Disclaimer: I do not own any Valve games, no matter how much I wish I did.
A/N: I've decided I needed to get out this story after thinking about it for so long. Its a crossover, if you didn't notice, of Half Life and Portal. Or more specifically, the end of Portal 2. If there are any mistakes, please let me know. I'd like to do the characters justice, because I love them so much. But enjoy anyway. XD
PROLOGE: ADRENAL VAPOR
Without adrenal vapor, Chell found that continuous walking was nearly impossible. Especially in the sun.
Now don't get her wrong, she loved the sun. She loved the sky, and the clouds and the grain beneath her long fall boots. And all of that, once more, brought a smile to her chapped lips.
Chell dropped the companion cube beside her, dirt particles and stray grain stalks flying from under displaced air. She sighed and sat atop it, on yet ANOTHER break.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead, taking another long look around for any sign of civilization.
There was none.
And there had been none, for the hours that Chell had been walking. There was a nagging suspicion, in the back of her tired mind, that told her this was a joke. A sick, twisted joke played by Her to break Chell completely. Because that s probably what this would do to her, she mused darkly, if all of this blue and gold and heat and cool, cool breeze that smelled like dirt and alive was actually just another wing of that damned facility.
But as the breeze touched her gently, brought with it scents she couldn't remember smelling for such a long, LONG time, she found hope. No self-respecting power hungry AI would let a sterile variable controlled environment smell of dirt.
And with that thought, Chell stood and stooped to pick up the companion cube again, she continued in the direction she had been walking.
It took almost two days to get to a road, (managing to find a small stream between the edge of the field and the black asphalt, and inhaling as much as she could stomach) and another half a day to find the sign of civilization she had been searching for, in the form of a house.
It was an old one story farm house, its wooden roof having half sunken into the right side of itself years ago. Old iron wind chimes and yard ornaments stood in half rusted decay.
She swallowed, dropping the companion cube onto relatively safe ground as she prepared to scope the place out. Some of the broken charms tinkled out of tune notes, adding a slightly ominous factor to the already unsure feeling that had the hairs at the back of Chell's neck standing on end.
She hefted her portal gun, swallowing with the false sense of security that it gave her, and approached the old house cautiously.
The wind swirled around her, bringing with it a scent of aged decay as her hair spiraled in circles around her eyes. She ignored it, staring through the brown strands as her hackles raised. She hesitated, less than ten feet from the front porch. The door had been ripped off its hinges, a gaping maw of black and dust motes.
And that's when she saw it.
At first she hadn't recognized the smear of dark brown across the rotten wooden boards leading under the front window, but memories of turrets and thermal discouragement beams flashed quickly through her head.
Blood. The porch was smeared in old, dry blood.
What... her head swam, her gut telling her to MOVE AWAY NOW before it was too late, her feet reacting faster than her brain as she began to quickly back away.
And that's when she heard it.
What little hair that hadn't been on end raised when a muffled screaming reached her ears.
she licked chapped lips, turning toward the sound slowly, still backing away when she saw it.
Her blood froze, eyes opening wide, portal gun lowering in shock. It was of no use anyway. No portal surfaces, nowhere to hide.
It looked like a person, stumbling from behind the dilapidated right corner of the once cozy farmhouse. Except the blood, and the chest half torn open, and the bulbous head with what looked to be teeth sunken into the neck stump and shoulder.
Its fingers were long and blood soaked, hooked into vicious looking claws.
What in the...
Chell's veteran instincts were the only thing that saved her life. Her legs, used to working before the brain finished processing what was around her, began pumping furiously back toward the road. She jumped over her companion cube, her heart squeezing in her chest at the thought of leaving it behind, and started looking for somewhere to hide.
Its muffled screaming, (gods, why did it sound like it was in so much pain?) seemed to have attracted more to it, a chorus of screaming to follow the solo she had encountered.
Sweat dripped down her neck, into her eyes, when she saw it. Half blurred through salt and fear, a branch just low enough, on a tree just big enough to fit her.
She jumped, lunging for it with one good hand and a portal gun, managing to wrap her arms around it and haul herself up with tenacity alone.
Her breath was coming in puffs as she stared toward the approaching figures of (God what were they? Monsters? Zombies?) those things as their amble slowed to a distracted shuffle, having lost sight of her when she had shimmied up the tree.
She swallowed, licked her lips again. This was impossible. She had finally escaped that damned facility.
To find this.
So again, if there are any ridiculous mistakes, please point them out. Other than that, I hope it was entertaining!
Please review.