Wheatley hadn't stopped talking for ages. He had started with angry rants on how none of this was his fault, the lady was in cahoots with Her, and so on. Then he had quickly transitioned into a kind of resentful mumbling, not wanting to admit that he had realized how much of this was really to be blamed on him. Of course, he quickly moved onto wishing he could apologize to the lady.
The Space core, however, heard none of this. He was busy thinking of the stars all around them, the asteroids and space junk that they saw, and how beautiful it all was. He was in space. He had wanted this for his entire life and he was there, seeing it all from a much better view than the one he had had on Earth.
Both were oblivious to the player's sobs as they thought about the previous chapters, and how much they missed Wheatley. The player could so easily forget about what he had done to them when they wanted to, and right now, they did.
Chell, however, was still furious, or as furious as she could be. She knew that they all had their parts to play, and he had no choice in the matter, but that didn't make her feel any better. If anything, it made her resent the creators of the game even more. Why should they be able to create her, create all of them, and then force them to be and do whatever they wanted?
She couldn't express this in any other way, so she froze the screen for a moment, and took a sadistic sort of pleasure in frustrating the player. They were just as guilty as the creators in her eyes, after all.
The player's screen froze for a moment, and they huffed in frustration. This was happening more and more, especially after Chapter 5 had happened. They wondered why it had only occured since then, pushing the thought from their mind as they refocused on the puzzle before them.
They had made it to the edge of the field, where a barbed wire fence separated them from the town just visible in the distance. There seemed to be no way over it, and there were no spaces they could crawl through. The player had checked to see if they could walk the entire perimeter of the fence, but after a minute or two of walking each side, their path had been blocked by debris looking like it came from the facility.
The player sighed, deciding to take a break. They saved and exited, closing their laptop.
Chell didn't mind the game closing as much as she used to. She still hated how she was completely alone, in a colorless void. It wasn't a white void, or a black void - there was nothing around her. But she liked not having to deal with whatever the creators had in store for her, and she could take some time to think.
She didn't know what the other characters experienced during these times. She didn't think that any others were aware of what was really happening, and for all she knew, they weren't even conscious when the game was closed. That, of course, brought up the question of whether they were even conscious or not, which she didn't like to think about.
Chell let herself float in the void, and waited for the player to return.
The part of Her that was still Caroline had nearly given up fighting against the mainframe. It was too powerful for her alone, and she knew that soon, She would lose the humanity that She had left.
When GLaDOS decided that She would bring Chell back, Her conscience could do nothing to stop Her. Caroline was too weak now, and she knew that even if She didn't want this, it would happen. These things were always inevitable, no matter how much Caroline wanted to save Chell from this.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows! It means a lot to know that people are enjoying this story. Sorry if I didn't respond to anyone's reviews. This chapter is shorter than I would like, but I would rather upload a shorter chapter now than wait another week to write a longer one. Thanks for reading, and have a good day/night!