It was Alyx's first time sleeping alone. In Black Mesa, her parents had always been in close proximity at night. Despite full work hours, they would both come back to the dormitories at the same predictable time. Never a fault. They were scientists after all. After the incident and sirens and blood and bodies, her father routinely guarded her side as much as he could, always substituting a close friend to watch her if he was called on an important duty or when they were separated beyond his will. Even in times of chaos, there was a certain peace by the time she needed to sleep. Alyx remembered when she lied down in a camp of Vortigaunts, uncertain whether her father had perished in the attack of Ravenholm. The last thing she saw before her tired eyelids fell were calm, reassuring ruby eyes wavering in the light of a bonfire. Yes, this was certainly her first time, and she was apprehensive.
However, Alyx had specifically asked, or rather, whined weeks on end about getting her own room to sleep in. She was a big girl now. Just turned twelve. She needed her own place to sleep and study without being interrupted by snores of an old scientist napping at every hour. And no, she didn't want to bunk with other kids. That would just be the same. It was a childish excuse, but it worked. As a result and as she had hoped, her true motivations rested safe in her chest. By this point in time, Alyx knew it was imperative that she be by herself. It was a practice of letting go of something before it was ripped out of her hands; before she even got a feel for it. Not again.
After her relentless pestering, some rebels in Black Mesa East cleaned up a supply closet, just off the hallway from her father's own quarters, dragged a mattress in, beat the dust out of it a few times, and let her go crazy. Following an afternoon of taping posters across the cracking concrete walls and hanging a pink sheet over the pipes installed in the ceiling, she could finally retire to the dingy mattress and call this "room" her own. She turned off the lamp lying on the ground beside her, waiting for the rest of the humming complex to shut down as well.
Little by little, the generators ceased their whirring breaths, like dragons off to sleep. Rebel chatter passed two and fro then stopped abruptly. In the dead silence, Alyx shifted on the mattress (which took up more than half of the space) to stare at her unfamiliar room. Her eyes had gotten adjusted now as moonlight seeped in under her door. She stared at the corner across from her. It was the only one without something in it; completely empty. Uneasiness gripped her stomach.
Her gaze in the untouched corner flinched as an ominous noise crept up out of the silence. It was the sound of thuds, rumbling and stacking in a steady beat. With each passing moment, the proximity increased.
A helicopter.
Alyx dug her nails into her sheets, pulling heaps of blankets onto her body as if for armor. She matched such a deafening, mechanical noise as her heart pumped erratically, waiting for a spotlight to impossibly pry open the concrete ceiling- like claws parting a bush where prey hid out of reach. Trying to regain focus, she swallowed and listened. What had she learned about the Doppler effect? The pitch remained the same. It was hovering; circling.
At this revelation Alyx wiped her eyes. Moisture had begun to collect, but she wasn't going to move. She couldn't run from this. These were things you had to get used to. You had to be independent when there was hardly anyone left to depend on. Besides, she couldn't just go running off to her father after one night alone. Rebels would laugh and talk about how cute it was when she clung to her father. Oh, it was adorable to them, but he was a target- he wouldn't always be there to cling to. Was she the only one aware of his mortality? Such realizations arise when you grow up at eye level to severed leg. New tears replaced dried ones and she abandoned this futile ritual, choosing instead to squint, as if the darkness behind her lids was preferable to the room's, and consoled herself:
The cops are tired.
They aren't looking for anything.
It's just a routine sweep. Probably passed over last night as well, when I was asleep.
After all, she heard nothing besides the steady thumping; not one rebel had taken action.
Or were they hiding?
At the thought Alyx stiffened, suddenly aware that a single breath could give her away because the rest of the complex was holding theirs. In that moment, she could swear that it was right above her. Behind that black ceiling there was another filled with stars being chopped by rotating blades.
"Go away," Alyx whispered. "Go away."
She chanted this as more of a prayer than a command. Her mouth was dry from the repeated stream of words by the time the helicopter began to move eastward. Alyx's eyelids and lips parted in relief, and all tension in her body relieved like she was a rubber band snapping back together. As her heart fluttered down from its panicked state, she realized how such a worry as a helicopter was ridiculous in comparison to the horrors she had lived through up to that point.
Despite the catastrophe, she had survived Black Mesa. While the fabric of space-time was being ripped to shreds along with bodies, she was safe. Even though millions of people perished in the Seven Hour War, not she or her loved ones were among them. Whatever bloodshed she had witnessed, caused from Combine bullets to antlions, she remained alive. In one way or another Alyx had always ended up in a safe bed to sleep in. A pillow to rest on.
Tonight is one of those nights, she convinced herself.
Alyx smiled, turning over to finally drift off to sleep. As her consciousness tucked back into the recesses of her mind, her last thought was maybe, just maybe, someone was looking after her; that perhaps she would never really be alone.
In the empty corner of her room, a man in a suit adjusted his tie.