There it was. The Aperture Science Enrichment Center. Chell stared at it with mixed emotions. This place had brought her so much pain and fear. However, it also made her strong and vigilant. She'd met her best friend here, but she'd also made her worst enemy.
"We probably shouldn't stick around here too long, Chell," Ben said from behind her.
She dropped the handle of the wagon that carried her Companion Cube and walked up to the chain-link fence. She ran her fingertips along it as she followed it around to the back of the building.
"Chell!"
"Hold on!" she called back to Ben. "I just want to walk around for a while."
"Just be careful," Ben warned.
As she followed the fence, she kept an eye out for any weak spots or gaps at the bottom that she could get through. She hadn't exactly told Ben that she wanted to go inside. She had only asked if they could visit the facility. The fence still seemed to be quite sturdy until Chell came across a large hole that was big enough to walk through. She touched one of the edges of the thick metal wires. It looked like it had been cut neatly. She crossed through this hole to the other side of the fence.
"Chell, get out of there," Ben said as he caught up with her. "This is risky."
Chell was barely listening, though. She was preoccupied with an open doorway that led into the facility. With closer inspection, she deduced that the door must have dissolved somehow. Maybe with acid? She took a deep breath and stepped inside.
"Are you crazy? This is just plain dangerous," Ben said.
"Someone has been here recently," Chell murmured. "Ben, someone destroyed the door that was here. Someone has been here."
"Well, we're not going to investigate it."
"But they could still be in there!"
"Chell, you've told me how terrible this place is. I'm not going to put our group in danger so that we can look for people that might not even be here."
"But they—"
"Chell," Ben said sternly. "We can't. We just can't take such a risk on a whim. The people who did this probably aren't here anymore. Or they're already dead. Either way, I'm not letting you leave me—I mean, leave us. The group."
"Ben, you don't understand. The man that helped me escape is still in there. And now there are others in there that could be in the same boat as he is. I….I need to save him. He saved me. You just don't understand."
Chell took a few more steps into the facility. She seemed to be in some kind of lobby with plants growing out of the holes in the walls. There were doors across the room from her that had labels for different parts of the facility. She slowly approached these doors and noticed that one of them was slightly ajar. It was labeled as the testing wing. A sense of dread suddenly enveloped her. She could almost hear GLaDOS laughing at her in the distance, mocking her because she was afraid. Chell put her hand on the doorknob and opened it a little more, but a voice in her head made her stop. It was Wheatley's voice.
"Wait, you're not actually thinking about going back in there, are you? You really are insane! You know that, right? A real nutter! You don't want to go back to testing, do you? Sure, there might be people in there. And yeah, there's still that guy that made all those signs for you to follow. But do you really need to risk your life to go back and get them when you don't even know where they are? You'll get lost."
I've done alright on my own in there, Chell thought.
"You might have been alone, but don't forget that that man guided you to safety," the imaginary Wheatley reminded her. "Listen, you don't have to go in there."
Chell opened the door more and peered inside at a hallway. A door was left open a long way inside.
"What about your boyfriend?" imaginary Wheatley asked. "Ben, right? What about him?"
He's not my boyfriend.
"Whatever! The point is he'll come in after you. Do you really want him to get hurt? He may be tough, but let's face the facts that he isn't as clever as you."
Chell hesitated, then took a step through the door.
"Chell, don't go in there!" Ben shouted as he finally got up the courage to chase after her. His eyes kept darting around the vast room as if he was expecting an ambush. When he finally got to her, he took her hand and pulled her back out into the lobby. "I'm not letting you doing something so stupid. You're not prepared to go on a rescue mission. None of us are. We don't have enough food supply or anything else that we'd need to survive in a place like that."
"I…..I have my Long Fall Boots in my bag and that's all I need," Chell said.
"Chell, please."
She tried to pull her hand away, but he quickly embraced her instead and touched his puckered lips to hers. It was a strange feeling. Chell had never been kissed by a boy before. It made her stomach go into a flurry as if there were moths trapped inside her. The kiss didn't last more than a few seconds. Ben looked at her with nervous eyes when it was over.
"Please don't leave me," he said quietly.
Now Chell understood. She nodded and followed him back outside.
