Aside from Demons of Her Own, this is my other story that's actually interesting (opinion) and lengthy, marginally. It may have some spelling errors, though I try to fix those. The name is currently pretty stupid, excuse it for the moment. Or forever. (First Portal Fanfic!) Enjoy!
Her eyes flew open, panic stinging her every nerve for a split second. Shwerr. The glass chrysalis she was encompassed in slid open, the faint chemical scent of adrenal vapor flooded the air, filling her with energy and bad memories.
Chell jolted from her cryogenic cocoon with a start. She looked around, discovering the glass box was lit by only a single spotlight at the center of the ceiling, darkness swallowing up the surrounding room.
A ragged, mechanical chuckle creeped in through a hidden speaker, feminine, robotic. The line was delivered in the only way Chell was familiar with, cloaked in a thick layer of malice.
"I thought I told you to leave for good." The condescending voice said. "You must really, really love to test." A circular steel door appeared, unlocked, filling the room with an eerie red glow. A dark, featureless figure materialized in the door frame, like a solid silhouette, creeping towards the test subject.
As it got closer, she figured it was a man. The arms were pulled against its sides, tangled in red wires. The face slowly appeared as a black skull, a faint blue glow where the eyes should have been.
"Don't think I'm not on to you, too, lady." Said an ever so familiar voice. The figure inched closer, until it was face to face with Chell.
"I despise you," a large metal panel with spikes welded onto it slammed down 20 feet behind her, in a hall that had just appeared, unnoticed before. "I loathe you," another deadly plate planted itself even closer. "You awful," slam, "smugly quiet," slam, too close for comfort. She couldn't run in either direction. Couldn't speak. "jumpsuited," a smaller plate touched down in that one. She looked up, and looming above her head was a final mashy-spike plate, controlled by this figure. When looked back, it was as if she was staring into the eyes of death and betrayal itself. "MONSTER OF A WOMAN!" He threw his arms up, and the panel descended suddenly. Then there was darkness. The British voice changed tone and croaked one last thing, words she'd never heard in his voice.
"I'm so, so sorry."
Chell started awake. She threw herself into a sitting position, startling her friend. She writhed in the thick, sticky bedsheets before yanking them off her mattress completely.
"Oh my goodness, are you okay?" Her southern friend said in a hushed voice, eyes wide with worry. Chell's dilated pupils darted around the room, making sure she was awake, not in another dream. It had happened before, and it was terrifying. She whipped her head around to the lady, who was wearing modest, pink laced sleepwear. The bags under her eyes told Chell that she was up awhile earlier, probably making sure the former test subject was okay.
Chell felt her friend's hand cool clasp around her wrist, trying to calm her.
"Yes." She finally said, voice shaky. "I-I'm fine, Felicity."
Felicity threw her hand to the base of her neck, relieved.
"Oh thank Heavens, I almost thought you had another one of your panic attacks again." Chell shook her head slightly.
"I'm alright, you can go back to bed. Thanks." The lady in pink grimaced, before letting go of her friend's wrist and leaving the bedroom.
She glanced at the wall clock, which read 2:45. Moonlight shown in through the window, sending a cascading wave of increasingly fuzzy light carved by the spaces in the blinds. Wrinkles and folds in the bedsheets and her clothing warped the luminescence into odd-looking curves, shadows from the same beam danced across the walls and made funny shapes, like 2 dimensional modern art.
The cool air from the rest of the room sent chills down Chell's back, temperature varying too quickly. It was even colder against her skin since she had jumped up right after her nightmare caused her to break into a cold sweat.
She pulled the sheets back over herself, trying to, hopefully, return to a peaceful slumber. Once her mind settled and her heartbeat began to thump in sync with the clock ticking, she fell asleep.
Nightmares are exhausting.
Chell didn't remember waking up the next morning. All she knew what that she was awake, and at least she was alive. It was definitely something to be thankful for, the ability to get out of bed was a privilege denied to many. Like the victims of the sour part of the Long Sleep.
The dim moonlight had changed to soft sunrays. Chell finally willed herself to get out of bed. The second her feet touched the floor, even though it was carpet, it was like an icy mist had creeped in over night and settled on the ground.
Freezing cold. She pulled the blinds open, and the radiance came pouring into the room, crisp, yellow-orange and bright. Chell turned to grab her robe, but a stark blast of light stung her eyes and she paused, throwing a hand up. It was her telescope, reflecting the morning rays.
It was shiny, lustrous. The brass had been polished by someone. It hadn't been professionally cleaned in at least a year or so, and she wondered why now.
Chell had gotten that telescope at least 2 and a half years ago, from a bookstore owner in the town, Greg Havvoc. She used it often, stargazing was a sort of profession of hers. The only thing Chell was worried about when peering through the magnified lens was that she might see Him. Or not.
The theory that He might still be in space, and the ones that he may not, both frightened her. She didn't want him to die because of her, crushed by debris, crashed into the surface of the moon, it would terrible. Then again, she did want him to have some sort of...punishment for what he had done.
The rhythmic ticking of the wall clock pulled her back to reality. It was 6:00 AM. Chell wasn't going back to sleep, that was for sure. She never could after this hour.
Felicity was slumped on the couch, curlers in her hair, still in her pajamas.
"Hey, Chell." She said, lackadaisically. "We have biscuit-bombs from yesterday."
Leftovers? Felicity not cooking? She was always cooking.
"Are you okay?" Chell asked, walking towards the fridge.
"Eh." The lady held up a small picture of someone, she would never let Chell see it, though. She then let her head fall back on the couch. Chell turned to her friend, grimaced. This was a strange mood for Felicity, since she was usually cheerful.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothin'." She glanced at the picture once more, then set it in a small chest beside the sofa, sighing. "Nothin', really." She was dead tired, and just as she was suddenly falling asleep, her head popped back up. "The coffee shop!"
Felicity rushed back upstairs to her room. Chell knew the manner of the lady and look on her face too well, her friend was mourning someone. Who, she had no idea. The southerner never let her see that picture of her mystery friend.
Chell was already dressed before she had come downstairs, so she patiently waited on her roommate, cream cheese bagel in hand.
"Goodness, goodness, goodness, goodness…" Felicity repeated in a hurry as she stepped through the door, almost forgetting her one-feathered bowler-hat on the way out. Chell didn't work full time at her friend's coffee shop, so she had time to kill and left after she finished her bagel.
The coffee shop, Cafe et Scelerisque, was only a block away, luckily for Felicity, who showcased this java-bean haven as her pride and joy. The lady was also very interested in foreign culture, hence the latin name (though Felicity would argue occasionally that the first part could also mean the same in French).
When Chell stepped inside the shop, the strong aroma of freshly-ground coffee pierced her senses. It was powerful at first, but took only a minute to get used to, and after that it was a bit more pleasant.
Chell sighed. There was no place else she would rather be, other than Greg's bookstore, which was a second on her list of safe-havens.
She sat back in a black wire-framed chair, which was sitting in the little sunlight that shone through the window during the beginning of another harsh Michigan winter.
Chell wasn't brain damaged. She knew that for a fact. Nor was she mute, fat, or any other of the passive-aggressive attributes that She had noted about her in the facility.
Chell didn't know exactly if she was adopted, or if she would care if she was. Even without any blood-relatives, the small town of Sunset Creek had plenty of friendly faces that welcomed her warmly when she walked (or waddled, mostly) day and night over 20 miles to the nearest civilization. It wasn't much, but to Chell, it was absolute heaven, and she had plenty enough to entertain herself. Stargazing for one, better at the Dark Sky park, where the skies were so clear you could glance into the infinity of space. This time, without being threatened to be pulled into it.
Chell's list of friends was short, other than Greg and, well, Felicity, who was her closest. She liked it that way. Quality, not quantity. You could have 20 'friends' and none of them would be faithful, but one friend whose hands you could put your life in. She didn't care if somebody didn't like her, she had been to Hell and back twice, and defeated Satan both times in the process. Nothing could really bother after that whole ordeal.
Felicity had helped Chell so much, even without knowing her background. Neither of them really had shared their backstories, even in the 3 and a half, almost 4 years they had known each other.
The brass bell above the door sang cheerfully, welcoming a customer, beginning the work day.
The shop was never very slow, but today it felt especially lengthy as Chell waited for it to close. The day before she had left her new, detachable ultra-zoom telescope lens in the attic of the shop, and couldn't go up there until the coffee beans were moved out of the way and used up.
"How's my favorite neice doing?" Greg enveloped Felicity in a hug when she went to greet her uncle. He was a big man, in his mid-50's, hair graying from it's original brown, but he still looked tough as nails.
"I'm doin' good." She replied cheerfully, then commented on a new shipment of books he had received. "Sell any more of those new Encyclopedia Britannicas?"
"Actually," He said, sitting down in chair that was almost too small for him. "I did. 3 of them! This little girl, had to be at least 10, walked in and started lookin' for the most complex books you could think of." He chuckled. "As you could imagine, she went straight for that encyclopedia like it was free candy. A couple of others grabbed 'em too."
"Oh my stars, 3 sold on the first day in stock." Felicity smiled.
Chell wiped the coffee grounds off of her hands on her dark green apron, re-stocking a grinding machine with java beans. "Well, if you aren't gonna order something, I'm gonna have to kick you out." She joked, stirring up a chuckle from Greg and Felicity.
"No, please, I'll take a premium dark roast."
"On the house." Felicity winked.
"Oh, no, you don't have to do that. I'll pay for this magical stuff!" Greg offered.
"Remember what we said about relative discounts, Felicity." Chell said, smiling. Felicity made a face, rolling her eyes up for a second.
"Fine, fine. That'll be three-fifty."
"Anything for this coffee." Greg chuckled, pulling his wallet from his pocket.
{~~~}
Chell set a few coffee bean bags aside from the door to the attic, and ran upstairs. It was mostly finished, not exactly a totally dusty extra room. It was cozy. She spotted the lens in the moonlight that was streaming in through the one small window, and something else was reflecting the light, too. It was whatever the lens was sitting on top of, old sheets pulled away from the corner of the box.
Her companion cube.
It was one of her many things she wouldn't show Felicity, and there was a pair of long-fall boots hidden somewhere, too. She slipped the empty Java bean sacks back over the cube to conceal it, hoping to never see it outside again, like the last time it was presented to her. She wondered...
Chell set the telescope lens aside and began to pull the covering off of the cube. It was so, so silent when she finally could see it. It was beaten up, covered in dirt and previously smouldering dust, and there were a few marks were an energy pellet had hit it. She chuckled briefly, running her thumb over the pink heart that was plastered to its front.
"I guess we both have our scars." Chell said to it, like an old friend, even though it couldn't hear her. And she really hoped it didn't respond.
It brought back so many memories of that place though, of Her, the loathed testing, Wheat-
Don't, She thought. Stop. I don't need this. The core was a hard subject to think about for her, torn on whether she would forgive him or not, if he ever came back. That would never happen, though.
It was funny, Chell was utterly furious with him, but still didn't know what she would do if she knew that something happened to him.
He was your friend. Chell slouched in her standing position.
I know, she thought.
You knew him.
In what way, though? She had only known him for a day or two, anyhow.
You knew him. That thing wasn't him.
Was it?
No.
No. It wasn't him. It was the mainframe.
Exactly. She was slightly nicer as a potato. He was pretty nice -marginally- without the power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Chell paused. That was right. She'd had this mental conversation countless times (no matter how hard she tried not to), and never made up her mind. It had been almost 4 years.
You can't hold onto this for so long.
I know, I know, but there's this weird feeling about it, like-
You miss him. Chell did a double-take. She did.
"Chell," Felicity called from downstairs, in the shop. "Find what you were lookin' for?"
She paused, smiled briefly. "I did."