Inside Out: The Sitcom (Season 1)

Missing Memories

Description: When Riley suddenly can't remember things the emotions had deemed important memories to keep, word spreads around the entire mind that there's possibly a memory thief. Two misunderstandings later, both Joy and Disgust think the other is the robber.

Episode Inspiration: "Too Many Crooks"

"Did you hear?"

"Yes! They're gone!"

"Who would've taken them?"

It was all anyone in Riley's mind could talk about anymore. She'd been in the middle of a difficult assignment, but when the emotions had tried recalling the memories from class to help her out, they'd weirdly never shown up. Even the mind police came in to investigate and had reached the conclusion: someone had stolen Riley's memories. Luckily, according to their report, none of the emotions were suspect, meaning they only had to focus on getting Riley through the day with only the hope that said police would recover the memories and find whoever was responsible.

But even that next morning, the emotions couldn't help but bring it up. And by bring it up, it really meant Anger gave them a good shock.

"'Mind robber strikes again,'" he read from The Mind Reader.

Four pairs of eyes looked up. "Again!?"

Anger gave a shrug before continuing. "'With the emotions now witness, the thief behind the disappearance of Riley's memories has hit again, this time with information required for an upcoming test. Authorities claim they'd been trying to keep the emotions in the dark about this for their own sakes, since they're still tasked with getting Riley through the day.'"

"Seriously, why is it whenever something happens, Headquarters is the last to know?" Disgust rolled her eyes. "For all we know, they could be making plans to renovate the place and we wouldn't be told anything until they got to work."

"And what if this is just the beginning?" Fear fretted. "What if more memories disappear? What if Riley loses her core memories and--"

"What if we try and calm down?" Joy set down a mug of coffee in front of him, hoping it would distract him from the constant worrying. "I'm positive whoever took those memories will be caught and they'll be returned."

"Makes me curious why someone would want to steal the memories to begin with," Anger shrugged.

"Maybe to ransom them or something?" Disgust guessed. "I mean, they're memories that Riley needs in order to remember facts for the upcoming test. Who's to say they're not taking these memories to try and pawn them off for cash?"

They all had to agree; it seemed like a plausible explanation.

"We'll need evidence before we can tell anyone that theory, though," Sadness pointed out. "So there is that."

"Well, in the meantime, we'll just have to try and get through the day like normal," Joy said. "Riley has six days until that test. That's plenty of time for the mind police to find the memories, along with the culprit."

"And what if more evidence crops up around here?" Disgust asked. "What then?"

"Then... I guess we're very much involved in the investigation," Joy said nonchalantly.

Sometimes when Riley went to sleep and Joy wasn't on Dream Duty, she'd grab a specific memory to have playing on loop next to her bed to help her go to sleep at night. It was like if Riley went to sleep watching movies or something like that, and Joy did do that too, but it was more likely she had some past moment repeating in her room. More often than not, lately, she'd been going to Long Term Memory to pick her nightly memory, which left the other four some peace from her nonstop energy to get ready for bed. The first few times, it had been weird for the inhabitants outside of Headquarters, but some explaining by all five emotions had smoothed things over, and now mind workers half-expected the positive emotion wandering around the shelves. Sometimes they even helped her find certain memories, given they knew where things were more than she did.