Cheer Fear

Part 3

There was a heavy silence in the Cloud Seeker as the bears thought to themselves.

"Any of you know why Cheers so upset?" Share asked, looking worried.

"Maybe she's caught a cold?" Funshine suggested, scratching his head.

"She certainly took her time getting out of bed this morning," Grumpy commented, beginning to worry.

"We still gotta go check on the Whiffles, guys," Good Luck reminded, looking over his map.

The bears all sat in thought for a moment.

"I'll just go check on her, real quick," Share said, getting out of her seat and exiting the room.

A few seconds later, she came back in panicked.

"She's not here!" Share expressed, her paws pressed to her cheeks as deep worry settled onto her face.

"WhAT!?" Grumpy exclaimed.

Dibble trilled in alarm.

"Did you check all the rooms?" Funshine asked, standing up.

"Yes!" Share said, her eyes growing big.

"We didn't see her exit through the door, though," Good Luck said, scratching his chin.

"The bACK DOOR!" Grumpy yelled, half scolding Good luck and half panicked.

"But why would she leave?" Share questioned.

"Maybe she was taken!" Funshine said, as he also became panicked.

"Ok, ok, what do we do?" Good Luck said, trying to take the situation under control.

"I'll go after her," Grumpy demanded. "Her scooter isn't docked, so she must've ran off on her own,"

"I wanna come to!" Share insisted, with the other two bears nodding along.

"No- you guys have to make sure the whiffles and the seed of caring are ok,"

The three other bears deflated, but knew Grumpy was right. If Bluster showed up, they'd need as much bears around as possible.

"Grumpy?" Dibble squeaked, unsure if they were going to go somewhere or not.

"No, Dibble. You have to stay here with the others- just in case it's too dangerous." Grumpy clarified, putting her in shares arms and motioning with his finger. He wanted to make sure Dibble would be safe- Cheers disappearance either meant a real threat, or that Cheer was distraught or delirious somehow- and Grumpy would need to be undistracted either situation.

"Make sure Cheer's okay," Share said, running over and placing a paw on Grumpy's shoulder.

Grumpy grunted with a quick nod, before hastening to the dock and hopping onto his own scooter. He clipped his helmet on and zoomed out of there in no time at all.

***

Cheer eased off her scooter and put her helmet down with a heavy sigh. She'd driven herself into a small cave, and decided to sit in there for a while to think what she was going to do. She leaned against the cave wall and sunk down, curling herself into a ball.

She tried not to think about how this might be a bad idea, she could've just screwed up further.

Oh, what am I thinking? Of course I screwed up further! Why did I think this was a good idea? Well, I couldn't stay... that wouldn't have made things better at all!

She felt stuck. Whatever she did was wrong. Whatever she thought was wrong. She was wrong.