Me, Myself, and Him

Chapter 1: The figure on the hill

Lapis POV

This is it.

This is how I die.

I knelt on the hilltop high above the ground, the ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. Storm clouds had formed, stirring up the wind and causing rain to pour down hard around me. The strange figure still stood before me with his hand outstretched, his words still lingered in the air:

If you help me, I won't hurt the little pipsqueak you seem to care soooo much about.

Those words ignited a fear I had long suppressed for so many years. The fear of hurting those I was close to. The fear of becoming what I refused to acknowledge existed.

The fear of becoming a monster.

I still didn't understand how I got into this situation. I managed to hurt all my friends, almost shattered the only gem who I cared about, lost control of my mind and body to something sinister inside me, and I still felt the worst was yet to come.

You don't understand, you never could. They took away everything from me. My life, my family, everything I worked to create and preserve. They don't care. They never did. So I'll take the one thing the care about, the one thing they swore to protect.

The storm seemed to pick up with intensity. I was practically shivering, but not from the temperature. I was so weak at that point. At that point, I wanted to curl up in a hole far away from anyone I cared about and just rot away. Far from Steven. From the Crystal Gems.

Far from Peridot.

But I couldn't run away from this. I could wake up from this nightmare swirling around me. This is the cruel reality I lived in. The one I made.

"Please..." I begged, "don't make me do this, I can't do this again. I can't..."

There is no way out of this, Lazuli. You can either help me and I won't hurt those who claim to care about you, or I take back control by force and destroy everything in sight.

He won't let me be. No matter what I chose, someone will get hurt. And I will have to live with that for the rest of my existence. It doesn't matter. Did it ever?

How did things get so bad... How did they get so out of control?

I know how.

I started with a simple mission.