I want to say, upfront, I'm sorry for the wait. I just finished an unexpected move and am now able to breath clearly and focus on the story. That said, this chapter is a bit shit and was constructed over many late night writing sessions. Sorry in advance.

The tumbler of the front door lock set with an echoing click as Peridot closed it gently, arriving home from her first 'date' with Lapis Lazuli. Peridot could hardly believe it went so well, or at least, she thought it went well. The biggest thing was the smiling. There was so much smiling, and laughter. She thought her face would crack in two from all the smiling she did.

They sat at a picnic table at Funland, the cacophony of the crowds leaving their attention unfettered to anything but each other. Lapis' normal blasé attentiveness had faded subtly over the last hour, now set purely on her. Peridot raised her hand in a clutched fist to punctuate a statement, though she couldn't even remotely recall what she was saying at the moment, then or now. All that mattered was Lapis' attention on her, making herself seen and known to this perfect woman. The warm lilac-scented air no longer fazed her, instead strengthening her and that rising tidal wave of energy hidden behind her eyes which laced every word with electricity.

Lazily sifting through her memories of the last three hours, Peridot glided through the hallway toward the kitchen like a phantom, wistfully smiling along the way. From the recesses of her mind she could still identify the flowery scent the day took on. But while she drifted ghostlike and ethereal, had she been an actual apparition she would not have collided with her brother standing at the counter.

"Woah, Peri." Sour Cream said when they bumped into each other. "You alright?" He had one elbow still leaned on the counter as he addressed her. Peridot steadied herself, wading out of her pool of recollection back onto the dry beach of reality. She stared ahead blankly, momentarily unsure of what she was looking at. Her vision was obscured by thin air.

"Ah... hey, Sour Cream," She mumbled, rubbing her forehead with one hand. Had he been there the whole time? "How... are things?" Her voice was massively less graceful than it was on the boardwalk, with a noticible slur to the edges. She blinked, and Sour Cream was suddenly standing straight up in front of her, noticeably concerned. He jostled her shoulder, but Peridot could just barely register it over the tides of her mind trying to pull her backwards into her memories again. It was becoming less pleasant.

"Oof... sorry about that." She managed to force the words out of her throat. Brushing off his hand, she morphed her face into a reassuring smile. "Today was... really big."

Sour Cream crossed his arms nervously. "Big?"

The tension was suddenly clear to her, and the mood of the room became suffocating. Peridot was faltering; it was time for flight, not fight. "Be right back!" She gasped, striding quickly to the stairs. It seemed like only an instant before she found herself at the side of her bed, and with no hesitation flung herself onto it. She took gasping breaths, eyes locked on the ceiling, reviewing her crisis plan.

"I'm fine. I'm here. I'm fine. I'm here." Peridot chanted this solemnly, her mantra to fight what was obviously a panic attack. Next step was to wait for her vision to clear; tunnel vision was always due to set in immediately. But confusingly, her gaze wasn't clouded or edged with darkness. She clenched and unclenched her hands. No loss of feeling in her limbs. Abruptly she sat up. Her head felt heavy and her mouth felt dry, but that was it. This wasn't a panic attack?

"What... the hell?" She panted. In response, something beeped from across the room. Focusing her gaze, a small blue light on Sal's case lit up and began to blink.

Sal was booting up? On her own?

"What the hell?" She swung her legs over the edge and took stumbling steps over to her desk, nearly tripping twice. Sal was still slightly protruding from her spot on the floor, where Peridot left her. The monitor switched on suddenly, and the boot sequence scrolled across the screen.

[SAL - SERIES 9000]

[BOOTSYS SEQUENCE INITIATED]
TIME 00:00:00

BOOTSYS V1.2
EXECSYS V3.0.1

465098 BYTES ALLOCATED
58934 BYTES FREE

[BOOT COMPLETE]

"Sal? What? How-" Peridot's spluttering was interrupted by an erroneous beep from the computer.

[HARDWARE BOOT INITIATED - SYSTEM CHECK]

INT. TEMP: -273°C
RAM ALLOCATED: 1024 MB
COREPROCESS: OK
FLOP DRIVE 1: OK
FLOP DRIVE 2: OK
CDROM DRIVE: OK
MONIT PORT: OK
CUSPORT 1 (USB): OK
CUSPORT 2 (SD): OK
MODEM: OK {[SIGNAL INPUT] OK}

[CHECK COMPLETE]

'What the fuck... What the fuck... What the fuck...' was Peridot's main line of thinking. Multiple things were impossibly wrong with the current situation. First off, according to the log, Sal was running at absolute zero, something physically impossible. Second, there was a rooted system alert: incoming signal to the modem. The only way for Sal's modem to accept an input signal was for Peridot to load a custom compiler software off her laptop and send data through a custom low-bitrate internet channel only she could access.

[MODEM STATUS: {S- OK | R- OK]
FILE TYPE: PLAINTEXT {LIVE INPUT}

Her face paled as all the blood in her body ran cold. Someone or something was sending live text through Sal. They were trying to talk with her.

[{INPUT}] : 50 45 52 49 44 4F 54 2E 20 0D 0A 0D 0A 41 4C 45 52 54 20 43 37 31 20 50 4F 49 4E 54 20 38 20 49 4D 50 4F 52 54 41 4E 54 2E 20 46 41 54 41 4C 20 45 52 52 4F 52 2E 0D 0A 0D 0A 50 4C 45 41 53 45 2F 4F 52 54 48 4F 52 48 4F 4D 42 49 43 2F 43 20 42 45 52 47 45 4E 2E 20

[{INPUT}] : { }

The only sounds that broke the horrified was the quiet humming of Sal's innards. Peridot was sure that if anything more were to appear on the screen, a heart attack, most likely fatal, would occur within moments. The life had vacated her body, and it was a miracle that she could do this much:

SAVE -LOG