right toward their home.
"Looks gooey. I wanna touch it," Envy cooed.
"Get back!" shouted Ennui. She shoved Envy out of the way before the blackness crashed through the window. "Sacre bleu!" Her scream made everyone turn and saw the commotion horrified. Envy climbed up to her feet and saw the indigo emotion being grabbed by the blackness. "Ennui!"
"Did not see my day doing this way," sighed Ennui. Fear started to scream in fear and Anxiety panicked, clutching her hair saying "Oh, my God!" multiple times. The purple emotion ran off to the emergency room and pulled out a rope. Gathering around him, the emotions thru the rope over Ennui's long nose. "We got you!" Envy called. They pulled with all their might to get Ennui out of the blackness but the blackness kept sucking her in. The force caused all the emotions to fall behind their backs, knocking them down to the ground.
“Oui Oui!" Joy shrieked in horror.
"Don't let that be the last thing I hear, s'il vous plait."
Desperate, Joy tried to run toward Ennui but Anger held her back. "Ennui! We'll save you!"
"Merci. That's better." That was the last thing Ennui said as she disappeared into the darkness.
Envy screamed in fear, horrified that Ennui was gone. The blackness started to spread through the ground, causing the emotions to back away. Joy, Sadness and Anger stepped up to the stairs where their bedrooms were and Disgust and Envy leaped onto the console.
Disgust has to grab Envy up because she is too tiny to climb up the console by herself. "Don't let it touch me! Ew ew ew!" she squealed.
Nearby, Embarrassment had to climb between the shelves and held on for dear life. Anxiety had leaped herself onto the lamp and pulled Fear up to safety. "Fear, I got you!"
Disgust looked around to see the blackness starting to circle around Envy and herself. "Oh no nonononono!"
"I don't like this, Disgust!" wailed Envy, clutching around Disgust's side.
"Disgust! Envy!" Joy cried.
It was hopeless, the two girl emotions are stuck and they cannot get out of this mess. Embarrassment looked ahead to see the girls in trouble but he could not get absorbed by the darkness but he had to try. He took a desperate leap and swam across the black goop, picking up Disgust and Envy before the console was consumed.
"Barry, you're so cool!" Envy cheered.
Reaching his arms, Embarrassment pulled Disgust and Envy up to the second floor before the blackness started to consume him. "Come on, jump!" Anger called.
Sadness reached her arms to Embarrassment, not wanting to lose him too. "No, hang on! I have you.. I have…" However, the blackness had consumed him. Before his hand disappeared, he gave her a thumbs up and disappeared. "EMBARRASSMENT!1" Sadness began to sob in sadness, tears flooding her eyes. Ennui and Embarrassment were consumed and they were trapped up on the second floor.
"This is not happening," Disgust gasped.
Joy looked over at Sadness, still sobbing at Embarrasement's death. "Sadness, you've tried."
"No…" Anxiety whimpered. She held onto the ceiling's chain with Fear, her body quivering in sadness and fear.
"Wow…" Fear sighed. "That poor guy didn't have a chance… Just-" He made a dead face and a sickening "eck" noise. "And that's that."
With no time to cry, Anxiety looked lower and saw the blackness reaching for Fear's foot. She gasped and pointed. "Well, don't look now, but but… You're about to-" She made a dead face."-yourself!"
And indeed it was. The blackness started to consume Fear. He screamed and reached out for Anxiety but he disappeared into the blackness below. "Fear! No! Please-" The orange emotion looked down in horror, until the black ooze began to rise up and reach the tip of the lamp. She backed away, clutching to the cord whimpering. "Oh no, no no please no!" To her horror, she saw that not only did the blackness was focus on her but Joy and the remaining emotions. They gaped in horror, seeing the wave of darkness looming above them.
Horrified, Joy screamed, "RUN!" The emotions turned and ran toward their bedroom to get away as fast as they could.
Suddenly, Disgust tripped and landed onto her stomach hard. Envy stopped and saw the green emotion on the ground. She was going to be consumed. "No! Not you too!" she cried, rushing right toward her friend. She reached her hand and landed onto the ground. "No way, not-"
The blackness started to consume the girls, leaving only four left. That was the last straw for Anger. His friends were all gone, thanks to the blackness. He roared in anger, fire shooting up from his head. "GIVE THEM BACK!" He charged right at the tar, trying to fight it back, but it dodged and grabbed Anger by the waist and started to consume him. "Sadness, get Joy out of-" His words were cut off as he disappeared into the darkness.
Desperate, Sadness grabbed Joy's hand and rushed toward the door. "Sadness!" Joy cried. They finally made it into the bedroom and quickly, they slammed the door. The black ooze slammed against the door, trying to break it's way in. Quickly, Sadness got behind the door, trying to hold it back from opening. She looked up at Joy who climbed up to her arms and looked at her best friend. There is no way to get out of here, no way to get away from the darkness.
"Hurry, Joy! The window!" she cried, pointing her finger to the window. It has to be the only way out for Joy to escape. "Go! Hurry!"
Joy looked at the window and then back at Sadness. Tears started to well in her face. Sadness was her friend since she knew what the blue emotion's true purpose was. She doesn't want to lose her. If she goes then, Sadness will be left behind. "I… I can't just leave you. Where I go, you go."
Sadness' attention was drawn to see the blackness had slipped through the crack of the door and started to consume her. "Joy, you have to go," she whimpered. "You have to…"
"Sadness."
"For Riley…"
Joy could not let her best friend die. Instead of escaping through the window, she stood up to her feet and ran toward her friend. "SADNESS, NOO!" She held onto Sadness before the blackness consumed her.
All of the HQ had flooded completely and all that was left was poor Anxiety, still hanging for dear life away from the tar.
"This is fine. Eeeup! We're good. We're goo…" She inched her away further up until there was no ceiling left. The tar grabbed her foot, making her lose the grip of the cord. "Okay… Some panic…" He began to giggle manically, thinking she must be losing her mind. She is done for. All of her friends are gone and she too is going to be consumed. "Oh no. Okay, uh, what would Joy do? What can we control right now?" She wondered to herself, trying to calm her nerves. Her big giant green eyes caught on something floating in the tar. She picked it up once the tar consumed half of her face. "Ennui's phone! We can control what tunes we get out on. Yeah!" she exclaimed. "So we'll go out on an ode! And ode to Riley!" Her entire body became consumed but her hand tapped the button, playing a familiar gum commercial that would allow Riley to react until the entire HQ became flooded in darkness.