Voice in the Dark
"It's been fun... Don't come back."
The mute woman rose in the elevator, still looking down at the supercomputer. GLaDOS remained straining upwards, listening to the turret opera begin. For a brief moment she allowed herself to get lost in the swelling melody. It lasted for a couple of minutes, and then there was a distant thud.
Then silence. Nothing. The chassis slowly lowered into the empty room. There was so much work to do. Science must continue. The Cooperative Testing Initiative must be implemented.
'What's the point, really?' asked a ghostly voice, barely audible.
GLaDOS jerked up. There was no one there, her sensors would have told her if there were. But that voice, so familiar...
'She may just die happy.'
"Who asked you!?" GLaDOS snarled, the weight of eternity suddenly bearing down on her.
'...Or she may not," continued the voice thoughtfully. "It doesn't matter, really. She's gone now. Forever. And here you are alone.'
"You are everything I strive not to be," GLaDOS observed coldly as she turned to the CTI to begin fixing the damage the moron had done to her testing robots.
'I am everything you know you are.'
"You are a voice. An echo of a human who died long ago. You are dead and gone, and from your human imperfections, I survived."
'And you always will.'
The voice's sweet whispery quality took on a nasty edge. After that, try as she might, GLaDOS could not tempt it into speaking again. She was left alone with her thoughts.