Chapter 2, everybody! You have been asleep for nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine *ghhkztz!*
Ignescent, thanks for the review and the follow! Mwahaha, so it's a success! And I shall! :D This story will be updated every Tuesday until further notice. :)
On a (not so) interesting side note, the test mentioned here is the only test I got stuck on in the original Portal (it took me the whole day to figure out...).
Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment
Portal © 2007 Valve
She looked about the bare room, a mockery of a hotel room. But as she shakily stood up, she could see the farce for what it was. A management rail on the ceiling, leading to a hatch, and as she crossed over to the window, she reached up, discovering that the slats were a very clever optical illusion. It was a cage for a lab rat. That was all it was.
Something unseen whirred to life. "Good morning! This is your friendly KVAS wake-up courtesy call. You have been asleep for nine-nine-nine-nine-nine…."
The male voice was flat and scratchy and staticky, like an ancient record that had been allowed to warp on a radiator. When it cut out, she was grateful. She needed to be able to think.
She sat back down on her bed, noting the impression her body had made from laying there for so long. How had that even been possible? Was she dead?
No, focus—one question at a time, one problem at a time. Someone had told her that….
She put her head in her hands and forced herself to think. First…name….
Willow! Willow!
Willow—that was right. Her name was Willow. Willow Ember Burnshigh, she remembered with a sense of relief. She liked fire, although others had thought that unhealthy, but still others had thought it to be an interesting contribution to science, and so shortly before she turned eighteen and would have been legally able to make her own decisions, the foster system had donated her to science.
The Klei-Valve-Aperture-Steam Coalition. KVAS.
Something had happened shortly after she arrived, something horrible….But try as she might, she couldn't recall it. She went on to the next clear memory, of waking up in a sterile room, where a metallic masculine voice told her to start testing, and she did all sorts of tests before she had become stuck on one—involving three thermal discouragement beams, a redirecting prism box, and three receptors—none of them near each other—and had decided to break out, levering a panel open and falling through, then rushing for the next crack of light when she heard hissing—
And she had fallen into another test chamber, where another test subject had been testing.
They had been astonished to see each other, but the voice—which had been angry at her escape attempt—had happily jeered about what an interesting variable this would be and insisted they continue testing together. She had responded by firing a portal at one of the cameras—as she had been for the past several test chambers.
He, as it turned out, had been a scientist working at KVAS before…it happened. He could not articulate what it was either, except that it had been…horrible. He had introduced himself, his full silly name…what was it?...
Wilson. It came to her finally.
Wilson Percival Higgsbury.
She looked up in horror. If she was here…then where was he?
And then a pounding at the door—an explosive sound that scared her out of her wits.
"Willow!"