"H… Hello?" I asked the core. I realized that my vocal chords had been fixed. The people who hired me for testing had disabled my vocal chords. It was standard protocol. They told me that upon leaving the facility they would be automatically fixed. They were right.
"Hello, My name is Caroline. What is yours?" Asked Caroline in her sweet voice.
"Uh… Chell. Yes, my name is Chell." I quietly told the core. I had never exactly liked my name.
"Chell is a nice name." Caroline told me. I was starting to really like her already. "How did you get here?" she asked me. "It is a bit of a… bleak place."
And so I set off with Caroline mounted in the cube. I told her my story along the way, and she used her data banks to figure out where we were. We became good friends. I now had knowledge that there was a settlement of some kind not too far from where I was. It was in a forest which was now in my line of sight. I was headed straight for it.
"You know, the Oracle Turret was right." she randomly told me. I looked at her in a funny way. "Look some more in the Cube." she continued in a mysterious manner. Now at the edge of the forest and in a nice patch of shade, I set the cube down and took Caroline out.
"Ok, I'll look in here." I said. Digging deeper in the Cube, I found a note. It was typed.
Dearest Chell,
By now, you have probably reached the forest. Your suspicions were correct, I transferred Caroline into your core, effectively deleting her from myself. You will find the final slice of the Cake below the two notes. I kept it preserved for you, just in case. Feel free to eat it. Once you take it out, your beloved Cube (Which I thoughtfully saved from melting…) will go back to normal and won't be able to be opened.
In your absence, the world has been taken over by aliens known as the Xen. The village in the forest is a community of the friendly Vortigaunts. They look slightly odd, but they will be kind to you.
I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. I am running out of time.
Love,
GLaDOS
I smiled, glad that GLaDOS was being friendly. It made me wonder just how strange these Vortigaunts looked, but decided that they would be friendly enough.