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Chell turned as a whirring noise filled the air, and a panel on the wall moved aside to reveal a button on a podium. Wheatley noticed it as well, and the now-corrupted core 'glared' at Chell. "NO! Don't you dare press that button!"
GLaDOS, however, also began to shout at her. "Go on! Press it! Press the button!" She egged Chell on. "It's the only way to stop him!"
Chell nodded and ran to the grating. She shot a blue portal at the ceiling, and another on the floor directly underneath Wheatley's swinging computer body, where white paint had spilled. The rest of the floor was solid metal, where Chell could not place any portals.
"No! Don't press it! I forbid you from pressing that button!" Wheatley shouted, desperately. "Don't you dare! You'll end us all!"
Chell growled and leaped in through the golden-colored portal. The button was in her sights, and she reached for it, praying that this would finally be over. But just before she pressed it, Chell caught a glimpse of a small, round object, blinking just behind her.
KERBLOOM
The woman flew forward, over the button,, smashing through the grating and skidding across the floor, which had become wet from the emergency sprinklers going off.
"Aha!" Wheatley boated, swaying back and forth. The button had become engulfed in flame, and GLaDOS muttered a barely audible 'no...'. "Ha! I booby-trapped the stalemate button! Oh, look at me, still talking while there science to do. Well, didn't I tell you? That button would be the end of-"
Chell groaned as she struggled to push herself up. Her forehead was bleeding, and one eye was shut as she winced in pain.
"What th—You're still alive?" Wheatley exclaimed in shock as the room began to collapse. "You are joking! You have got to be flippin' kidding me!" He shouted angrily. "Great! I'm still in control, and I have NO idea how to fix this place!"
Chell turned over onto her back, feeling the rain patter against her, washing some of the blood away. So close. She had been so close to escaping. She almost made it out alive.
"You just HAD to play bloody cat and mouse, didn't you," Wheatley yelled. "while people were trying to work!" Chell felt tears well in her eyes as part of the roof crumbled. Nothing happened like it was supposed to. Her only friend, the Companion Cube, was dead. The cake was a lie. And she would die a lonely death as the entire lab exploded.
She closed her eyes for a moment. This feeling of life, she had only felt it one other time, when she lay in the ruins of GLaDOS. She stared back at the hole in the ceiling, and saw the moon, bigger than she had ever seen it. Well, at least she would die with a beautiful view of the moon...
The moon...
A solid surface...
Chell's eyes widened in realization, and she grabbed the Portal Gun, the one thing that had helped her through this whole affair. She took careful aim, sticking her tongue out and closing one eye.
"Well, I hope you're happy!" Wheatley continued. "Now we're all gonna pay the price, cause we're-!" Chell fired a blue portal out through the window, cutting him off. Chell prayed that it had worked, that the portal had landed on the moon.
Nothing happened.
Chell dropped the device in defeat. So, this was really it. She really would die. She had missed her chance to stop this maniac. It was over...
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small glint off of the white sphere in the sky.
"Ah—AAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!" Wheatley screamed as the vacuum of space sucked him towards the wormhole. He was barely hanging onto the body, connected only by a single wire. Chell tried to find something to grab onto as she felt herself slowly sliding towards the hole. Yeah, in retrospect, perhaps shooting a portal into the vacuum of space, without finding something to grab onto first, while the floors were still slippery, wasn't the best idea.
She flew headfirst at the inter-dimensional doorway, grabbing onto the two bars that were located around Wheatley's 'eye'.
"S-SPACE!" Wheatley stuttered, looking around. Chell looked up, still holding onto Wheatley for dear life. She saw the earth, rotating slowly. She looked back at Wheatley, tightening her grip. She was not going to die now. Not when she was so close to freedom!
"Let go!" Wheatley commanded, shouting over the roaring winds. "We're in space! I-"
"Space? SPACE!" A core flew from the computer's body, whooping as it soared from the hole. The sphere hit Wheatley, and Chell felt her left arm snap. She held tight with her right hand, slowly inching her left back towards the bar. She would be DAMNED if she gave up now! "SPAAAAAaaaaaaace..." It's whoops slowly faded into the cold vastness.
"Let me go!" Wheatley pleaded. "I know what I did was wrong! I can pull myself in! I can stop this!" Chell shook her head as best she could; she would not fall for anymore lies from anybody. "Please! I can fix this!"
"I already have." GLaDOS announced from inside the lab. A hydraulic arm reached out towards Wheatley and Chell. "And you, Wheatley. You are not coming back."
"Oh n-NO!" Wheatley cried. "New plan! Hold tighter! Hold on tighter!"
SLAM!
"AAAAHH!" Wheatley screamed as he was thrust from Chell's hand. "GRAB ME GRAB ME GRAB ME! GRAB MEEEEeeeee..."
Chell shut her eyes tight, waiting for the cold, deep, vast space to take her away as well. She opened her eyes, shocked to see GLaDOS's arm, holding onto her wrist. The arm pulled her back into Aperture, and the portal closed. Chell fell to the floor, exhausted and crying. She sobbed into the hard, metal floor, trying to hug the ground to her body.
The last thing she saw as she blacked out was GLaDOS's head, the one eye staring at her, as if she was...
Concerned?
Chell pushed herself up, expected to bang her head into a glass dome, or wake up to a crumbling bedroom.
She was shocked to see that surrounding her was a white platform with the Aperture Science logo in the center. She looked up, and immediately flinched when she saw the two robots in front of her. One looked similar to a turret, with a long body and legs, and the other was short, and looked like a personality core.
And behind them hung GLaDOS.
Chell instantly crawled backwards, afraid of what would happen next, but GLaDOS let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God you're alright!" GLaDOS exclaimed. "...Chell? I'm sorry for everything. Being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I had always imagined that you were my greatest enemy...but I was wrong." She said, softly, as if she were about to start crying. "You turned out to be the best friend I could have asked for."
Chell stared at the robot-lady, not expecting an apology like this. "..." She smiled and nodded.
"When I saved your life, I realized that if I had simply let you go off into space like that...I never would have forgiven myself. It taught me an even more valuable lesson. Where Caroline lives in my brain..."
Beeeeeep...
Caroline deleted.
The lights dimmed, and Chell's eyes widened at what the computer had just said.
"Goodbye, Caroline." GLaDOS reported, morbidly. "You know, this has taught me an even greater lesson. The best solution to any problem is usually the easiest one." Chell back up until her back was touching the safety rail behind her. "And killing you..." Chell felt tears enter her eyes, but stood, powerless, as GLaDOS railed slightly closer. "Is hard."
Chell eased slightly, and took a step forward.
"Yes, I'm letting you go...My days used to be just testing, testing, testing. Nobody murdered me, nobody put me in a potato, and nobody fed me to birds." She looked back at Chell, as if glaring. "And then, you showed up. You dangerous, mute, lunatic." GLaDOS backed up, sighing. "You know what? You win." She nodded a little. "You've won your freedom."
The platform began to rise, and Chell reached out a hand to GLaDOS.
"It was fun while it lasted, friend." GLaDOS said, and Chell could have sworn she saw a glint of sadness in her eye. "Don't come back."
Chell waited as the elevator rose. It had been a half hour since GLaDOS had sent her up, and she was sitting in the corner, curled into a ball. Suddenly, the elevator stopped, and Chell stood up, a proud, determined look on her face. She wanted to look brave when she faced the world, after everything that had happened. She would tell the press, she would apply for a job at Black Mesa, she would move on.
Her hope shattered like glass as soon as the doors opened.
Four turrets stood in front of her, lasers aimed and ready to fire. Chell backed up, trying to hold back her tears, but the feeling was too overwhelming. She broke down in the corner, sobbing, waiting for the bullets to start entering her body.
So close, and yet so far...
Nothing happened, and Chell looked up. The lasers were gone, and the turrets stared at her, as if in remorse. Their sides opened, and suddenly, music began to play in tune with how their 'wings' moved. Chell recognized this tune, and sat there, crying.
It was a lullaby that her mother used to sing to her as a child.
She continued to rise, as the music softly faded away. She entered yet another room, this one full of turrets. More music began to spill from the turrets, and Chell stared in awe as a giant 'king' turret began to harmonize with the smaller ones. She rose out of that room, the music still following her, straight to the surface. In front of her stood a metal door, and it slowly opened with a hissing noise.
She stepped out, staring in awe at the beauty of the outside world. The tall, golden blades of grass seemed to beam at her, as if congratulating her for her success. For the first time in years, she laughed. She laughed louder than she thought was possible, tears spilling out of her eyes at the same time. Suddenly, the door closed behind her, and a clanging noise came from the elevator.
CREAK
From the tube-like elevator shaft came a grey-black cube. Chell patted it, and realized that the black color was actually soot, as if it had been burned...
Burned...
She wiped furiously at one face of the cube, and stared in shock at the bright pink heart that seemed to smile back at her. She looked back to the door, just before it closed once more, forever.
"So much space. Gotta see it all."
Wheatley sighed as the golden-eyed core orbited him. "I wish I could take it all back. If I ever see her again, I'm gonna tell her-"
"We're in space!"
"I know we are, mate!" Wheatley chuckled a little. "...I'm gonna tell her that I'm sorry. I really am, and not just cause I'm stranded in space."
"SPAAAACE!"
Wheatley nodded his 'eye' a little. "I am genuinely sorry. I am..."
10 Years Later...
Chell smiled, watching the children in the park playing.
In ten years, she had managed to stumble upon a single civilization that had survived the apocalyptic future, and in time, had returned to normalcy.
The location of Aperture remained a mystery; Chell thought that if she had explained the lab's whereabouts, GLaDOS might trap whoever tread near there, and Chell didn't want to feel guilty for something like that. She had taken the Companion Cube with her, and had washed it off in a nearby lake. Right now, she had just sat down after her therapy appointment.
Her apartment was about 5 blocks away, but she didn't mind. After her encounter with GLaDOS, she had become a lot more appreciative of everything, more than ever before. The children in the park simply kept playing, paying her no mind.
She slowly stood up and began to walk towards her apartment, gazing up at the sky as she walked. She hoped that one day, Wheatley came back. She knew it wasn't his fault that he got corrupted. The Aperture computer systems were just handled badly, so anything connected to it would malfunction. She stopped, staring, as she saw what appeared to be her spherical companion.
Wheatley...
The clouds parted, and Wheatley vanished. Chell smiled sadly, continuing to her house. As soon as she was able, she would return to Aperture, and in doing so, she would rescue any subjects that were still trapped, if there were any. She didn't think there were, though, judging from GLaDOS's change of heart.
She trusted GLaDOS.
The End?