Detroit, Michigan has always had an… appeal to me. Some strange allure. This crime-stricken ghost of a city just…. Called me (see A/N at the end of this chapter for some detail). I ended up moving into a run-down house in the outskirts that i got an amazing deal on. I guess i should have introduced myself earlier…. My name is Etyx Mason, i'm a 20 year old guy. Moved to Detroit on my 20th birthday. It's nice when the snow is on the ground, and you can't really see the decay. I like rap music, cars, my boyfriend and my dogs. I dislike country music, Rick, and being TRAPPED IN A TEST CHAMBER. But before i go there, i should tell how i got there.

March 15, 2018. I was walking around the neighborhood near my house. Since this is Detroit, the "neighborhood" mostly consists of empty land where houses used to stand… but i digress. I was standing in the backyard of a ruined house, one that looked like it had been very, very nice in about 1950. I'd explored this area before, which is why i was surprised to see a fairly nondescript corrugated shed in the backyard. The surprise was that, for all my time living here, i'd never seen that shed before. And this was where i made my three dumbest mistakes.

Mistake Number 1: Try to open mysterious shed. The door seems stuck, so i leave it… and then it flings itself open. Mistake Number 2 was not running away. Once the door opened, it was PITCH black inside. Now, Mistake Number 3 was stepping in. Generally, stepping into a pitch black shed is a bad idea, as you may get blatted in the face by a rake, step on nails, or, in this case, fall down an elevator shaft.

I have no idea how far down it was. I'm so scared of heights, i passed out before i hit the bottom. Which is probably good, because i only felt a lot of pain, as opposed to ridiculous insane amounts of pain. I don't honestly know how i survived… i get the impression that, if i had landed anywhere else, i wouldn't have. But i was (un)lucky enough to land in a certain science complex… apparently right in the Central AI Chamber where the escape elevator would normally come through. I wouldn't know though; i woke up in a bed, a long time later.

I woke up in a white room. It seemed strange… but familiar at the same time, like i'd been in a different room in the same building, or seen it on TV or something. It looked like some sort of futuristic hospital, with 6 beds in the room (5 of them empty), all of them with 90s-looking computers on tables next to them. And then, as soon as i had come to my senses, i saw it.

The screensaver on the computer across the room.

Was an Aperture logo bouncing around the screen.

I panicked. Now i knew why the room seemed familiar, it looked like an office area from Portal 2! I looked at the other computers, searching for hope but only seeing things that confirmed my fears.

As if to increase my hysteria even further, a familiar robotic voice came over the PA:

"Welcome to the Aperture Laboratories Computer-Aided Enrichment Centre. We hope your brief stay in the Recovery Wing was pleasant, and you will be taken to a testing track shortly."

I panicked more. I sat up in bed, only then noticing that there was a tube connected to my arm, and i was wearing the trademark orange jumpsuit!

"N-no! There's been some mistake! I'm not a test subject! I'm not supposed to be here! I have a boyfriend and two dogs and a car and a house and a job and a life! I need to get out of here!"

"All Aperture Laboratories test subjects are bound by contract and sentry gun to fulfill their tests before leaving."

"I never signed a contract! I just…. Tripped, passed out…. And woke up in this med bay…"

"We assumed that you would prefer to test an amount equivalent to paying for your recovery, in exchange for continuing to live."

I stood up, confused. I was standing in the world of my favourite video game, for fuck's sake! I knew all of this stuff…. She was gonna test me for a while and then kill me. Should i just… speak my knowledge?

"I… know who you are… i know this place… so you can stop pretending."

Her voice shifted, sounding less robotic and a little lower pitched.

"Yes, i could guess that by the scum i found when i scanned your mobile device. So are you walking in a fantasy yet? Because i'm going to make it a living hell."

In retrospect, that may have been a bad idea.

"Oh shit… that."

"And yet i still saved your life. So you're going to solve tests, and i probably won't kill you. And it will be fine."

I was understandably a little freaked out, but what could i do? I walked through the open door at one end of the room, thinking about the life that i'd probably never get back…. And that probably would be over soon. But, more importantly to the situation… she'd seen the contents of my phone, did that mean she knew that i…. I was unsure what to think, as i stepped into the elevator.

"Welcome to hell."

A/N: To explain it shortly: There is a phenomenon called "reality bleed", where certain universes can overlap. In this case, it was the Half-Life/Portal universe overlapping with the real world, which is why for a few precious minutes Aperture Labs was under Detroit. Some people are just drawn towards hotspots. Detroit is a hotspot.