Chapter Text
"Just go."
How long had Chell wanted to hear those words? Finally, after years of being locked away in her facility, Chell had gained her freedom. No more testing, no more passive-aggressive AI out to get her, and most importantly, no more living every day of her life on edge.
For the first time, she was truly free.
The elevator went up, and up, until it finally came to a halt in front of a door. It opened as the girl stepped out, and she could finally see the sunlight. Not the artificial lights of a test chamber. Genuine sunlight. It was almost blinding. The endless fields of wheat mimicked its golden rays. The door was immediately shut behind her with a loud clang, before opening up again and spitting out an incinerated Weighted Companion Cube and shutting a final time.
Chell took a moment to take in the sight. Countless clouds dotted the bright blue sky. Strangely enough, she couldn't see any birds, or life at all aside from all the crops. The sigh of relief she had been holding in forever seemed to disappear now that a cruel thought sank in.
Was there any real life left?
Sure, GLaDOS did tell Chell she'd seen a deer, and Aperture was filled with plants and crows, but would those be enough to sustain her? How many were left? Did GLaDOS lie about the deer? Probably, but how would she catch a deer in the first place? She didn't have the need to eat or drink back at Aperture. Soon enough the effects of whatever was in the air there will have disappeared and she'd so hungry again.
On the topic of other life, what about other humans? There were probably civilizations somewhere, but then again, they were probably hostile towards any outside intruder. Who was she kidding? Everything was hostile. Even if she did find other humans the chances they'd kill her on sight were too high.
To think that everything she'd worked for just led to her living her life alone? No, not just living alone, dying alone.
Suddenly freedom didn't seem that great after all. Was it really a fair trade-off? When it came to dying alone versus dying to an evil sentient computer, she'd certainly pick the former over perishing from one of GLaDOS's stupid tricks. In the end, she always just wanted Chell dead right?
Chell looked back to the rusting shed door. Then to the cube. She reluctantly walked towards it, keeping an eye on the door, half expecting a mechanical arm to pop out and drag her back in. She hastily snatched up the cube and jumped away from the door. It felt a lot heavier lifting it manually rather than with the help of the portal gun she was used to. She figured she'd just haul it around for a while to get exercise, or until it got boring, or until she broke her back. It might make her feel a bit less alone. Chell hoisted the cube up into her arms and scanned the horizon, as if something had magically popped up since the last time she looked just a minute ago. But the barren land just stared back.
Cube in hand, she sighed, picked a direction, and headed off in search of a place to stay. Out of the lab, into the wasteland.
One hour. Nothing. Two hours. Nothing. Three hours. Nothing. She was starting to lose count. Yet she was still focused enough to keep walking in the same diagonal line away from Aperture.
Not like she would ever need to go back, that is.
Chell was quick to realize the outside world was unforgiving. No other life or movement which wasn't caused by her or the wind. Sure, there was the cube to keep her company, but the lack of even so much as the occasional crow made everything feel… surreal. She was truly free, but also truly alone. What had sounded great on paper wasn't short of awful in practice.
All the walking gave her a lot of time to think. Chell mostly tried to think about how she got into this mess in the first place. What was her life like all those years ago? Before she was a test subject? Before everything went downhill?
Being alone with her thoughts was scary. Chell had previously found comfort in being left alone to just think . To try and recall what life was like before Aperture. Right now felt better than ever to do that, especially since it got her mind off her aching feet. She thought and thought and thought, but was only able to recall a few little snippets of her better life. The farthest back she could remember was when she was around seven, hiding under the covers of her bed. Maybe she was playing a game? Or maybe there was something more sinister going on, but she could all but remember what happened that day. The few other things Chell could recall also seemed quite insignificant. Buying strawberries from a local market and driving to the doctor's for a check-up were just a couple useless things her brain had held on to.
Nothing. No clues to who she was before. No family, no friends, just— nothing . She needed to accept the fact she would never figure out who she was all those years ago. She needed to tell herself the truth, but the truth isn't always easy.
Chell sighed. She set down the cube and stood on top of it. The sky was beginning to darken. She needed a place to stay. Now.
Whatever gods existed must've answered her prayers. There, just over the wheat, stood something that looked like a shack. Maybe a barn or a small cabin, but whatever it was it was a shelter. Chell could feel a slight smile form on her face as she grabbed the cube and eagerly made her way towards the building.
Disrepair was an understatement. The place looked wrecked, like a tornado had confined itself entirely within the cabin. It was a simple rectangular house with a gable roof, two broken windows, and a door. Chell approached it carefully. She peaked through the windows from behind the wheat. From what she could see, nobody was currently occupying it, but she still crept forward ever so slowly until she reached the door. Chell noticed the door was wide open and only attached at two of its three hinges. In one smooth motion, she threw the cube inside, hoping to draw out anyone—or anything—living in there.
Chell listened. Silence. She reluctantly leaped inside the building as her eyes darted from wall to wall. There was nothing. Well, nothing living at least. But still something caught her eye. In the corner, buried under a few loose boards, was what looked like straps on a bag.
Score!
She rushed over to the planks and tossed them aside, revealing a backpack. She opened it with caution. Thankfully, there was nothing living inside there either. Chell dumped out the contents of the bag onto the wooden floor. A few bottle caps, some stray matches, an empty box of candy, miscellaneous bones, a nearly empty plastic water bottle, a little metal cup, and a couple sticks. She was obviously most excited about the matches as she quickly stuffed them into her pocket. She took the bag by its bottom and shook it off outside, not like cleaning it in the house would do very much to tarnish it.
While outside Chell took a moment to inspect the outside and inside of the bag. It wasn't very large, but it sure did have a lot of velcro pockets. Inside the remaining five pockets was a long expired pack of dried cranberries along with a few small pieces of scrap metal and plastic. She decided to keep them nonetheless. Yet, with everything out, it still felt heavy. Chell shook the bag out once again, this time with every pocket open. Still empty. She took a closer look at it, going back through every pocket like she had done minutes prior. It still felt heavy. She must've been going crazy! The girl's stomach growled as if it was telling her to give up and find something to eat, but she refused. She kept feeling the bag up in an attempt to find some hidden pocket or item. Fabric, buckle, zipper, buckle, pocket, velcro, corner, fabric, zipper.
Wait.
A corner.
Chell felt over the irregular spot again. She grabbed at the edge of something hidden on the inside of the bag. Upon closer inspection, it looked to be some sort of book or maybe an electronic. She reached into the bag's largest pocket before she realized what was keeping the object in place. A false bottom! Chell felt around the bottom until she found a concealed zipper. Excited, she ran inside and sat on the cube before unzipping it.
There, lo and behold, was a journal. It looked no better than the house. There was a dull pencil stuffed into its mangled spiral binding. Some pages were ripped out and hastily jammed back in so they would jut out from the side. She was sure she had a smile on her face when she opened it up.
The drawings inside were… something. Like some fucked-up form of abstract art. The graphite coated her fingertips as Chell thumbed through the journal. There were dozens and dozens of drawings, the next one more bizarre than the last. She riffled through the notebook so fast its pages blurred into a mess of gray pencil markings and brown stained pages. She rapidly flipped through a few that caught her eye. Exuberant colors, words like "END TIMES" and "IT'S ALL A LIE" sat scattered about the mess of scribbles. Every illustration was like a visual panic attack. Yet, one managed to stand out from the rest.
It was something Chell felt like she'd seen before. Something oddly familiar. It gave her an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.
She picked up one of the pages that had fallen out. This one looked more clear to her than the rest. She could recognize human figures in lab coats with their faces scribbled out using red pen. There was a Weighted Companion Cube sitting off to the side. Reluctantly, her focus shifted to the center of the page.
Chell wasn't sure what happened first, her brow furrowing or her eyes widening.
It was a drawing of GLaDOS. She was sure of it. The words "DECEITFUL - NO MATTER WHAT." were scrawled under her faceplate in red ink, dripping down the page to resemble blood. Yeah, that warning would've been helpful years ago. Intentional or not, the "blood" was still an alarming sight. Chell hastily flipped over the page, hoping to find some clue as to who created these.
A journal entry! Words she could read that weren't random one-offs mixed in with incoherent erratic writing! Though the page was littered with wear and tear, it was more readable than anything else. The only date was scribbled out much to the girl's disappointment. But it was something . Something written by another human . A little bit of hope Chell didn't even know she had resurfaced. Was this person still alive? No, that's a silly question. Why would they leave their stuff here if they were alive? She put her questions into an imaginary locker and closed it shut to ponder later. After all, she had all the time in the world, Chell thought as she began reading the entry.
It feels like ten seconds and an eternity have passed. Nothing worked to contain her- no- it all went down too fast, too soon. The moment he told us his plans I knew it would end this way. I just knew. I told them so, and they shunned me and called me crazy. It's no longer safe here for me– for anyone. It never was. I can hear their screams in the distance. One pill can silence their cries, but at the price of-XXXXXXXXXX. They shouldn't have to suffer because of my mistake.
I'm out. I don't know how many days its been. They're all gone, yet she lives. She's hunting me, I can feel it. I feel-XXXXXXXXX.
To whoever may find this, I pray you do before she finds you.
And if I am to meet my fate today, it won't be at the hands of her.
- Doug R-XXXXXXX
Chell desperately wanted to know whose signature was at the bottom. Doug R? She figured it was probably a scientist from the "plans" he was given presumably by Cave Johnson, being the "he," and GLaDOS, being the "she." But that was long ago. No way Doug wasn't dead by now. Chell put the notebook back into the bag and slung it over her back. This hurt her head too much. It all just left her with more questions than answers. She decided to distract herself and search for food and water instead.
It seems that she made the right choice staying in that run-down cabin. About a fifteen-minute walk away was a small stream concealed by the wheat. It looked more like a long pond than anything, only about a foot deep with water that moved so slowly it was practically stagnant. Chell would've followed it if the sun didn't begin to set and the temperatures dropped. Instead, she only walked a short distance down it before she saw a small school of fish. Her stomach seemed to grumble even louder than ever as she glared at them.
Now, how the hell was she supposed to catch fish?
Chell took another look inside her bag. She thought maybe she could make something like a net to help her, but she had little experience with crafting or survival in the wilderness. She kicked a small pebble into the water and to her surprise the fish swarmed around it. Must've thought it was food. That gave her an idea.
She kicked another pebble in, but this time they didn't come swimming to check it out. Hmm. Now that they knew the rocks weren't food, they didn't bother to check it out. Chell rummaged through the bag again and pulled out the junk plastic from earlier. Hovering her hand over the school, she threw a green piece of plastic into the stream. Just like they did with the peddle the fish began swarming around it. Just as one tried eating it, Chell brought her hand down and grabbed the fish.
A fish! She just caught a fish with her bare hands! Well she did nearly drop it as its scaly slimy texture really put her off, but it was food nonetheless. The gray fish was flat and just a little larger than the palm of her hand. Chell threw it into her bag and tried the trick again with a different colored piece of plastic. Again, they came to check it out and she struck. Another fish. She repeated it a third time with a red piece, picking up the plastic to hopefully use again for later. Just like the previous two times she caught yet another fish.
Chell put all three fish into the second largest pouch, careful not to let the water on them soak through onto the journal she put back into the false bottom. She dug through the bag and took a bottle full of water from the stream to boil for later. As the sun was almost completely set, she quickly packed up her things and jogged back to the cabin.
Luckily, she got there just minutes before the sun disappeared over the horizon. She took a moment to gather some dry wheat and stray wood planks. Chell dropped them next to the Companion Cube to which she had moved to be somewhat near a hole in the roof. She cleared out a spot under the hole where she planned to start a fire. The fish in the bag were laid on top of the cube, then she took out the water bottle and metal cup to use for later.
She pulled a match from her pocket and struck it on the side of the Weighted Companion Cube. To her surprise, it lit and stayed lit. Maybe it was just beginner's luck. Chell quickly put it onto the pile of wheat and wood as it ignited the wheat almost instantly. She stared into the fire, mesmerized as it slowly engulfed everything under it. It had been a while since she'd seen fire. Something so destructive and dangerous, yet so beautiful. Probably something GLaDOS would say about her. Minus the beautiful part obviously.
The groaning of her stomach interrupted her thoughts. Chell went back to digging through the bag until she found the sticks. She pierced the longest ones straight through all three of the fish, put them over the fire, and let them cook. As she waited she took out the journal and began looking for more clues as to who Doug R could possibly be. She decided to dedicate an empty page at the back of the journal to her findings and theories. Probably an Aperture scientist, helped to create GLaDOS, was very scared of GLaDOS, and was nearly killed by GLaDOS. Looks like they were somewhat in the same boat. But it still answered none of her questions.
Chell sat there for a while. Reading and rereading the entry didn't do anything to jog her memory. She even tried holding the page up to the fire to see if there was invisible ink or something hidden inside the pages. GLaDOS clearly knew about Doug's existence and efforts to evade capture. Maybe- no. She wouldn't dare go back to Aperture just to ask some silly question. No matter how much it ate at her brain, she'd never return.
Ever.
She turned over the fish to let them cook on their other side before sighing. She buried her head in her hands and took a few deep breaths. Maybe she was losing her mind. It felt quiet. Far too quiet. Hell yeah it was better than any of those annoying robots, but it was just much too peaceful. It wasn't normal at all. Chell got up to look out one of the broken windows. There wasn't much to see. Just the wheat and the moon. She knew a wheat who went to the moon. Funny how that works.
There was the faint smell of smoke and crisp fall air as it was billowing out of a hole in the roof. The girl closed her eyes and let the wind gently hit her face. As if it was rewarding her for escaping that hell of a facility and managing to get sheltered. This reward only lasted a few minutes before she realized her food was probably burning. Chell snapped out of her thoughts and quickly ran to take the fish off of the fire. A bit burnt, but nothing inedible. She let out a sigh of relief and stuck the impaled fish between two boards to stand up while they cooled down.
Chell took out the filled water bottle and dumped half of it into the cup. She used a spare stick to dig some sort of nest inside the fire where she'd put the water to boil. But how to get the cup on and off the fire without burning herself? It was all metal. She couldn't just put out the fire either. As she fidgeted with her jumpsuit jacket she looked around for something she could use.
The jacket. She could wrap a sleeve around her hand and use that as some sort of oven mitt.
So she tried it out. Chell wrapped one of the sleeves of her jacket around her right hand and gently placed the cup of water into the spot she made, quickly pulling her hand away as to not get burned. Or light herself on fire. She went back to looking at Doug's drawings as the water boiled and food cooled.
It seemed like the more she turned the pages, the more weird the artwork got. The front of the journal had things she could recognize, shapes and objects with form and value that were easy to identify. But things seemed to quickly spiral out of control. It was like Doug's life was falling out of his hands. Like something had taken over him. Possibly a condition? There was a "pill" mentioned in his journal entry. Maybe it was just a metaphor for something. Which naturally made her ask more questions. At this point she was just going to accept that the whole journal was a metaphor for something! Oh well.
Chell's head began to hurt again and the burnt fish suddenly looked more appetizing than ever. She looked to the water, then back to the fish. She was thirsty. And hungry. A few more minutes of boiling wouldn't hurt anyone. Better safe than sorry. She instead picked up a fish on a stick and blew lightly on it before touching its skin. Unfortunately, she had nothing to season it with, so when she took a bite it tasted awful. At least it was food. She was grateful for that.
After finishing her first fish, she took the cup off the fire using the same method she used to get it on. It was placed on top of the cube while she cycled through the journal again. After it cooled, she drank up and repeated the process with the rest of the water before grabbing another fish to eat. She was positive one day she'd accidentally set the house ablaze.
Chell looked at more drawings as she ate her last two fish. She couldn't help but notice how much detail and color was put into them despite their enigmatic nature. She swore she'd seen something like this back at Aperture. Something about cake. Damn, now she wished GLaDOS really did promise cake at the end of her tests. Like everything the robot ever said, that was a lie.
The cake was a lie.
Yep, that was what she saw. The warning scrawled into one of the walls: the cake is a lie. If only she had listened. Now she realized how Doug must've felt after warning countless people about GLaDOS, only to be ignored. We all know what happened to them. Poor guy. Why would building a dangerous all-knowing supercomputer be a good idea in the first place? She'd never know.
The water had been boiling for far to long now. Chell threw the journal down and quickly covered her hands before taking it off. Whew. It would've probably evaporated if she was just a few more minutes late. She put the journal back into the secret pocket as the remaining water cooled atop her cube. It certainly felt much colder away from the fire, yet the girl didn't really seem to mind. Using some more wheat she created a small spot to lay down. Not very comfortable, but it was all she had to work with.
Chell packed up the water bottle, laid the fish-stabbing sticks on top of the Weighted Companion Cube, and went to sit on the "porch" of the house. The moon was high in the sky and the stars looked beautiful tonight. It had been forever since she really got the chance to just sit and stare. Observing the night sky in all of its brilliance. It sure beat busting her ass of in a test chamber with death constantly lurking around every corner.
She lay there just staring into the sky. Counting stars, creating her own constellations, trying to spot a little blue sphere, and just thinking. Who doesn't love to just sit and ponder? Again, she tried recalling what her life was like decades ago, but she just kept coming up short. It was frustrating, really. Not being able to remember anything about yourself no matter how hard you thought. Chell really hoped something, anything, would bring back memories of her past life. Even if it was just a miniscule sense of deja vu like when she recognized one of Doug's drawings.
Eventually she had had enough of laying on the hard wooden floor and went inside to lay down on her slightly-less hard wooden floor that she called a "bed." Not before picking up a few more pieces of wood and throwing them into the fire. She downed the rest of her water and climbed into her little den of wheat. It was still cold, so she used her jacket as a makeshift blanket and took the bag to use as a pillow.
A long day it had been. Escaping Aperture, finding strange ramblings from a strange (and most likely deceased) man, catching fish with her bare hands, even starting her own fire. Chell considered that enough progress for one day. She now had warmth, shelter, and a decent source of food and water. And enough drawings to keep her occupied for a little.
It wasn't much, but it was enough to get by, and that's all that really mattered.
Rustling. Crackling. The fire had gone out. Chell was awoken in the dead of night. She felt groggy and uncomfortable after sleeping on the wooden floor. More so, she felt on edge. Her back hurt like hell, but she brushed it off and turned to lay on her other side. It still didn't shake the unsettling feeling she had. She tossed and turned and tossed and turned, however it still didn't feel right. Perhaps she just needed to close her eyes and wait for herself to fall asleep…
A slight stir came from outside the cabin.
Her eyes shot back open. Something, no- some one was outside.
Footsteps. Too heavy to be an animal. It was most certainly a human. Chell slowly put on her jacket and grabbed her bag, trying to avoid making any noise whatsoever. She didn't know how many there were, if they were armed, who they were.
She was scared.
Chell stood up and took a step back away from the door but as she did, the floor creaked beneath her. Shit.
The stranger whispered something, and someone else whispered back. Both voices sounded deep and masculine. Okay, great. So now she knew there was more than one. She stood her ground and clenched her fists tightly. Her heart was pounding so fast they could probably hear it from outside. Every passing second felt agonizingly long. She swallowed hard, thinking about what she could possibly do to get out of here. She listened closely only hearing more rustling, floorboards creaking, footsteps that seemed to be going nowhere and…
A click. Wait. Not just any click.
The cocking of a gun.
The worst-case scenario.
No, no, no no no no. They were armed. Chell was defenseless. There was nothing she could do to shield herself from multiple armed men. Hide behind the cube? Hopeless. She could dive out the broken window and make a run back to Aperture, but that place was in the direction the door was facing. The door that they were right outside of! No, Chell swore on her life that she'd never go back. It was a last resort. Beyond a last resort. It was also her only choice. The second they came inside she'd bolt towards the window, jump out, run around the house, and make a break for Aperture. The plan was beyond flawed. She made it up in just a few seconds. It was the best thing she could come up with under so much pressure.
She felt them coming closer to the door. She counted the milliseconds as she stared in the direction of the doorway. Come on. Any second now.
In one clean motion, the door was busted straight off its hinges.
Now!
In the midst of all the noise Chell made a mad dash for the window. She felt part of her jacket rip as it caught on a bit of glass still attached to the frame. It felt like her heart was suddenly pumping ten times faster now. Sure, her life had been on the line constantly at Aperture, but GLaDOS wasn't really armed. Only dangerous. She blocked out their angry unintelligible shouting as she ran back to the laboratory as fast as her legs could take her.
How'd they know she was in there? They seemed hesitant to come in even before they knew she was awake. Was it the fire that gave her away? Could they have seen the smoke in the moonlight? Or was this their settlement, hence the bag being left behind? Too many questions. Too little time to think. There was only one goal she had in mind: Get away.
Chell felt they were on to her now. A startling gunshot rang out from behind her, but she couldn't see where the bullet went. Why didn't they shoot more? Lacking ammo? She hoped that was the case as she panted wildly. Run for your life. Get away. Even if it meant losing everything when she already had nothing to lose. You'll find a way. You always do. Just live goddammit-!
BANG!
Shit!
Chell hit her head hard as she fell to the ground, holding her ankle in near indescribable pain. Agony. That was the only correct word. Excruciating agony. Blood quickly coated her hands as she struggled to take off her jacket. She pressed it hard against her bleeding ankle while gritting her teeth so hard that cracking became a possibility. This gunshot sounded much louder than the previous one, causing her ears to ring as Chell writhed around in pain. Men yelled orders from a distance away. Her wound bled through the jacket. She forced herself up only to fall right back down. More blood. Pain. Footsteps and clanking came closer and closer. Blood. It was too much.
She choked out a sob as she tightened the death grip on her wound. Her whole body ached after the fall. The ringing in her ears soon halted and she could hear her pursuers getting closer. Tears began to flow rapidly down her face from all the conflicting sensations. The blood, the sounds, the armed men, the feeling of the ground beneath her, it overwhelmed Chell more than anything. Everything just needed to pause. The world needed to stop spinning. She needed to take everything in and think. Her head pounded harder than her heart as she slowly began to slip away from reality. No, no, no. She'd die here. They'd get her and do who knows what with her. The thought of being captured— dead or alive— sickened her.
The night sky blurred while the footsteps were now as loud as the gunshots. Everything seemed so loud Chell couldn't even her herself think. Her vision began to blur as she felt someone forcefully hoist her up by her forearm. She's weak and helpless, nothing more, nothing less. She tried desperately to keep herself awake, to keep fighting, but the world was more than merciless. It all slowed down. Like she was floating in an abyss. With her breathing slowing down, vision darkening, and ears pounding, she reluctantly accepted her fate.
Chell spent her final moments of consciousness figuring only one thing:
Die young, die hard, or die trying.