Centuries ago, when humanity had only just evolved enough to use tools and build fires, Lonely awoke on a grassy field to silence. The blue sky above him was the first thing he saw and it made him gasp with an emotion it took him centuries to recognise. It was bright and beautiful and he’d never wanted to look away.

For a long time, he stayed there, uninterested in whatever else was going on around him, he’d just wanted to stare at the sky. Eventually, he knew he had to move, discover the new place he found himself in. So he sat up and looked around over the empty green fields, just as bright as the sky above him.

In the distance were two small structures. His mind supplied the word ‘home’ but he didn’t know how he knew it. Everything he looked at, he knew the name of, but he wasn’t sure how. His first steps were unsure ones, his bare feet slipping on the wet grass.

He froze when a figure appeared, coming around the corner of one of the homes. They froze too and after a second, a voice called to him. He was too far away to hear and there was a shake in his limbs when the figure moved towards him. A second followed after them, holding something in their hands.

One was taller than the other, with dark hair and a sharp jawline. They were the first one, the second was a blonde woman with small eyes and thin lips. They smiled at him and held out a black cloak for him to take. It was thin, but it felt nice in his hands and after a quick check of how they wore their own cloaks, he pulled it on.

“Hello,” he said, surprised at how deep his voice was.

“Hello,” the dark-haired person said. “I’m Sadness, this is Disgust. Do you know what your emotion is?”

For a moment, he was confused, then he knew. It was as if he had been given a glimpse into his own soul. It was the only time in his life that he had been given that glimpse and he hadn’t cherished it as much as he should have at the time. In his hands, a violin appeared, something that didn’t even exist on earth at the time, but he made it anyway.

He sighed down at it, relaxed as his soul showed him who he was supposed to be. “Loneliness,” he said, not knowing what the word truly meant. “My name is Lonely.”

If only he had lied and said something else, but he hadn’t known any better at the time. He didn’t know what it meant to be lonely.

Sadness smiled at him but there was something in their eyes that took him a moment to understand. They held no happiness in their dark depths, betraying the kind smile they held. "Come with us, we'll explain everything," they said and because he didn't know any better, he followed them.

Disgust made him tea while Sadness explained where and what he was. He took it easily, nodding along with them as if it made complete sense. It didn't, but he knew it would eventually. He asked what his violin was for and Sadness told him that it would be used to pass on his singular emotion. "When you play it, you will see them. They're called humans and we allow them to feel," they said, completely serious. "You will see when you try it, but there is something we must explain to you first."

"What is it?" Lonely asked, his stomach clenching.

"The best way to work is to always feel what you're named for. If you're not, then you're numb and you can't help the humans as much. Do you understand?" they asked and of course, he didn't.

He shook his head and Disgust crouched down to face him. "I am constantly disgusted, Sadness is constantly sad. It is how we must be," she said as if she were talking to a child. She may as well have been. "Being numb means that we have no emotion to pass on. There are certain things we can do to make sure that we are constantly of aid to the humans."

"Like what?" Lonely asked and that was how he found himself standing before a tiny cottage of his own making two days later, far from the tiny outcrop of homes below. There were only five others beside him and Sadness and Disgust, but he never got a chance to speak to them.

At first, Sadness and Disgust were more than willing to help him. They would come to his house and teach him how to do what he needed to do. He loved playing the violing during those first few years and for a long time, he thought he had friends. But things quickly changed and he learned that his life was never going to be what he wanted it to be.

The first few times he went down to Zajed, which had grown since he had woken into a small town, Sadness had shooed him back up the hill. Not long after that, they dubbed him ready to work on their own and their once regular visits slowly stopped until he was always and forever alone in his home. He'd tried a few more times to go down to Zajed, thinking that was what Sadness wanted him to do, but each time, he was yelled at and told off until he ran back up to his quiet hill once more.

"What did we tell you when you first woke, Lonely?" Sadness asked him once, glaring down at him. "You need to always feel alone. I know it hurts, but it is necessary. If you keep coming down here without a good reason, we will have no choice but to isolate you further. Do you understand?"

Of course, he hadn't, but he listened anyway. He wanted to be as close to other people as possible and if that meant living on the hill on his own, then so be it. Sadness's threat loomed over him and with every glare he earned from them and Disgust while he was in Zajed, the more worried he became that it would come into fruition. He distanced himself and for centuries, he had no idea which emotions were being born and which of them he was able to feel.

Standing in the middle of Confidence's hall, it all came back to him. Every moment of fear and loneliness from the moment he had awoken on the wet grass to barely a few minutes ago when Sadness had opened Confidence's front door. He trembled, his stomach aching with fear and nervousness. Confidence stood against the door, exhaustion in his eyes. Lonely had ruined his afternoon with his idiotic confrontation and he wouldn’t be able to come back from that. Still, Confidence was demanding an answer and he had to give one.

“I… I came to talk to you,” he said and sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I had no idea they were here.”

“Lonely-”

“I should have left the minute they opened the door, but I couldn’t.”

Silence filled the hall and Lonely’s hands still shook from his earlier argument. He’d made such a massive mistake. He should have turned and run the moment Sadness opened the door but he’d stupidly admitted to feeling something other than what they told him he should. It wasn’t over, he knew that much, but he wasn’t ready for anything that would come.

Confidence ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly. “We’ll sort it, alright?” he said but Lonely didn’t believe him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Confidence shook his head. “Don’t apologise. This isn’t your fault,” he said. “If I had known you were coming, I would have asked them to leave.”

“I should have told you I was coming,” he replied, shuffling awkwardly on the floorboards.

“How?” Confidence asked and chuckled lightly at the silence that followed. “Come on. You wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?” Gesturing for him to follow, he walked down the hall to the back garden, which looked exactly the same as the last time Lonely had seen it. Feeling more than a little out of place, he perched on the edge of the chairs they had sat on last time, his fingers playing with his dark shirt.

Birds should have been chirping in the trees, but instead, there was silence. It was eerie and unpleasant, but he didn’t want to ask to go back inside. “You’re not going to get in trouble, are you?” he asked, wanting anything to fill the silence.

Confidence scoffed and leaned back against his chair. "Most likely, but only if I allow them to do something," he answered and for a long second, all Lonely could do was stare at him confusion. "Sadness and Disgust don't have as much power as they like to think they do. Not anymore. A lot of us opened our eyes to the truth. I told you I spent a lot of time training with Stress, right? Well, she was the first to open her eyes. She showed me the truth and I showed Love and Happy and Pride. I think Love is in the middle of teaching Fear. But Lonely, no one's really listened to Sadness and Disgust in a long time. You're one of the last who does."

"Not by choice," he muttered as he tried to wrap his mind around everything.

"Then stop listening," Confidence said as if it were that simple. "If they do try to send you away, I'll come and find you. I'll bring you back here."

Heat bloomed in Lonely's cheeks and his stomach clenched with one of the few emotions he was still unable to recognise. He might have spent more than a week trying to learn them, but that didn't mean be knew them all. "Thank you," he said, his cheeks heating further at the kind smile on Confidence's lips. "But I'm not going to let them take me anywhere. Not now that I know the truth. I'm sorry I've been so stupid. I should have let you introduce your friends."

"No. They had you wrapped around their finger from the start. None of this is your fault and you weren't stupid. You were doing what you thought was best," Confidence told him and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry I said what I did. You were right, I don't understand what it's like to be you. We may be able to feel other things, but we do have a main emotion we feel more than any other. I don't know what it's like to feel like you do, but I know that I don't want you to be that alone ever again."

It sounded so wrong but he couldn't place why. "I wish I had known better at the time so I didn't say what I did," he replied. He needed to apologise too. "I'm sorry. I wanted to speak to you but I… I've been feeling."

Confidence started forward, an excited grin on his face. He looked far too cheerful for the situation. "You opened yourself?" he asked and grabbed Lonely's hand. "Why? I'm not complaining but you didn't seem ready when I saw you last."

"I was scared," he said and even admitting something like that sent a thrill through him. "But I felt awful for what I had said and I wanted to make it up to you by… By listening to you. And I realised that you were right. I needed time to wrap my head around it all. There's so much I didn't see before. But Confidence, how? How can we feel? It shouldn't be possible."

The other man had the gall to shrug. "None of us know. Stress believes that it's part of our nature, what we were supposed to do. I believe her," he explained and somehow, it was that simple.

"Then why are you friends with Sadness and Disgust?" he asked. It was the question he wanted the answer to the most.

"In the hopes that we can help them see the truth too," Confidence said and sighed once more. "None of us had come out and said we felt explicitly, just hinted at it so that they could hopefully understand what was going on."

"Until I…"

"Until you," Confidence said with a laugh. He stood and cupped Lonely's face with both hands. The smaller man let out a gasp and froze, staring up at him. "I'm so glad I was able to help you open your eyes, Lonely. I'm sorry it happened after a fight, but I'm so happy for you."

If the look in Confidence's eyes was anything to go on, he was completely genuine. Lonely was frozen, the hands warm on his cheeks, soothing. He didn't know what to say or do, his lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came out. Confidence smiled above him, kind and sweet and there was something else in his eyes that he couldn't read. Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was an urge to stand, to lean forward, to-

"I'm scared," he said in a small voice, pushing the strange thoughts away. "Of what Sadness and Disgust will do to me now. What they will do to you."

A thumb brushed against his cheekbone and he shivered. "I'll help you, I promise. You don't need to worry, everything will be fine. I'll help you and so will Love and all the others," he promised, the smile dropping from his face. Lonely wished it would come back.

"Can I stay here for a lite while. I don't… I don't want to be alone right now," he said, fear gnawing at his stomach.

"Of course!" Confidence and finally pulled away from him. Lonely's cheeks felt cold without the touch and even though he didn't know what it meant, he wished Confidence was back with him. "You stay here. I'll brew some tea."

And then he was gone, leaving Lonely alone with his thoughts. There was so much going on, so much he didn't understand, but at least he was somewhere safe for the moment. Confidence would look after him, that much he knew. Finally, after more than a week of not understanding what was going on with him and a confrontation with Sadness and Disgust that left him shaken, he could finally relax. He sat back against the chair and closed his eyes, sighing loudly. In the background, the sound of Confidence in the kitchen brought a smile to his face. He was happy.