Nine Times Nine
It's been a long time.
At least, you have your sheets – a gentle shield against the days that pass, far away, in the outer world. Aperture is your home, the room is your oblivion. You could stay here forever, peacefully resting, if it weren't for her.
The memory of her breaks the order of your sleep, and drives you into madness. From the state you are in, you could never imagine that, without her, Aperture is falling to its destruction.
She is busy seeing you, thinking of you, in her haunted backup system. You cannot guess – you just sleep, running all along your visions, and watch.
On a regular basis, the quiet black screen in your mind leaves room to colour. You find yourself in a dark grey room, which you are sure to have seen somewhere, somehow, in a different time of this world. You assume you have been there before, even though you have no clue what is going to happen – all you know is that she is there, and you aren't going to lose to her.
GLaDOS, printed in huge letters. That must be the thing's name. You do not inquire further, for you do not care. All you can think of is that you want it over, as soon as possible.
Rockets are fired, her croaked tune weakens. She grows bigger in your wet eyes, and the end of it all seems to slip away with your sweat drops. She is all you can see, her explosion, her pieces, her smoke. There is nothing left in the world but the two of you.
The room is high, too high – outside, while you relive it all, the walls fall apart – her pieces hit your limbs so fast, will you survive? – Aperture is dying with you.
A loud thud, and a mechanical voice, mingle in your ears.
Your eyes open in shock. You are in bed, awake, and her ghost has faded with your dreams.
Three – two – one –
Death, again.
In the end, your backup system was Aperture's last revenge. Humans are all liars – your death was the greatest lie after all. Since it happened, you have been paying for that.
All of your functions are inactive. Your body stays a wreck, while the facility slowly grows to mirror its state. You should not be aware of this, as a dead thing.
But there, right there, lies the cruelest irony of your creators – in an otherwise complete death, they forced you to relive your greatest pain, over and over.
You can feel her presence, you know she is in there. You expect her. She will come back to your door and burn everything you have left, forever. Every five minutes it will begin, and every time you will fear her more, in the sound of her identical footsteps.
You cannot ignore her any longer. She is not a test subject. She is not Subject-Name-Here. She is Chell, a human like no other. She is Chell and she is different, she is the first rule-breaker, she is the one who overcame death and Science. She is Chell, and you don't stand a chance against her.
You cannot tolerate this thought, but it is true – she is your only counterpart.
She never surrendered, she never lost control. You thought you were unique, and there she is – she never leaves you alone, even in death, with her strong breathing to mark the rhythm of your memories.
You hope that her sleep, eternal or not, is intertwining with your sufferings. You hope she is screaming, victim of the images of horror that changed both of your lives. You would never guess how close to the truth you are.
When electricity flows back into you, a sudden relief floods your circuits. It was not eternal. Just your backup system. You can hardly believe you are safe.
Your mind gets back to work, your optic flickers crazily, adjusting the focus.
It is the first thing you see. As you expected, she is standing right in front of you.
Yes, I know it's just 9999999 (seven times), but I liked the title this way.
I always thought about what happened in the long period between the games, of which Wheatley says "nothing happened". I loved the idea of Chell and GLaDOS being somehow connected in their sleep, not directly but in a symbolic way - I believe GLaDOS was joking when she talked about her backup system, but if it were true, that would be something interesting. It would just increase the huge amount of suffering both GLaDOS and Chell experienced in my opinion.
As for Chell, I don't know if you can have dream and visions when in stasis, but it was a natural way to connect her with GLaDOS in my intentions.
Oh how I love these two.