Portal

One:

My father used to say bad dreams are the dark side of our mind, coming out for the one chance it can to get a hold of us at our most vulnerable time, during sleep.

Unfortunately for me, this was no dream.

I woke up. My eyes feel heavy still. I try to speak to myself, to get a sense of where I am at the moment, but my throat is dry, and it hurts too much to speak. As I struggle to utter words out of my mouth, I get discouraged and realize it's no use. Going without speaking could be good for me, considering I can't stop talking at home, or with my friends.

I pull myself off the gel bed, and nearly slip and fall. One reason is no one should have to sleep in a bed this small for that long of a time, and secondly, I almost forgot they implanted these new prongs on my legs. Someone told me before I got in the sleeping chamber, that they were to protect me from falling from great heights, should I be in such a perilous place. I didn't like the sound of that, but that's what I signed up for, so complaining won't do any good now.

It's far too late to back out now.

They are rather uncomfortable, but they gave me some pill to ease the pain, so I'm assuming it could be worse, and they're more itchy than anything, and for that I'm grateful. Peppy music is playing into my "Relaxation Chamber", as the guy signing me up called it. I don't understand why music would be fitting at this time, especially peppy music of all, but again, complaining is pointless. The first thing I see is a clock on the other side of the glass walls around me counting down from 60 seconds. There's also one above a wall paneling not made of glass inside my chamber. Nobody told me about a clock, or really anything I'd be doing immediately after waking up, all they told me is that "Everything is for Science." I start to feel kind of paranoid of what is to become of me. Maybe signing up for this job wasn't such the fast and easy way to earn money I had hoped, and convinced my friends I was doing. I look at the radio sitting on a stand a few feet away from my bed. It's stuck on 85.2 FM, a radio station I'm not familiar with, but I'm not a big fan of the radio, or music for that matter anyways. This is a rather annoying song really, and no harm can possibly done if one radio stops playing music, right? I threw it against the wall, surprising myself how hard for only just waking up, too. To my discourse, it continues to play.

As I bent down to pick it up and try it's fate again, I saw a chart and a cup sitting on the same table the radio once was. I wanted a glass of water so badly, but someone played a cruel "joke" of leaving me an empty cup. Who leaves an empty cup sitting on a table next to someone who only just woke up from who knows how many hours of sleep? I think that's complaint worthy. I try to gather enough saliva in my dry mouth to simulate drinking a sip of water from this wretched cup, before I throw it furiously across the room.

I should probably tone down the morning crankiness a bit. I forget about the poor few seconds I've had so far, and I look at the chart sitting on the table, the only thing remaining in the chamber that I can still throw in a fit of rage. I briefly skim over it noting the company's logo at the top, and ten yellow symbols of stick men in precarious or life threatening situations. Oh, the last one seems to be a slice of cake. Cake sounds good, but it's been much too long since I ate, so thinking about food will only bring more sadness. Over-thinking gets me onto a whole slew of wild thoughts. I wonder if they'll let me go to the bathroom if I had to. I hope the reward for doing this isn't only cake. Maybe they'll throw me a party at the end of all this! I would've gone wild, if it weren't for a robotic sounding voice coming on over the speakers when the clock hit forty seconds. That part inside me that still hated the music playing over and over in my head while I slept, and is still on the radio right now, is a little frustrated they couldn't put this introduction voice person on the radio, or at least stopped the music to help me focus on what this robot woman is saying. Crap, now I'm already distracted and missed the first few seconds of what she said. Pretty sure it was just something like, "Hello and welcome to the Aperture Science enrichment center." I'd best be paying more attention now, lest I miss something vital.

She continues to speak. "We hope your brief detention in our Relaxation vault has been a pleasant one."

I force out a chuckle at the situation, and how un-pleasant it's been so far, but that's largely due to my bad attitude.

"Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper."

Testing huh? I was never good at taking tests, so let's just hope I wasn't tricked into doing some writing test instead of a physical one, but I remember the mechanisms on my legs, and continue to listen.

"Before we start, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur."

This must be where the chart with the yellow diagrams of stick people getting hurt comes into play. Looking at the chart again wouldn't hurt.

"For your own safety, and the safety of others, please refrain from touching…" It starts to fizzle and make weird noises, and then all these new and scary thoughts come rushing into my head. Am I not alone? Will there be other people here with me? What in the world am I not supposed to touch? I hope she wasn't talking about the radio. I come to my senses and listen up again, holding in my confused emotions.

She says something in Spanish, of which I wish I paid attention to more in High School now that it would come in handy, but then suddenly she returns to normal and says, "Stand back. The portal will open in Three. Two. One." A huge board lit up outside the chambers glass walls that had dual zeros at the top, with a row of marks listed 0-19 under that, and under those, two of the yellow diagrams on the chart, which I'm still holding. Taking a glance at them, I conjure up that one is some sort of cube coming from a chute, or so it looks, and the other is a stick figure under a falling cube. This is surely a warning system for a test chamber of what I should look for. Not bad advice to heed; don't stand under a chute dropping giant cubes from it. The clock inside my relaxation vault and the one outside strike zero, and a portal opens up directly under both of them. I'm amazed at the technology men, women, robots, or robot women can make now. I can't help but stare at them, the portals, for a few seconds. I can see myself in the portal, almost like a mirror, due to the positioning of the two portals, one of them blue, and the other a red-like hue. This is a scary ordeal, and for all I know, this is all a façade. What if I don't make it out of this portal alive? Maybe the system isn't perfected yet and it could take me to another portal on the other side of the world? Well. I guess there's only one way to find out. Time to start this test.