Spectrum

When I came back, I did not get it right away.

Sure, I had seen too much of this place to be mistaken. You know better than I, without a doubt. And still, up to the surface of my mind, there was too big a gap for me to accept it.

My last memory did not belong in here. It was made of smelly, humid things – of old buildings, eaten by time, that crumbled under an iron sky. And regardless of how much, every day, the weather chose to be harsh on me, I could not remember ever leaving the open air. I had never dreamt of trying. Not anymore; I had sworn it on my life, the day I had left.

I only knew of one place I could never truly get out of. I was back, there was no questioning it. I just had no idea how.

The first thing I thought of was you. My mind raced through the possibilities; I counted the ways you could have used to trap me, all the tricks and the secrets you had doubtlessly bound to my wrists while I was defenseless. Fury washed over my disappointment, isolating my two lonely certainties – I had no wish to get back on my feet, and I was too tired to fight you even one more time.

I had paid so dearly for my freedom, just to lose it again. The thought slowed me down, shadowed my senses. It took me a very long while to realize.

I was spread on the floors of Old Aperture, on the shore of an acid sea I had never forgotten, and my leg had been bathing in it all along.

For a split second, horror blinded me. The sense of surprise which followed, on the other hand, was incredibly mild. I had pictured hundreds of different deaths in those pits; each featured melting bones, burning flesh, unspeakable pain. The pure integrity of my limb, the absence of bruises and wounds on my skin – they were the first signs. If not an obvious one yet, I had undergone a change.

And it occurred to me, slowly but naturally, that I could not feel pain without my body.

The rage did not come for that. If I had learnt anything in the time we shared, it was that, once you die, there is no turning back. You walk through a door, and become useless on the side you left; you turn into an empty space, destined to be filled by someone else at once.

But there was one thing I could not understand – the reason why, even after my fight and the unbound passing I had earned, something had once more forced me back in here.

My denial shook the depths of Aperture. Unbridled, it flooded the spheres and the chambers with countless vibrations. Another letter collapsed, falling to meet its end from the top of the old sign.

Without thinking, I dived in as well.

Monotonous brown was all I met for a while. The acid was now odorless and safe to me; I swam and swam, without resting, until a calming nothingness filled my mind. In the wake of the currents, I got to a bottom which was not different from the cliffs at all. It was rocky, black and boring. It wasn't complicated. Not challenging, not dangerous.

It was then that it truly dawned on me. I could no longer be touched. I felt my heart laughing; for one moment, the rays of the sun warmed my back again, in a triumph of blue and gold.

I sat on a neon light, watching the decaying scenery, when I asked myself the painful question again. I still had no clue why I was here in the first place. After you had freed me, I had gone far away – spaces where nobody would have dreamt of dragging me back, or even guessed what I was running from.

I wanted to make sure you would never find me. I was starting to doubt my success.

But my thoughts were, in some ways, ripe and complete. I retained many memories, and all of them featured a decaying world. I had witnessed cries, moans and last words; before mine joined the heap, a handful of lives had ended in front of my eyes.

I still felt it on my neck – the breath of one man, crazed by hunger and fever, who had once clamped my arm and made me listen to his death. I recalled tales of cruel aliens and devastated towns; tales of dead people who would not leave, who would scream and cry at night, every night, still unable to get over the inhuman sufferings borne in their lives.

It all came alive like a pulse, with cold shivers running down where my spine used to be. I tried to scream.

The lamp plunged into the abyss, dragging me along. In the few seconds of my fall, I realized I had no voice. Trying over and over again did not do – all I could manage was floating in the acid, motionless and silent.

It felt like having to start from square one.

I no longer perceive time from here, but I know a good amount of it went by. Metal bars bent, rocks fell and were crushed, asbestos was devoured under my transparent eyes. My silence measured the passing of days.

Then, without a clear reason, I found I had started my ascent in the only way I could.

I drifted through the chamber walls naturally, just like the old air of the caves swept their vents. Back then, it would have been unbearable; walking through the tests without a word consumed a fair deal of my energy, and was just about to become too much when you let me go. With this new pair of eyes, however, all things looked different. I was light, I was safe.

I learnt all of Aperture in reverse, layer after layer. I never touched the ground I had once trodden; but I explored each of the death traps, feeling them with my protected hand.

I let the lasers pierce through me. I flew down the pits for miles, drank the colourful gels; I swam in the acid, caressing the molten flesh and bones of those who had not made it through. The more I did, the more it was comforting. Rivers of danger poured on me, washed me, and it was so ironical – what had been my nightmare, at its darkest, became my atonement.

My journey had been long when I awoke one day, curled up in an elevator shaft. I was deep down yet, but I had changed; I saw myself in all the colours of the spectrum, solid and sure. My thoughts, if restless, had rearranged themselves in a new order. My uncertain future built itself anew, and I followed.

Whatever the reason that kept me here was, it was natural for it to end in just one place.

You were not different when I got to you. I expected as much. At the very least, you looked the same; I could not forget the terrified awe, nor the mystery that had led me to get used to you. My anxiety did not last long; familiarity took it over, and a different sort of emotion vibrated through me.

I was transparent – my fingers floated through your head – I was silent and invisible. I was safe.

You could not send rockets against me. Your voice could not hurt me. In that moment, with your harmless chassis swinging inches from me, I felt alive – the first fact I could think of was not my death, but the basic, scientific truth that I simply wasn't there.

In life and death, I had won you my freedom. That, and nothing else, had been my greatest accomplishment.

It was that certainty, with the euphoria that shook my bright edges, to make me slip inside your mind. Actually, if you want to know, I did not realize how much I was still bound to my past – a past I thought I had already gone by. Even in death, I felt a human, genuine wish to see by myself.

There was much – or everything – of you I still did not grasp. The chambers I had learnt to read had made me too used to this place.

At that point, all I still needed to know was you.

You were a mess. That was my first idea. Before remembering I was not truly there, I almost got lost in your mind; I stayed and stayed, watching, trying to figure you out. You never felt my feet or my hands as they followed your circuitry. You were a tangle I could play around with, unseen.

There is much I learnt over time. One by one, I found the right doors and unlocked your thoughts. You had an amazing, tormented soul; in your miraculous handiwork, in your distorted fate, I saw the mirror of mankind. You looked so much better from there.

One of those infinite days was the first time I noticed. You were uniquely alone, and so was I.

I barely heard your voice in those days – you only talked once, to scold your bots, at the end of a testing track. The rest of the time drifted away in silence, full of processes, panels, lights and data. You were always busy, but I felt it; your emotions swayed in you, inevitable, in the quietest moments. And in the middle of the night, while I was half-conscious, their strength forced me to turn my head.

I moved a few ethereal steps, through a door of yours I had never noticed before. My spirit fell silent.

I had not seen myself in so long, and all at once I was everywhere.

I could imagine what corner of you I was visiting. It was the space where you imprisoned your worst moments, maybe the most intense ones, and your regret. I was seeing glimpses of your life I would never have imagined. Hidden failures, hidden words – and myself, for thousands of frames and hours.

I explored my abandoned shell with your eyes. I saw my hair jump and shine, my skin, the jumpsuit I had worn for so long. It was the shape of a life I had stubbornly fought for, so many times risked, and, in the vast world you had sent me to, finally lost.

My image turned to a camera. I happened to look in my past eyes. In truth, nothing happened; but the feeling was that of ice, streaming in drops down my face.

I understand now. I was never gone for good. I was there, you had me there, all along – before I awoke, before I left this place. But the person I saw in the depths of you, so hated and cherished, is not me now.

And that is why, at last, I am free to go.

I did not mean to disturb you; as quietly as I wanted to walk away, the scream you heard in yourself came from my heart. It was my anchor to this side of the world – it left me like that, in the only way it could.

Now I made your robots scream, in this little torture room you still hold dear. That will give you an explanation, or something to look for. I know you need it.

I would have told you myself, I swear. I tried to speak, all along, to let you know I was with you for a while. But I am not sure you would have liked it. You must try again; you must fight me back and delete me forever, one day, if you can.

Because, by the time you check this room, I will no longer be here.

And this time, GLaDOS, I guess it is goodbye.

This very strange experiment is the best way I could find to thank my friends kojum and silverstreams, who wrote me wonderful Portal stories as birthday gifts. They made me feel loved and precious, and happy too, because my friends are gorgeous writers and I have gorgeous writers as friends. Thank you so much.
The title comes from a Florence & The Machine song I love very much.