I spend a few minutes panting hard as I shake off the remnants of the dream. A gust of wind blows past, and I feel a chill. I look down at myself and I realize I'm actually sweating.

Finally, I manage to get ahold of myself. It had just been a dream, after all, nothing more. Of course, I silently laugh at the irony. When was the last time I'd had a dream? I can't remember. Cryosleep isn't so much sleep as it is suspended animation, so I'd had no dreams while I'd been under; and, of course, I don't remember anything of my life from before that. Wouldn't it figure that my first dream would be a nightmare?

The moon is still high in the sky, so I lie down again. As I relax, I think about my dream.

It had felt so real. I mean, I know dreams are supposed to feel real - especially nightmares - but still…it had almost felt like I was really there. I know it was just a dream, of course - my amnesia was caused by brain damage, so there's no way of getting any of my memories back, not even in dreams. Besides, She said that my parents abandoned me on a doorstep. I guess She could have lied, but I don't have anything I can use to prove Her wrong. In fact, I don't really care - my old life is gone, one way or another. No…My nightmare was just a nightmare, that's all. Just a dream…

Still, I know enough about dreams to know that it had some sort of meaning. I know things like this without knowing how I know them - I have knowledge without the corresponding memories.

So…Trying to analyze my dream…

I start with the part about my name. First of all, I sincerely hope that whoever named me "Chell" didn't get the name from "Chiming Bell" - that's just silly. As for being called "Never-Bell"…well, I don't 'chime', it's true - I don't even know if I ever have. It's also true that I don't really want to; why should I? But "Chell-Bell"…I can't help but smile when I think of that name. It's sweet, really - silly, but sweet.

Second, the woman who was my mother in my dream. Well, I don't remember having ever had a mother, adopted or biological. It would be nice to have someone who sincerely cares about me, I guess, but I can't really miss what I don't remember ever having. As for the end of the nightmare, when the woman had her head sawed off and stuck into Her body…

"…unless you're planning to saw your own head off and wedge it into my old body…"

I remember Her words when She had asked for my help as a potato. That explains that part of my dream - the woman had been willing, after all…to take part in a test…that was designed to put a human mind in a computer…

Suddenly, it clicks for me, and I nearly laugh at myself. The woman in my dream was Caroline! Of course she would be my mother in my dreams - Caroline saved my life once, when every other time I'd had to save myself. As for her talk about my "father", well, that's obvious, too: Cave Johnson. I had just been thinking about them yesterday. And I had lost Caroline, too - She had deleted her, and I hadn't been able to stop Her. Could I have stopped Her if I'd managed to speak? Probably not. But still, I had been helpless to prevent it.

And the scientist in my dream? The one who had mocked me and held me back so I couldn't stop Caroline? Who had he been? I think about it for a while. I remember how She - and thus, Caroline - had called Wheatley a "moron"…and I guess it is partly Wheatley's fault that Caroline's gone now…so maybe that scientist had just been a dream version of Wheatley. Yeah, that makes sense.

So that's it. My dream had been just a replay of my final moments at Aperture Science, with the theme of other things I'd been wondering about yesterday. I can't help but acknowledge that my life at Aperture Science had been a nightmare, so it all fits. That's all it had been.

I'm just about ready to stop thinking and fall back to sleep when something else occurs to me: How had I ended up at the Aperture Science Testing Facility in the first place? I only remember waking up in that cryosleep pod however many years ago; how had I gotten there to begin with? Had I been captured, or had I volunteered for testing? The test subjects who had been in the first tests Cave Johnson had conducted had been volunteers, or so his pre-recorded messages had seemed to imply. Come to think of it, from what I'd seen of the old days when Cave Johnson had been alive, there had never been a case of a person being singled out and forced to take part in a specific test. So had I volunteered? Or had things changed once She had taken over? And if I had volunteered, why would I have done so?

I sigh. I know I'll never find the answers - they're lost in memories that died with parts of my brain while I was in cryosleep. I know I should count myself lucky that only some of the parts of my brain that held memories had been all that had died while I'd been under…but I wish I knew who I had been before I'd started fighting for my life against Her.

Oh well.

I turn over, trying to get more comfortable in my bed of yellow grass, and I see the Companion Cube beside me. Oh, how I wish it would talk to me. At least in the Aperture Science Testing Facility, I'd never felt lonely. Scared, yes - hunted even - but I can't remember having ever felt so alone, not even down in the bottom layers of the Aperture Science building. True, I wouldn't be able to reply if the Companion Cube were to speak to me, but I still wish it would. I mean, at least then it would seem less like just a weighted cube - a tool - and more like a companion…

I sigh again. I can wish a lot of things, but really, I know I should count my blessings. At least She let me go, and at least the only parts of my brain I've lost are the parts that had held distant memories. I know enough about me, and I have knowledge from my old memories, even if I don't have the memories themselves; besides which, I'm still fully functional in terms of physical and mental ability. I'm free, I don't have to worry about deathtraps or evil AI trying to kill me anymore, and I know enough to keep myself going out here. What more could I ask for?

I force myself to stop thinking so I can get some more sleep. I do still feel tired, though that's probably partially because I'm starving. I close my eyes, shift around a little so as to settle myself a little more comfortably, and yawn. I feel myself drifting off again after just a minute or two.

Despite everything, though, the last thought in my head before I fall back asleep is what Caroline had said to me in my dream:

"Never give up, Chell-Bell…"