Chapter Five:

Memory Screw Up

Everything was moving too fast. Everything was blurry, her hearing was muffled, and it seemed as if the whole world was spinning. Peridot groaned as she felt her breathing quicken more and more.

Too fast, too fast, too fast.

She heard distant voices, but she didn't know who they belonged too. All she could focus on was a dull ache in the back of her head. Just what was going on?

She felt incredibly dizzy so she had no choice but to close her vision spheres. For a moment, she felt weightless and the pain disappeared for a moment. She felt numbness across her whole body, yet her throat burned. More shouting was heard, and a loud voice practically boomed across wherever they were and silenced everything else.

There were small thumps here and there and a mumbled whispering. Small pricks and pokes here and there, but she didn't try looking to see what was happening in fear of the nausea coming back. Everything was quiet, and she couldn't feel her body being jostled around like it was before. She felt something hard yet soft under her, and the air helped cool her heated body.

She waited. Nothing.

After another moment, she cracked open one vision sphere slowly. No blinding light, good. Then, she opened the other one and cautiously widened them to look around.

A dark brownish-red color high above her. The space was dimly lit and she could hear muffled sounds and whispers. A small noise escaped her throat and she shifted. Under her was hard and flat and she desperately wanted to move from the now slightly uncomfortable surface. She moved her arms under her and slowly tried to push her body up, but more pain in her head suddenly hit her and made her fall right back down.

"Ugh," she groaned. The young gem blinked several times before she stiffened up. A large bang resounded throughout the space, and she heard steps running to her. She turned her head and saw some all too familiar figures.

"Peridot!" The Pearl had yelled and she ran along with the Garnet, Amethyst, and Steven to the green gem.

Peridot only blankly stared at them as she processed the situation. Then, suddenly, her body shot up- much to her head's protest- and back away on the odd table-like object she was on.

The group caught up to her and they all started asking questions.

"Peridot, what happened?"

"Is your head ok?"

"What did you see?"

"Lay back down!"

Peridot only shook slightly as she stared at them with confusion and slight panic.

"W-what happened?!" She asked, but the group only looked right back with the same amount of confusion. The Pearl only clasped her touch sensors and her voice came out shaky.

"At the kindergarten! The gem mutants attacked and-and-"

"They hit ya hard on the head! Man, I thought you were gonna poof or something!" The Amethyst said with surprise. Peridot only looked at her curiously before she slowly raised a touch sensor to the back of her head. She jumped when she felt a warm bump there and a wave of dull pain. "Gah!" She winced.

The Garnet walked up cautiously and rested her touch sensor on her shoulder. Her face was straight, but Peridot felt an odd sense of worry from the other gem.

"Lay back down. You need to rest. You can tell us what happened later."

"What do you mean…?" Peridot asked.

"You were looking at that screen thingy before you suddenly fell over and started having a panic attack or something," the Amethyst explained. The Steven nodded before he looked at her with interest.

"What did you see? Was it something bad?" He asked. The Garnet stopped him and shook her head.

"She can tell us later. She needs to focus on feeling better from that hit to the head."

Peridot paused for a moment and struggled to remember what she saw. She thought and thought and groaned slightly from the pain. It was something, something important. Nothing came.

Peridot took the chance to look around the room, and finally took a good look at it. It was the same room as before, with the floating bubbles and piles of useless objects, but they were in a larger clearing from all the trash. She was on top of a flat surface with a white cloth of some sort over it. The walls were high and rocky, with small balls of light at the top that casted a dull glow to the room. Along the walls and to the right of her was a long dark tunnel made in the earth that led to large steel doors with pink, purple, and red patterns of vines and flowers twisting around it.

She looked back at the other gems and saw that they were staring at her. She sighed.

"I- I will be fine. I do not require this 'rest' or anything of the sort. It's just a dull ache, that's all." She tried to sound as calm as she could, but she couldn't stop the small quiver of her lips. The Garnet only shook her head again with a frown.

"You were injured when in our supervision, the least we could do is help you feel better." She said calmly.

"Why would you clods care?" Peridot asked with a bit of frustration. She puffed out her cheeks with a pout on her face in defiance.

"We may not seem like we completely care, but we also don't want any absolute harm to you. You haven't hurt anyone," the Pearl said, but then paused. "Yet," she finished.

"You don't know if I will though! You have no reason to be so lenient!" She knew she should be pleading with them to keep her unbubbled, but their logic made no sense in green gem's mind. They should be taking this chance to bubble her or s-

Nope. Get out of those thoughts right now. She shook her head wildly and slightly blushed at the odd looks from the traitorous gems.

"Look," the Steven spoke up, "we want to be able to have you trust us. We won't hurt you as long as you don't hurt us." Peridot gave him an apprehensive look. She coughed slightly.

"While I fail to understand your illogical thinking, I appreciate the sentiment." She looked away.

"Now, we'll leave you alone for now as long as you promise not to run off or anything. Cause you can't. Just try to rest on the bed." Garnet put her touch sensors to her hips with a slight smirk on her face. She turned to the other gems and muttered a quick, "let's go," and they turned to leave.

The Amethyst looked back at Peridot and grinned. "I really am glad you didn't die, Peri."

And with that, they left, leaving Peridot with a loss for words.

What was wrong with these gems?

Not a long time had passed, she assumed, as she lay on the 'bed' as the Garnet had called it. Eventually, she had managed to grow comfortable, at the very least. She briefly thought of home. How will she even get back? Her ship was likely destroyed, and she had no idea how to send communication to homeworld, especially with those Crystal Gems around. She'll have to be careful about what she says.

Her mind wandered to the kindergarten,despite the headache it gave her. What had happened? What did she see? She remembered the gem experiments somehow coming into the control room, then the Steven had helped her up- curse her inadequate height- and then activating the control panel. There were strings of text, more gem mutants, the gems were shouting to them…

She shut her vision spheres and let a low growl escape from her. Her memory was failing her and she couldn't understand why. Could it have been from the apparent head injury she had sustained? She debated finding a way to make herself poof, but brushed it off immediately. Poofing would be too much of a risk.

She sighed after a moment and then reached a touch sensor to her visor, right to where her gem was. She bit her lip and her vision spheres became half lidded. She thought of what homeworld would think, of what she would think.

She snapped out of her thoughts and returned to wondering about the kindergarten. The Amethyst apparently was created there, an interesting fact she had not considered before. She never learned of proper homeworld- gem- culture. Perhaps once she got off of this garbage planet she could run this bit of information by the Quartz general. A small wave of familiar relief flooded through her at the thought of the gem.

A sudden surge of anger coursed through her. She wouldn't be able to get off this planet however if she gets shattered. Why was getting off so soon so important? Was something going to happen? The young gem sat up and stared at her gravity connectors, the little golden tips of her uniform swaying back and forth, increasing in aggravation.

"Gaahh! Why can't I remember?!" She brought her touch sensor back up and lightly smacked her visor. Stupid gem, just work! she frowned more when nothing came. She sighed in annoyance and stepped off from the 'bed' and stood for a moment on the hard, slightly bumpy ground.

She started pacing, muttering small words of annoyance, including clod, to herself. She gripped her hair as her panic rose.

"Come on, come on, I know it was important. Just remember!" She groaned as the pulsing in the back of her head increased. It hurt, but she had to try and remember what the important bit of information was.

Letters, text that said what? Images of artificial and shattered gem pieces. All of the mutant gems littering the area, trying to harm them… were they trying to harm them? She couldn't even tell now.

She stared at the piles of garbage around her and then to the bubbled gems. Her touch sensors fell to her sides. What could she do?

She walked up to one of the piles of soft materials of different colors and patterns. She felt the odd material and held onto it. Then she put another touch sensor to it as well. Slowly, she put a gravity connector on as well and started to climb the pile that seemed to go to about five times her size. Maybe she could find something of use, maybe a gem could help her, or-or something. She tried to convince herself that what she was doing wasn't crazy.

She got higher and higher, but found no objects of use as her mind became fuzzy and she felt nervousness prick at her subconscious. This wasn't crazy, right?

Still nothing the higher she got. Her vision kept shifting to the bubbles, but she resisted the urge to mess with one. Who knows why they would be bubbled…

She heard loud, hard steps echoing across the room, and she blinked a few times as the luminescent lights from above shined in her vision.

Why was there running?

"Peridot!" She heard someone cry out, and for a split second, she lost her balance. Her grip loosened and she slipped. She felt her breath leave her and she felt an instant of weightlessness as she fell from what she concluded was about twenty to thirty feet.

She heard more shouting and running, but she couldn't tell if they saw her falling to her possible death. Well, this would certainly stop her worrying.

Her gravity connector lightly grazed the pile, but it slightly slowed her down, but it didn't cushion her fall. She hit the ground with a loud crack and pain erupted in the back of her head and the burn spread to her neck and back. No sound came from her and she desperately wanted, needed, to poof, but her body refused to regenerate. She laid on the ground, trying to ignore the pain, but a loud, guttural cry of pain ripped through her throat.

"Peridot!" She heard it again, but her head couldn't move. Suddenly, the face of the Amethyst appeared above her, along with the other gems, absolute concern written across their faces. They were speaking to each other, but Peridot's mind was more focused on something else. Her mind flashed to the kindergarten. The text… the writing… Her vision spheres widened.

The gems stopped in their efforts to throw commands to each other and pick the smaller gem up when they saw a wide, face splitting grin stretch across her face. Confusion was evident across their faces as they stared at her.

"I know-" she breathed. Then, she froze. Realization dawned on her. Her smile was wiped right from her face and a cold chill ran down her body. Her throat went dry and her stomach dropped in a wave of sickness.

"I remember." Was all she could say as she was picked up by the Garnet. The Pearl looked at her with a brow raised.

"Remember what?" She asked.

"The information," she croaked. " This planet, your earth, us-" she choked out.

"You will all die."

Well, I can't say I'm exactly happy with this chapter, but what can I do? I hope you guys like it at least, and it looks like Peri finally remembered some important information. What is it? I think we all probably know... Leave a comment and tell me what you think! Thanks! :)