GLaDOS's Story: Part A
Chapter One
I was born on May 11, 1925 as Caroline Isabelle Breen to a wealthy family on the outskirts of Clayton, New Mexico. I was the oldest of four children, with my siblings being from oldest to youngest: David, Sonya, and Wallace. My father treated me like a brick, and Wallace was pampered like a prince. David and Sonya were raised just as kids should be raised, and they tried to help me with my struggles as much as they could.
My childhood was fraught with locked antlers with my father, mostly from antics brought about by Wallace. My lifelong dream was to be an opera singer, but my father insisted that I pursue a career in medicine. My mother was willing to help me pursue my wishes for the operatic stage, but my father did tend to intimidate her out of doing so.
My life changed forever at the start of 1942. My mother was attacked by a bandit who stole her car after throwing her off a cliff. She only lived long enough for us to find her and for her to give me a Christmas gift: a red neckerchief with a poem written in Italian. (Anche se ho preso i corsi di Italiano a scuola, che non รจ mai stata una forza del mio.) The bandit was never identified, and after my mother's death, my father tried to force me into training as an army nurse to fight in World War II.
I decided that there was only one thing I could do. I decided to run away from home and start a new life somewhere else. I fled inside a railroad car with only one set of clothes, a sack of potatoes, Father's pocketknife and cigarette lighter, and my red neckerchief.
I stayed hidden in the boxcar for seven days and seven nights. I had nothing with which to track the exact time; I kept track of night and day through a knothole in the door and scribed tallies on the side wall with the pocketknife.
Finally, on the seventh day, my boxcar was opened, and I was spotted.
"Well... what do we have here? Looks like there's a hobo on this train!"
"Oh... spud." I jumped out of the boxcar and ran as fast as I could into the nearby city.
The man who had found me on the train didn't follow me into the city, but as I was scouting said city for shelter, I could hear police sirens echoing through the streets. I hid inside a dumpster when a police car passed by an alley through which I was walking, and a message on his radio strongly suggested that the man from the train had probably called the police to look for me.
"Attention all units: be on the lookout. A railroad employee has reported a young female stowing away on his train, who is now hiding somewhere in the city. She has been described as white, in her late teens, approximately 5 feet 3 inches, and wearing a potato sack as a dress and a red neckerchief on her neck. If spotted, pursue and detain."
I could hear my heart racing as the police car drove off. I had to find a way to avoid being captured. But as I sat in the dumpster, I started wondering how I was going to survive in this city. I had no idea where the hell I was, the police were after me, anyone who saw me could call the police on me, and there were scant resources on which to dwell.
It took several minutes of pondering to decide that anything that happened next would be better than returning home, even if it meant going to jail despite being on the edge of 17.
So, I climbed out of the dumpster, walked out of the alley, and wondered into the night street, pondering whether I should rob a bank as a means of getting jail time here.
I didn't get too far into my thought process before a car ran into me.