Day 1
First, let me get this straight: this was not my idea, Alyx practically forced me to. She says that keeping a diary is healthy for you, that it helps you to process certain events better. I do not need to process certain events; I'm fine! Always have been. The fact that apparently I've been a pawn for a certain blue-suited man is not something really depressing or something that will make me suicidal or something like that.
This is ridiculous …
Day 3
This is still ridiculous. I keep telling Alyx that I'm fine, but she simply will not accept that. For the past 3 days she has been bugging me like hell (not that I really mind), but still … Every time I run into her she keeps on asking me:
"How's the diary going?" and every time I reply to her that it's going good (even though I think that the whole idea is ridiculous and that in the past four days I only made one insignificant entry, but she can't know that … can she?)
I give her my best poker face, but somehow she sees straight through me.
"Riiight …" and then she puts her hands on her hips and shifts all her weight to her right leg. I simply cannot resist her when she does that, and I think she knows. That is always the cue for me to get out of there with some lame excuse like:
"I .. eh.. I have to go to Doctor Kleiner. Now." And I really have to resist the urge to run straight past her, as far away as possible.
God … why can't I think of any better excuses …
Day 5
Bazinga.
Day 6
Dear Diary,
Today was just another day like all of those before at White forest. I have been here for almost a week now, and the combine haven't found us yet. Doctor Kleiner and Barney think that it is all just a matter of time; that they will find us eventually. I have to agree with them, but I do hope that the combine will not find us too quickly. It has been nice here in the base, not having to look over my shoulder every two seconds. Not seeing that evil man in a blue suit, aka the G-man, all over town (or all over the base). A nice six days of rest.
But I just know that it's too good to be true. Ever since I pushed that cart into that anti-mass spectrometer, my life has been full of headcrabs, zombies and other weird things.
But the weirdest thing of all is that for me, everything that happened at Black Mesa feels like it was only a couple of days ago, but to everyone else, it was 20 years ago. The G-man "dropped" me in a world that is 20 years in the future. All my friends, everyone I knew, is either dead or has aged by 20 years while I am, in theory, 47 but still look like I'm only 27. It makes me feel guilty like hell when they tell me about the seven-hour war and everything they had to live through. It seems that even though the G-man put me in front of an impossible choice, I got the better end of the deal, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
I sometimes wonder what would've happened if it hadn't been me who had pushed that cart that day …
Yours sincerely,
Gordon Freeman
Day 7
Today I passed Alyx and Barney in the corridor. They seemed to be talking fervently about something, but when they saw me they suddenly stopped and smiled at me. You wouldn't think that it is something out of the ordinary, but it's the way the two of them smiled at me, and the way they said "Hey Gordon, catch ya later". Even Alyx just walked right past me and gave me this quick smile. Before I rounded the corner, I looked back at them to catch them doing just the same thing and then quickly hurrying off to somewhere.
I knew it. They are reading my diary.
Day 8
Barney has been avoiding me all day and I haven't seen Alyx even once. When I asked Dr. Kleiner where she is, he said that he had no idea and would've thought that either she would be somewhere near me or Barney … what apparently has been happening quite a lot lately: Alyx being with Barney, that is.
I had a small inkling of what was going on after Day 3.
Barney, Alyx … nice try.
