Chell's Blood ran cold and stopped in her tracks when she realized that she had wandered towards an all too familiar electrical shed. She had no intention of going back to Aperture, but immediately leapt forward when she felt a head crab land on her shoulders. She pried the thing off and ran for the shed, after swinging the heavy metal door open she stepped inside to see the elevator still there from when she left. She stepped inside and turned to face the field leaving the door open. She stood there silently and watched the headcrabs come, not closing the door until one jumped through the air at which point she suddenly slammed it shut getting the creature caught between the door and the frame. She opened it again and while the headcrab tried to move slammed the door repeatedly on its body. After slamming the door about ten times the headcrab could only pathetically twitch its front legs before it stopped moving all together. Chell opened the door only to kick the corpse out before slamming it shut again. She could hear the soft squeaks and scratching of more crabs around the shed. She stood in the elevator surrounded by a darkness that was only broken by a faint streak of light coming from underneath the door, partially blocked by the crabs' shadows. She sat down inside the elevator and started wheezing and coughing from the exertion, after she was able to catch her breath a few minutes later, she waited for the squeaks to subside and it would be safe for her to leave, which proved to be a quite a while.
Chell had just woken up having dozed off in the darkness of the shed. It was uncomfortably hot for the sun had been beating down on it the entire time. She realized she had still had her rag sticking out of her back pocket and used it to wipe the sweat off her forehead. As she stuck it back into her pocket she listened intently for the headcrabs and heard nothing. Looking at the light coming from underneath the door she saw no shadows, and the light was now a warm red. Chell had been waiting for quite a while and the sun was beginning to set. Now that she was certain that she could leave the shed safely she opened the door to find the others she had grouped up with and maybe the companion cube if she could remember where she dropped it while panicking. She looked out of the shed and saw the field lit up red by the setting sun, with streaks of color set across the sky a cool breeze swept over her skin and into the hot shed. Eager to get out of the entrance to her worst nightmare she stepped out only to be instantaneously greeted by the shriek of a headcrab that had buried itself while waiting for prey to come along. Chell quickly jumped back into the elevator attempting to perform the death-by-doorframe trick again, but when she slammed the door shut the crabs entire body was inside with her. Trying to prevent the headcrab from climbing up her legs Chell kicked as hard as she could against the side of the elevator, cracking the glass quite a bit. When she noticed this she repeated the method until a shards of glass fell from the sides of the elevator, she quickly grabbed one of the shards and plunged it into the headcrab cutting her hand in the process. The creature shrieked and stopped briefly allowing Chell to pin it to the ground. It struggled against her weight, but she would not let it go. She then put her full weight on it and started jumping up and down on the creature pounding it into the elevator's floor. Chell did not so much as hesitate beating the already dead crab until she heard a loud crack from the already damaged elevator. She stood perfectly still atop the dead the crab afraid to take a breath. The shed seemed to groan as the metal of the elevator warped and bended. Chell quickly reach for the door handle only to slip past it as the elevator's bottom half fell down the metal shaft.
The warm air rushed passed Chells face as she slipped down the tube with the headcrab corpse. The sensation reminded her of when Wheatley went mad with power, almost instantly after being plugged into GLaDOS's body. Not really something she wanted to remember. She really liked the core up until that point, and what made it worse is that she could still see bits of the silly old personality while he tested her and set up death traps. Instead of letting painful old memories flood her mind she tried to think about how different her current situation was, but that only made her feel worse; she had realized that now she did not have a desperate potato that would set her free, now she did not have an AI that would keep her alive to test, and worst of all now she did not have her long fall boots.
Chell wished she had worn her long fall boots, better yet she wish the implants in her legs never broke, then she would never have to worry about losing them, but for now she had to think of a way to slow herself down. She kicked against the shaft forcing herself against the wall. Pushing against her legs and her back against both sides of the tube allowed her enough friction to slow her enough to grab on to the supporting frame, as well as tearing off the sleeve of her T-shirt and causing her shoulder to bleed. She clung to the pole and inhaled sharply as blood trickled down her back, her tattered T-shirt was now falling off her shoulder. Chell was injured and the pain was intense, but alive, just a normal day in Aperture Science. She reached into her back pocket while keeping a good foothold and with one hand still on the frame. She took out her rag and pressed the cloth against her shoulder. Now that she was calm she needed to find her way down. She did not have the strength to climb all the way back up. It would be easier to climb down and find another way back to the surface. First she would need to find out how far she had to climb down, if she recalled correctly this elevator shaft lead directly to…
GLaDOS's chamber.
