Le tour de l'Âme et d'Autres Questions de Confiance (The Trust Gate)

You’re walking around the virtual world, when suddenly you stumble upon Faery’s sleeping form. You bend down and peel back her eyelids and get sucked down into her soul! There’s a flash of bright, white light...

You open your eyes. You see yourself standing before a huge castle, surrounded by a brick wall with a giant gold gate, labeled THE TRUST GATE. You’re wondering what the heck is all this insanity, when a voice startles you. You look to your left and see a monitor you must have missed before. On the screen there is a girl. She has on a light blue dress that is the exact color of her eyes. Her hair is gold to match the collar, sleeves, waist, and train of her dress.

“Oh! Hello there! One second and I’ll check your keys!” she says smiling. Her face disappears and she pops up beside you, blinking innocently.

“Your keys?” she asks again. You’re about to mumble that you don’t even know what the heck is going on, much less have some keys—when you realize your left pocket is rather heavy. You reach inside and low and behold, a huge key ring filled with different colored keys is in your hand. The girl takes them from you.

“My, but you have just about all her keys! Oh—! Oh dear. Had all of her keys. It seems almost all of your keys are out dated, including your Trust Key! It’s odd that you even still have it...” She looks puzzled. “Usually the keys just disappear when she changes the Locks. You must be Special, somehow. Anyway, you only have four keys, plus the out-dated Trust Key left.”

She opens the catch and dumps hundreds of keys to the ground. They disappear.

“Except for her bestfriend, you had the most keys I’ve ever seen! If your Trust Key is updated you might regain those keys again. Well, since you still have at least those keys, I don’t see why I can’t take you on a tour—see what happens...”

She turns and opens the Trust Gate. The two huge double doors slowly swing open. You follow her through.

“Since you’re out-dated, you only have a short time here—you’re labeled as a guest.”

Two other girls materialize next to her. One has her grey hair up in a bun, she has grey eyes, and is wearing a white blouse with a grey vest over it, a grey, ankle-length skirt, white stockings, and grey Mary-Jane’s. The other girl has her peach hair in a pony-tail and peach eyes. She’s wearing a plain white long-sleeved shirt, peach knee length skirt, white calf-high stockings, and peach Mary-Jane’s.

“Grey and white is Cordial or Cordialness...” the first girl says, pointing.

“Hello,” Cordial says, simply.

“And peach and white is Polite or Politeness.”

“Hello, how are you?” Politeness says with a small smile.

“Oh, and I’m Nice or Niceness,” Nice says. “You see, you have the peach and white, grey and white, light blue and gold, and orange and yellow keys—oh! That’s odd! You have cerulean and white. Hm, but it says “on lease”. Cerulean and white is Kindness. Oh, and yellow and orange is Friendliness. The Kindness Key must only be working sometimes for you. But then, it’s like that for almost everybody. It just seems that you’d have it permanently since you had all those other keys. Something bad must have happened. She did change the Trust Gate and all Her other Doors. Oh dear, I’m rambling. C’mon, let’s try to find Friendliness. She’s probably out with Hyperness somewhere...”

You follow the three emotion girls down a cobblestone path into the castle. There are two hallways opposite of each other. The hallways are lined in Doors of all different colors and labels. In the center of the room, there are two Doors, labeled “EMPATHY” and “APATHY”. Empathy’s Door is rainbow colored while Apathy’s is slate grey.

“This is the Hall of Emotions. Upstairs we have Memories and People all attached to the Doors. The Hall of Emotions is run by Empathy and Apathy. Apathy is usually asleep. If she’s awake, then all of us have to go to sleep. But Empathy is in charge right now, although there were some problems with her and Apathy again recently. But for now, we’re free to open our Doors all we please. If too many doors open at once, that’s when She gets confused and frustrated. It gets messy when two opposing emotions are out at the same time—like Love and Hate. Anyway, on with the tour!”

You follow Nice into the Hallway to the left. Polite and Cordial go to their Doors—Polite peach colored, Cordial light grey. Nice points to her Door.

“Yep, that’s mine. Light blue. But everyone knows that the favorite Door is cerulean, though She’ll never admit it...”

Niceness knocks on the cerulean Door. Out pops a girl in a little cerulean dress, trimmed in white lace. Her hair is short and white with a big cerulean headband in it. Her eyes are cerulean, as are her shoes. She’s wearing thigh-high, white, lacy stockings.

“Hi! How are you!?” she says enthusiastically and wraps you in a bear hug. You can’t help but grin. She smiles back at you and hugs you tighter.

“Is there anything you need? Anything at all? Just say the word and I’m there!”

You shake your head and say you don’t need anything. (Except maybe a therapist, as you’re not sure you haven't totally lost it).

Niceness pries Kindness away from you.

“‘Bye! It was really nice meeting you! I hope you come again and don’t leave like the others! Hope and Despair are ever so overworked!” She shakes her head and shuts her Door behind her.

“She has a happiness obsession,” Niceness explains. “With making other people happy, I mean, not Happiness, who you’ll be meeting sometime soon, by the way.”

She turns around and you’re now facing an orange and yellow Door. Nice knocks on the Door. Almost immediately, another girl pops out. There’s a huge grin plastered on her face. You’re a little frightened.

“Hi! How the heck are ya’!?” she says, sticking her hand out for you to shake. You tentatively take it. She smiles and flips her orange and yellow pigtails behind her back. She’s wearing a bright yellow tank top, neon orange pants and yellow shoes. It kind of hurts your eyes—especially as her are orange. It’s rather unnerving.

Before your eyes can adjust to Friendliness’s color, your hear a war cry and are knocked on your back! Once your head stops spinning, you’re able to focus in on another girl sitting on your chest, laughing hysterically. You’re rather frightened. Niceness and Friendliness haul the girl off you. You stand up shakily.

“Who let her out! Oh no, don’t tell me She had another cappuccino! We can’t control Hyperness for hours with that stuff in Her system!” Niceness moans.

“That or Depression’s Door is open. You know Hyperness is the only one who can keep her in check...and makes the best cover up—” Friendliness muses, while straining to keep a hold on Hyperness.

“Sh! Not in front of the guest!” Niceness chides. Hyperness continues squirming, laughing, squealing, twitching, and making “dinosaur” noises. Friendliness snickers. You stare in horror at the mis-matched clothed girl. Her eyes are purple and her hair is a violent shade of orange. Her shirt is white with orange and purple polka dots and her pants are orange and purple striped. She has on no shoes, just some crazy orange and purple Dr. Sues socks. You’re not sure, but you think she may be foaming at the mouth.

Hyperness lets out a throaty-hissy-roar sound and launches out at you, tearing out of Niceness and Friendliness’s arms.

“BOO!” she shouts and licks the side of your face and runs away, laughing manically.

“Oh, Friendliness, catch her before she and Depression clash again!” Niceness commands.

“We’re dreadfully sorry about that. Hopefully, there won’t be anymore, uh, incidences like that, eh heh heh heh!” she laughs nervously, as Friendliness sprints away after Hyperness. She starts to walk down the hallway. You see next to Kindness’s door a light pink colored Door and other side of it a magenta Door. You ask what’s in those two Doors.

“Uh, well...You really don't wanna meet Sweetness...” The magenta Door opens. You’re immediately overwhelmed with the smell of baked goods. Out pops a girl with the cutest facade you’ve ever seen...