Me, Myself, and Him

Chapter 21: Crack under preasure

Peridot POV

I was very, very worried.

Lapis had been gone the entire day. I had tried to distract myself from that fact by working on my Corruption scanner, but my mind always seemed to wander back to her. I was extremely fidgety, and almost messed up the device because of my shaking hands.

She was acting so strange in the morning. She had this weird, wide-eyed stare and she spoke completely different than before. I was very confused the entire time I talked with her.

Then came the fact that she needed to leave for the entire day. Lapis had never left the barn since we decided that we were going to spend time together. And I even left to gather more meep-morp parts just so she wouldn't have to leave the Barn! But, if she needs to leave the Barn, she can.

Maybe she just got tired of you. Maybe she doesn't really like you. Maybe she can't stand you anymore.

No, that can't be it. It... She said she loves me. She meant that... right?

I kept on working on the contraption in front of me. This stupid piece of Earth junk has been acting strange ever since Lapis... contracted whatever it is she has. Something just didn't add up for me.

I was hunched over the device, sitting on the Barn floor, tools I was using spread out in front of me. I had just disassembled the machine and reassembled it with better parts, but the entire event still seemed strange to me.

It can't be mere coincidence that the machine went haywire the same day Lapis started acting weird. And the levels of Corruption the machine had registered were extremely high. Something was off. And I needed to know what it was.

I rebooted the system and waited for the device to produce a log of all registered Corruption traces.

"I hope Lapis is okay. She's been out for a while now. She needs to come back soon, she still needs to take her second dose of medication today. Stars, I'm worried." I said to myself.

The device finally rebooted fully and a log of all detected Corruptions. The one that stuck out the most was the one registered today.

"See? There is no possible way a creature can be 256% Corrupted! It's just overreacting to Lapis' infect-"

Suddenly, the device blared to life, and a warning displayed on it's screen.

WARNING: CORRUPTED ENTITY DETECTED. CORRUPTION LEVELS AT: 256%

"Augh! This thing is straight up broken! There isn't even anyone else in the Barn but me! Stupid piece of Earth ju-"

*WHACK*

"AUGH!"

I fell to the ground, screaming in pain. The visor on my face was cracked from my face hitting the floor. Something blunt and metal hit me from the back of my head.

"Oooooh, that one's gonna leave a mark!"

I lifted my head up only to come face-to-face with Lapis, but she looked completely different. She was dressed in human clothing, her hair seemed a mess, and her face was twisted into an expression I had never seen her use before. It was like anger, but somehow much worse. And in her hand, she seemed to be holding one of the tools I used for Barn renovations.

"Wha... Lapis?" I said, my head still fuzzy from the hit.

"Hmm, what do you think, Lapis? Is she gonna be cooperative? Or do you think she needs a little more..."

*WHACK*

"AHHH!!!"

"...convincing?"

Lapis had brought the tool back down on my back, and pain seared though my body. I swear I heard something break, but I looked down to see she had hit me so hard that the floor had cracked.