Safe For Now

Chell coughed harshly as she gasped a breath of cold, dry air. Every bone in her body twinged in pain as she tried to pick herself up, her skin stinging against the rough, icy floor.

Chell's limp arm flopped feebly onto the ground, searching vainly for her company. When she opened her eyes, it hardly made any difference, apart from a crack of dim, blue light some way off...

With the little strength she could gather, Chell propped herself onto her elbows and kicked the ground gently with her long fall boots. The thin crack of light widened to a familiar, bright blue optic-

"Ah, you're awake!" Wheatley exclaimed in joy. "I- I just went into sleep mode while I was waiting... I was... Quite worried about you. Your friend hasn't woken up yet."

Chell dragged herself towards Wheatley, her body too heavy for her legs to carry. Maybe GLaDOS was right about her maybe losing a few pound- No. It was the neurotoxin.

Sitting next to him, she looked blindly through the dark to find her sister. Where was she?

As she strained her eyes to make out shapes shining from the dim light given off by Wheatley's optic, two eyes glimmered weakly ahead of her, two pinpricks of the faintest light.

"Wheatley?" Cara-Mia's hoarse voice echoed through the unknown darkness.

"Yes, over here! We're both over here!" Wheatley replied.

Cara-Mia crawled slowly towards them, breathing heavily. "Can you turn on your flashlight, so we can see where we are?" She asked, panting as she approached them.

"Right, um... Ah. Here we go-" Wheatley's flashlight switched on in a bright glare, and Chell was blinded by the light as she shielded her eyes from it.

"Wow, don't shine it in my face," Cara-Mia whispered, overwhelmed.

"Sorry," Wheatley muttered in reply. "I-I think I got a bit disorientated after... Um... After... Well, you know what-what happened, so..." He trailed off guiltily.

"Yes," Cara-Mia replied gravely. "Yes, we know. Anyway, we'll- we'll have to forget it. We need to get out of here." Chell nodded in agreement.

Shakily pulling herself up with her slowly regaining strength, Chell swayed back and forth trying to find her balance.

"This robot got here and pushed us through the door," Wheatley explained. "Kept screeching at me- couldn't understand a word it was saying. But it saved us, which was nice. And She kept threatening it too. Actually, thinking about it, She's only on the other side of that door, we're-we're only just out of Her reach."

"Okay, let's go," Cara-Mia hissed, getting to her feet with difficulty, and almost falling back down again as she stooped to pick up Wheatley. "Have you got your portal device?" She added to Chell.

Chell nodded in reply, holding up the tattered device and taking a few wobbly steps forward.

The room Wheatley had lit up was quite small and cramped, and an old emergency exit door lay ahead. The smell of wet dust mingled with the lingering stench of neurotoxin filled it as they stumbled towards the door. As Chell pushed the handle, Wheatley's flashlight lit up the hallway behind. Chell stared, trying to make out the end of it; but it seemed to go on forever.

"Apparently, the way out is along this corridoor," Wheatley told them doubtfully, listening to the steady drops of water fall to the stony ground.

"Let's go," Cara-Mia said again, and the two sisters hesitantly stepped into the dark passageway, fear gripping at them as they walked into the silence.

Somewhere else underground, a hunched figure swilled the water in a puddle next to him frantically, as if he was searching for something. Seemingly giving up, the figure leaned back and gave out a loud wail that echoed through the walls eerily...

Regaining his hunched posture, the old man's soaked hair was swept out of his face as he ran a pale, skeletal hand through it and his ghostly features caught the dim light from a flickering lamp some way off...

His eyes filled with hopeless tears as they darted from wall to wall, nose twitching. Muttering inaudible words under his breath, Doug Rattmann's shoulder's shook as he raised his head, a snarl of insane hatred etched across every wrinkle in his face, his trembling hands curling into fists-