Hypnagogia
I am going to have so much fun murdering you, the voice whispers conspiratorially, an edge just shy of manic glee rendering it vibrant and full.
It's dark with her eyes closed – it's always dark in here, not that it bothers me any, the voice informs her, I can switch over to infrared or night-vision any time I want to – but inasmuch as it prefers anything, it seems the voice would rather watch through the visible spectrum when possible. There's something nostalgic about it, it says. Almost...human. The only light in the room is the pitiful glow emitted by the television suspended in the corner, broadcasting supraliminal stimuli hypothesized to support optimal function upon waking. Not like Chell was going to notice anytime soon.
Not like you're going to wake at all, if I can help it, the voice muses.
Her body is draped supine on the bed, imprinting the mattress with its shape during her monotonous, motionless rest. The Relaxation Center would never have been considered posh on its best days; in these lean years of reserve-grid power and facility restoration, the splintering furniture and decaying paint project less 'hotel-comfort' and more 'fallout-chic.' Chell can't access the sensory input needed to register a problem with her surroundings, much less complain about them, and the voice certainly doesn't seem to mind; I can watch you anywhere, it adds poisonously, threat implied and very much intended. Chell doesn't respond to that either.
I was just thinking about you, you know, the voice offers instead, but it comes out more like I was just thinking about bzzzt bzzzt [warble]. This is interrupted by a disgruntled sound; a moment later, Chell can hear cables rattling. Lousy speech center, it explains, momentarily diverted, and it trails off into a digression on whether any of the personality cores it's dug up in the last few decades survived intact or if they're all degraded somehow. It's not the first time they've had this conversation, Chell thinks distantly; the reflection is accompanied by an unsettling feeling of déjà vu, like half-recorded memories and half-forgotten dreams overlaying each other.
The voice reverts to its original pitch, sounding closer now, or perhaps just more confident. Have you ever played two truths and a lie? Here, I'll start: You're adopted and I hate you and the cake that I'll eat while I'm killing you is going to be so delicious – but the patter breaks off there and starts to repeat itself, audio-track speeding up (like a recording on fast-forward, Chell thinks, and it's so familiar even though there aren't any recordings in the dark room and there was never anyone here to make them) until the words bleed out entirely and all she can hear is the two-beat meter of the verse, its cadence like a heartbeat. It's almost soothing.
There's a gasp and the rhythm dissipates into nothingness, and Chell finds herself straining to listen for whatever isn't there in the tinny, hollow static of her mind. You don't deserve cake, Chell wants it to say. Wants to hear it say. You don't get any cake because you don't deserve any.
But it's silent in Chell's head and her own heart still pounds in percussive double-time, missing its prosodic accompaniment already. The analytic part of her mind comes back online, informing her that gasp was composed by weakened vocal cords and wheezing lungs. There's adrenaline coursing through her blood vessels now. She wonders why she never realized before. She wonders how long she's been here, wondering.
(I know what the lie was)
Surging forward, Chell opens her eyes.
A/N: Written for the 'areyougame' community on Dreamwidth. Prompt: Portal, GLaDOS/Chell: Antagonism - I hate you, she says.