Inside Out reImagined

The New Normal

Sadness wasn't one to quickly process anything that happened to Riley, or to herself. Luckily, the Train of Thought was also taking its sweet time to start up, let alone get anywhere useful, giving her the opportunity to brood.

How would she describe the entire process in a single word? One of the most befitting words for the purpose seemed to be: surreal.

Everything was so fine in the morning. Though Joy wasn't happy about her waking up late and ordered her to stay in a crudely drawn circle so that the first impression wouldn't be messed up, she had no reason not to expect Joy to need to let herself out at the end of the day. Instead, all of a sudden, she received endless shouts and was forced to pack up and leave Headquarters. The experience was almost characteristic of a dream; yet, as the Train of Thought departed from its station near the bottom of the Headquarters tower and began moving along, Sadness realized that this was her reality now.

It was for the best, though, as Headquarters didn't look or feel like her home anymore. The original, princess tower shape, before the move, was almost always the center of any emotion's diatribe when they talked about their brief, usually nightly, tours away from Headquarters, often framed in terms of "seeing their life in perspective". Yet, Sadness, who admittedly hadn't taken any tours like that in recent memory, only saw a glass-and-steel highrise as she looked back, and instead noted how it would fit in the real world.

First of all, the skyscraper, if it found itself in reality, could probably find its home in any major city across the world — perhaps even including Chicago, which Riley only got to see briefly before having to board her flight. That being said, the transformation of Headquarters was no doubt associated with Riley's move to Shanghai, and unless the Formative Memory right on top was replaced with something else, Sadness would continue to see it that way. And if such a replacement happened, Headquarters would probably transform again, anyway.

Second, the skyscraper looked a lot more like an office building, not a residential one, which made sense, as Headquarters was, first and foremost, a workplace. The emotions had very little "free time" in the human sense, as they had to keep their thoughts in sync with Riley's for as long as possible. In fact, even right now, though Sadness was physically separated from the others, she still kept the habit, at least for a little while.

Yet, she knew that the longer she stayed outside of Headquarters and with access to the remote console at her comms tablet barred, the less she would know about Riley's whereabouts and emotional state, and therefore, the more the two would drift apart. There was nothing Sadness could do to prepare for this, or to prevent this; she would simply have to let it happen, and face the emotional breaking.

Finally, as Headquarters remained nothing but a tiny needle, only standing out due to its height, the Train of Thought arrived at its destination, near Goofball Island. Sadness thought that the choice (as much as the Train of Thought chose where it went) was rather ironic, as Goofball was perhaps most closely associated with Joy. Perhaps she wanted Sadness to feel her iron fist for one last time?

It didn't matter now, as with any luck, Sadness would be far away from the Island, in a place more suited to her own personality.

Of course, "Island" was a huge misnomer — or at least, was slowly becoming one, especially along the Train's tracks. Indeed, during Riley's life in Minnesota, the Islands of Personality, Areas of Interest, and Fields of Expertise all looked like floating islands, as did any sort of meaningful structure outside of Headquarters, likely due to her brief obsession with platformer games. Yet, even as Sadness took her brief trip from Headquarters to Goofball, the area began transforming, becoming an urban, gloomy landscape not unlike downtown Shanghai.