Disclaimer: Half Life and it's characters are owned by Valve. I also took the chapter title and few lyrics from Trent Reznor.
Author's Note: I just wanted to give a big thank you to my reviewers! So thank you! I really do appreciate all the feedback I get and the helpful criticism, I've made a few changes to chapter one obviously and broken it up into two chapters. I will probably be revising Alyx's chapter and maybe others as I usually do get so excited about completing a chapter that I just don't proof read it a million times - something my work really needs. If anyone would be willing to beta read for me, though, that would be greatly appreciated. Usually I can catch most of my mistakes as I read it over but I don't catch everything. Thanks again you awesome people!
Chapter Six
Something I Can Never Have
You always were the one to show me how
Back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now
This is slowly taking me apart
Grey would be the color if I had a heart
Now she was the hunter. Her prey was not very stealthy in the least bit and though it was very dark in the woods she could hear it crashing through the underbrush. The woman had never known these beasts to flee or to be so quick on their feet.
"Help me!" The cry was pathetic and came from the south, just in front of the woman. "Somebody, please!"
The beast had obviously become distracted. The woman did not consider herself to be noble but the chance to save this pathetic soul from the beast did make her run that much harder.
She saw it staggering in front of her. Wounded and whimpering. Without pausing, she leaped and tackled the beast. While soaring through the air, however, the beast turned to face her and the woman ended up straddling its front.
With wide eyes, she saw the beast had a human face. A crying, female face and she was bleeding from her shoulder where the woman had missed horribly with her new shotgun.
"What is this?" Her voice was still hoarse.
"Please, just let me go. I swear I don't know anything important."
The woman watched the sniveling human beneath her and wondered what this trickery was. Very quickly, she realized there was a chance she might be insane. She was treating this human - this person - as another test.
Are they still watching? Is she still out there, spying on me?
There was more crashing in the woods and there was shouting. The woman looked around guiltily. She had failed and now they were coming for her.
"Carissa!" It was the shout of the wounded female's mate and the woman heard the need to protect in his voice.
Looking down at the now quiet female, she studied her face. It was full of fear. It needed protection. Ying yang. They were meant to be and tearing them apart was not one of her tests. It would only be disastrous.
"I am not crazy," she told her, though she was not altogether sure who she was trying to convince. The male was getting closer and he was getting angry with worry. Bad combination in a man so large. And he was large. She could feel it though she did not know how. Still, she could dispose of them both if she had to but would that prove her sanity to anyone?
It would prove her skill and talent but she had done that enough already, hadn't she? Maybe the tests were at last over. She was not what they were looking for. It was time for her disposal.
"Your name is very pretty, Carissa." The woman said and then she jumped to her feet and ran, heading north. Away from the angered mate.
She ran for hours until it was dawn and she came crashing out of the woods onto a beach. The sun warmed her and she smelled the ocean. Something woke up inside of her and for a second she was very certain she was home.
As quickly as the door opened, however, it slammed shut and the woman ducked back into the safety of the woods and the darkness. This place was alien and new. Anything familiar about it was a dream and if she was letting dreams run her life then she truly was insane.
Surveying the land, she knew she must find a place to rest. If only for a few hours. Quiet her mind and pause the tests.
There was a shack less than a mile down the beach. It would be smarter to stay there than sleep in the woods or on the beach out in the open like she had initially wanted. That was the kind of thinking that got stupid people killed. Very, very stupid people.
The walk to the shack was fuzzy and peaceful. Or maybe she was just on autopilot and any beasts that bothered her simply melted into the scenery as she shot them full of rock salt.
The shack was full of unmarked crates. She pushed them around a corner and situated herself behind them. One hand clutched her shotgun and the other clutched her satchel as she fell asleep.
The woman stood alone in nothingness. This was not sleep, she knew that. Just as she knew she stood on nothing but she was not falling nor was there a sense of floating.
Everything around her was nothing and she was in a world of nonexistence. Which meant, then, that she did not exist either and so the tests were over. Tests were complete. This was where you went when all was said and done and she was done. She was nothing.
"Quiet your mind, child." A raspy voice filled the nothingness. The voice made her feel something alien. Something that made her palms sweat and her breathing grow irregular.
"This is fear that you feel." The voice offered.
Fear is not real. Fear was something the enemy tried to use if you were weak enough to believe in it.
"It is very real. You feel it and so it is."
No. That was insanity.
Suddenly the nothingness was full and the woman was staring into a pair of cold green eyes that captivated her mind into stillness.
The man had a widows peak and his mouth was set in a stern line. He was reaching out a hand towards her and though she did not want him to touch her she was powerless to stop him.
"Remember," the man hissed in his croaky voice and as his hand made contact with her forehead she was thrown violently out of the nothingness.
She was sitting in a desk in a room full of other people sitting in desks. A man dressed in too much tweed stood at a chalk board and she watched as he began writing on the board. He began writing out the textbook definition of physics; she knew this man was Professor McAlli just as she knew this was her most boring class. Not because he was a boring person, but she already knew what the definition of physics was. This was not a challenging class.
The woman stood up and realized how close to the ground she was. She was not yet a woman. Only fourteen. None of the other students looked at her as she walked out of the classroom. Professor McAlli did not stop her.
She realized that was why she remembered his name so well. He was the man who did not stop her.
The halls were depressing and restricting. Suddenly she recognized rooms as she passed them. That was where she learned Russian. That room was where she practiced music and she knew there were two more classes but they were in another part of the building and so she could not remember them.
"Hello."
The woman, now a girl, turned to see who was talking to her. There was a man standing at the end of the hall and through that one word she could hear his distinct accent but it was an unfamiliar one.
"Hi," her voice was so tiny and no longer hoarse. She wanted to ask this man if he knew her name but then he would look at her like a freak.
"You're not in class." He stated and for a second she was worried he may start yelling at her but then she saw the kind smile on his face instead. She did not know this man but he was not yelling at her and so she liked him.
"It was boring. I already know the stuff he's talking about." She told him and noticed how disturbing his eyes were as he stared at her. Unlike the man in the nothingness, he had dark eyes against pale skin and blond hair. It was unnerving for her to look at him.
"That 'stuff' is going to be among some of the most important information you can know as you grow older." Now the blond stranger had his teaching voice on but she didn't recognize him as any teacher she had seen around the school before.
"Not me." She said stubbornly. She got her stubborn nature from her mother. Whoever that was.
The man simply looked at her in silence and she was soon regretting leaving class. Why hadn't the teacher stopped her? This man was giving her the creeps.
"I'm supposed to bring you to Dr. Dominic."
The man spoke with authority and so her first instinct was to nod and follow him. As she walked with him down the hall in a direction she was unfamiliar with, she was screaming at herself inside but she had no control over her actions.
This was her memory. She was simply watching and remembering. It was not something she could easily accept and as her surroundings became more alien to her it only got worse inside her head.
The stranger led her to a pair of steel doors. The sign said staff only. He punched in the secret code on the number pad on the wall. Despite being gifted, she never understood why this school needed that much security.
The doors opened onto a railway and when the two walked out onto it, she looked down and saw that there were stairs leading down to what looked like a research facility. This must be where the older kids went when they learned all they could from Professor McAlli about physics and became fluent in Russian.
She even saw mats and a gymnasium area. This must be where you could be challenged.
"Who is Dr. Dominic?" She asked and the blond stranger did not reply right away but led her down the stairs instead.
"This way," he told her when she began to walk towards the mats. Looking over at him, she saw him pointing towards a hallway that branched off from the auditorium type area.
He led her through a door and the shiny cold surroundings were replaced with a spacious office decorated in purples and greens. She wrinkled her nose at the colors.
"Hello child."
The new voice startled her. She turned around and saw the blond man had left and a red haired woman stood in the doorway. It made the girl feel trapped and that feeling did no go away as the red haired lady closed the door and took a seat at the large desk.
"I'm supposed to be in class." The girl spoke nervously. The red hair lady's eyes flashed but she kept on that too-large smile that showed off her canine teeth. The girl wondered if the smiling was supposed to relax her. It did not.
"I am Dr. Dominic. I work with a group of scientists in search of brilliant young minds." The red haired woman, Dr. Dominic, said in a kind voice.
Inside the little girl's mind, where the woman was watching and listening with her hands shaking and her brain feeling like it might short circuit, the woman could remember that voice being cold and brutal.
You will never be your best. Not ever. Not never ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Dominic." It was not a pleasure, even then. The girl only knew it would be better to be polite for some reason. She wanted her mommy there to ask what the hell was going on but the girl was afraid to speak to grown ups like that.
"Please, please. Call me Arebella. After all, we will be becoming close friends in the near future I dare say." The smile was gone, and the woman inside was screaming.
She could not sit there and watch the memories anymore. Her mind felt like it would explode if she was trapped in that office any longer. The door to her memories was cracked but she could not yet stand the things that would come tumbling out.
No no no no no.
The world faded to darkness again and the woman could hear her own sobs echoed across the black. Looking up, she wiped at her face as she met the green eyes of the man from before.
He no longer looked at her coldly. In fact he seemed uncomfortable standing there in front of her.
"I apologize... I was under the impression that you were ready... Soon. Until the time that you are, I have prepared a safe haven. Get there quickly."
The black was gone and the woman woke up gasping and clutching her gun. Scurrying to stand up, she tripped over the crates around her and fell with a grunt. She stood and ran out of the shack into the night and wondered only for a moment how long she had slept before taking off down the beach.
As she ran, the world was blurry around her. She felt the coldness and contempt that others felt for her. She could feel the death in her hands. The death she had caused and the death to come.
Her lungs were on fire when she stumbled and fell to the ground. She watched the sweat drip down and make little balls in the sand near her hands. She looked up and saw the moon reflected along the calm sea.
The woman stood and as she walked towards the water, she knew she could swim but wondered how long she could hold her breath. She wondered how heavy she would have to make her pockets so that she could sink to the bottom.
Along the seabed she would become like a stone and her name would be Pera. The lady rock. And all would be calm and quiet, like the moon reflected in the sea.
Only distantly did she register that there were people shouting in the distance behind her. Her sore feet were very near the water now and she would like so much to simply let go.
A series of gun shots sounded near her and the woman slowly looked over her shoulder to see who had aimed so poorly. Soldiers. They were bleeding out of the cliff side and she noticed searchlights coming from far off but she did not believe they would go through all that trouble for her.
They had spotted her, however, and she knew it would be only a matter of time before someone's aim was true.
A wheezy voice sounded out in her mind and deep in her chest.
"Survive!"
The woman ran and left behind the sea. Using a large rock for cover, she realized she was already breathing heavily and her heart was racing. She could hear it pounding in her ears and she wondered at the fear in her.
"Now."
She ran again, her eyes on a concrete building up ahead. There was a gate in her way with a padlock, without pausing, she aimed and fired at the padlock, forcing the gate to swing open. Running through it, she saw a ladder and decided to start taking some major insane chances.
She could feel which way to go, she knew this was the way to that safe haven.
The ladder took her up to a hallway. She ran down it and with a glance to her right, noticed the window looked down on a courtyard. There was a ship flying in and she saw beasts and soldiers fighting. It looked like a war going on and she was pretty damn thankful for the distraction.
She reached the doorway at the end and slammed it open. Noticing the short walkway before her and the soldiers on the floor below just a little too late, she realized that had been very stupid of her.
There was no railing to help catch her footing and so the woman fell hard to the floor below.
The soldiers laughed through their helmets and never bothered to get their guns out.
"Guessin' higher up's sent us a little reward." One of them said but she couldn't tell which one had spoken.
A little fun? The woman felt the anger boiling up insider her. Sure, she had done a very stupid thing. However, underestimating her was not something anyone got away with.
One of the soldiers stepped forward first and picked her up easily by the arm. The movement easily concealed her as she took out her revolver and shot upwards through the soldiers jaw into his brain meat. Blood splattered everywhere, including her face and it shocked the soldiers into hesitating just a second.
A second was all she needed.
They aimed clumsily but she knew the steps to this dance and grinned as they failed to keep up. Weaving through the bodies, she used some for shields before disposing them and smoothly changed weapons as needed.
The last one she had stabbed in the throat with her screw driver as a last, but calculated, resort. Wiping at her face, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of blood on her skin. One of these days she would be killing by stench.
As she inspected the bodies, looking for more ammo, she wondered if she was on the good side or the bad side. It did not feel like either to her.
Standing to examine a newly acquired and shiny gun, she ran her fingers down the side in aw.
"Pulse rifle." she murmured.
However, her admiration was cut short. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him but it was his lucky day. He got the shot in first.
The woman cried out as the pain exploded up her leg but she did not let herself fall until she had fired the soldier full of new pulse rifle bullets.
"Oh God," she groaned into her unwounded knee as she sat on the floor and watched her own blood drip onto the floor. She was blanking on what to do with something like this. She was cowering in the middle of the battle field and it would be her own damn fault if she died.
"Close."
The woman looked up and immediately ceased her sounds of pain. The safe haven was close by and dying within feet of it was not going to be her story.
Standing up slowly, she gritted her teeth together hard and carried her new gun in one hand and her shot gun in the other. The shot gun was in desperate need of bullets but she could not bring herself to part with it. It was silly, but sometimes when she held it, she thought to herself, "This was how Jeremiah held it," and she would wonder how his arm was healing.
Leaving behind the bloody mess, she knew she was making a trail but she could not stop yet. She would stop when she was safe and not a moment sooner.
She turned a corner and faced another hallway with another door at then end. Limping slowly down it, she wondered how this could ever be the way to the safe haven but something told her she was going the right way.
Several of the lights flickered as she walked towards the door and she suddenly wished for a sidekick. Or a clone. Or a big, loyal dog. Something to calm her while she walked down the lonely hallway and listened to war outside.
Someone found the mess she left; she heard soldier's giving and receiving orders. Not that it would be so hard to find her; she was leaving quite the trail.
Trying to go a little faster, the woman tried to control her breathing and fear. This was no big deal, she could still take any who came at her.
The door was unlocked and she hurried into the dark room and slammed the door behind her, not before getting a glimpse of soldiers running down the hall at her.
They fired but she was already safe inside.
However, the room was pitch black and she had no way to lock it that she could see.
Her hands were shaking again.
"Help me," She whispered to the black. She needed that safe haven.
A weird green light began to fill the darkness and the woman squinted against the sudden brightness. Stepping toward the source of light, she looked at the hovering ball of green light knowingly. It was unlike any portal she had encountered but she knew what it was just like she had known how to jump start a car and how to move her body just the right way to cause the most damage to an enemy.
The door opened, but the woman had already decided on taking that insane leap of faith. She stepped into the green light and let its power envelop her.