You could feel it happening—slowly at first, like cracks forming in glass, unseen until it was too late. The weight of everything you had endured, the battles, the expectations, the fear of burdening them with your pain—it all built up until the fractures spread too far to be ignored. Your form wavered, your thoughts tangled, and the world blurred into something distant and unfamiliar.

You wanted to reach out. You wanted to tell them before it got worse. But every time you tried, the words got caught between fear and shame. What if they thought you were weak? What if they blamed you? So you stayed silent, convincing yourself you could hold it together. That you had to.

But you couldn’t.

The first thing you noticed was the numbness—like your body wasn’t yours anymore. Then came the sharp, aching pulse beneath your skin, the way your limbs trembled against your will. Your gem flickered, its glow unstable, and then… it all shattered.

Pain. Fear. Instinct. Thought faded, replaced by a raw, overwhelming force that consumed you. Your form twisted, cracking apart into something wrong, something monstrous. And all you could do was hope that they wouldn’t turn away.

Hope that, despite everything, they’d still see you.

Pearl: “Wait—what’s happening to them?” She reached forward, then hesitated, her hands trembling. “Their form—it’s destabilizing!”

Amethyst: “They’re—corrupting?” disbelief heavy in her voice. “No, no, no—this isn’t right! They were fine—weren’t they?”

Garnet: “They weren’t fine.” her voice was steady, but there was something beneath it—something almost like regret. “They’ve been holding this in for too long.”

Their voices blurred, fading beneath the howling in your head. They were calling to you, reaching for you. You wanted to answer. Wanted to tell them you were still here.

But the corruption had already taken hold.