Authors Note: Thanks for the comment Guest Reader. I didn't know that the downfall of Aperture/Black Mesa in 1998 thing was fanmade, I always thought it was cannon. Either way, I'll be sure to fix it. Again, thanks and I hope this story continues to be a good read for you.

Chell almost gagged, bile rising up in her throat as she viewed at what remained of the monster Nick had just shot down before her.

"That," He said, nudging the body with his tip of his toe, "Is what we call a headcrab zombie."

Under the white, hard mask she was given, his voice spoke clearly to her, transmitted by a small radio under her ear.

"Remember Daisy," He said, picking up the apparently separate creature that covered the (once) man's head. "Do not let this thing reach your head. You do not want to die like this. Under no circumstances should anyone ever die like this. Maybe in the past, when it'd just arrived on earth it was understandable that people died, but now that we know exactly what this thing does, there is no acceptable reason why a soldier like yourself can't fight a tiny thing like this off."

Chell nodded, silently acknowledging the man's words.

Today was field day.

The night day after her arrival, she had been rested as usual, and in the morning, given the same uniform as the other civil protection, ordered to go outside by Nick, (who was apparently now in charge of her) and begin practicing her new job, as he had explained.

From the outside she looked like any other civil protection member, spare for one small detail; her shoes. Oddly enough, she had been allowed to keep her old long-fall boots. After trying to fit her feet (and failing) into a numerous collection of bigger, heavier boots, Nick had given up, allowing her to use the old boots with the lines of "It's fine, no one's gonna be staring at your feet while you beat them up with a stick anyway."

Now, along with a still uncomfortable Steve, (even though it was a rest day for him, he'd been forced to tag along) Nick was giving her a tour of the city. Albeit a little violent, zombie and alien-ridden tour, but a tour nonetheless.
Together the odd three walked the back alleyways of City 26, Nick giving a list (whilst shooting down) the odd, apparently sub-normal, violent creatures that haunted the place. Steve on the other hand, wasn't as keen on using force, opting to stay out of the way and knocking the creatures down when needed to, instead of shooting and killing them.

For Chell, this was the perfect shooting range.

Not surprisingly, it had taken her little time to get used to the small gun, already used to the powerful knockback and weight of the hand-held portal device. The only thing she had to really learn, was the fact that this gun wasn't meant for making holes in white, moonrock filled walls, but in creatures. Living(?), moving creatures. Small accidents didn't happen just once or twice before she learnt not to point the gun at the friendly two.

"Remember," Nick had said once, supporting her arm to help her aim at a coming zombie. "If you are going to shoot to kill, always, always aim for the head."

Prior to what they had called the 'Seven Hour War', Nick had apparently been a trained soldier, in a team of marines under the last true human government- though what that actually meant, she had no clear idea. But, interestingly enough, this had made him one of the best armed fighters amongst the self appointed recruits in the civil protection, up to the point that he had been deployed by the Combine in a selected team to fight a legendary rebel, just several weeks before.

To capture or kill the revolutionist – a scientist of all people! – aptly named Gordon Freeman, was his mission.

But in the end, he was the last and only remaining survivor of the deployed protection group- at the price of a bullet to his now missing right eye. It was a near, fortunate miss to his brain.
Again, Gordon Freeman had evaded capture.

After his ordeals in City 17, Nick's post had been moved to the more peaceful, uneventful City 26, as a form of punishment for his failure to comprehend the man by the Combine head quarters. He was lucky they hadn't killed him, he mused afterwards, though at the time, he wished he could've died there, with his friends in battle.
Now, he had forever lost that chance.

But of all the bad occurrences, one good thing happened on Nick's arrival at City 26. He had been re-united with his long lost brother, Steve- though at the time, Chell didn't quite understand what he meant by that. The two looked nothing alike.

"And now," he had said, a rare, soft smile on his face. "Another member of my family has returned to me."
Though who that was, he had never explained.

"...Daisy? Hey, Daisy, are you paying attention?"

Chell's mind snapped back to reality, the sound of Nick's irritated (and slightly agitated?) voice reaching her ears.

"Get. Down. Now." Nick seethed, gesturing Chell to crouch beside the two behind the corner of an alleyway wall.

Hurriedly she did as she was told, readying her pistol as she looked around for the next coming danger.

"Look." Nick told her, pointing at another alleyway just across the wall they were hiding behind. "Do you see that man?"

From behind his head, Chell peered over him, looking towards the direction Nick was pointing.
In the narrow, dinky back road of an alleyway that lay before them, a dark-skinned man with a beanie hat, a bullet proof vest, and green, worn out clothes Chell had never seen before walked cautiously past, ever often turning around to assess any entity that may be watching him from the shadows. Whether by luck, or by his own recklessness, he hadn't noticed the three watching him, hidden behind the brick walls.

In his arms the man held a rather large, heavy-looking wooden box, with an odd, orange sign that adorned the top. The same sign that seemed to have been spray-painted on his back.

"That," Nick whispered cautiously, "Is a resistance member."

Chell gripped her gun, nodding slowly.
If there was anything she had learnt from their stories, it was that these 'Resistance members' were bad, bad people. Mad, crazy, murderers at best, who wrecked havoc onto a once peaceful city and seeped the seeds of fear and war into people's hearts. In their wake they brought monsters with them, bipedal, seemingly sentient aliens and large, lion-sized insectoid aliens in dangerous, murderous packs.

Their cause: a 'Revolution'. Of what sort, Chell could not fully understand.

They didn't know, she presumed, that they were on the same side. In the war against these 'aliens' and the creatures of planet 'Xen', the combine – and on extension the civil protection – was on the side of the government.

"They all want a peaceful world", Nick had said to her in a safe, reassuring voice. "They all just want protection. Protection against evil, protection against the unknown."
"Protection…" He paused, "-From themselves."

On the surface, above Aperture, humans were corrupted.

Like Glados, like the men that made her, humans are, from the beginning, all insane. They are all dangerous, treacherous beings, who lie, and steal from others. "If they had the chance, they would kill you, merciless, as they all are", Nick once said, his eyes staring into the distance.
"That's why the world needs us." He explained. "We protect them. We fend for the good, and we discipline the evil. In this world of black and grey, we draw the line. We calm the chaos."

'The chaos.'
…This was so far from the utopia she had dreamed of underground.

And though she didn't believe every single word Nick had said, (She knew well enough that she would've been a fool to do so after all her past mistakes) she knew that she wanted to.
If anything, she wanted to believe in him. She wanted to believe in this new humanity above ground. And if he could, she wanted him to believe in her.

This was her chance to prove her worth.

If she could help them catch this man, maybe, just maybe she would feel a little bit more welcome. Maybe a little bit more at home-

"Don't go out yet." Nick snapped at Chell, noticing her itch to move. "…He seems to be bringing something, maybe back to his main base."

"If we wait for him, he may lead us to their nest."

From behind the corner of the alleyway, the three watched on quietly, each making sure not to make any sudden movements. Once the man left their sight, turning the curb as he went even deeper into the secluded labyrinth of a back alley, the three followed him, all maintaining a safe distance, and keeping a tight hold on their gun.
Soon, the soft sound of footsteps faded, and the man stood silently, staring at the wall before him. At the end of the road, at what seemed to be a dead end, the resistance member put down his heavy load, and warily began to look around. The man's short journey had come to its end.

And from the shadows, the three just watched.

For what seemed like hours, the silence continued, the man obviously relishing his sweet time as he looked nervously around him, his almost animalistic instincts telling him that he was being watched. Nervous and fidgety, Chell and the others waited, none of them daring to make a move before he showed them the entrance of the base.
But finally, after countless staring and searching fruitlessly into the shadows around him, the man dismissed his instincts and picked up his load. Slowly, he began to approach the wall.

Crunch.

It was only one small sound, one quiet footfall on the old, cracked concrete, but what he heard was enough to startle the him.
In her over-eagerness, Chell had stepped forward. Eager to prove her worth and fidgety from waiting, she had moved just a second too fast.

In a flash of an instant, the resistance member dropped his load and raised his concealed pistol.

Before him, there was no one.

From behind the corner, just out of view, Nick had pulled Chell back by the collar just in time, covering her mouth piece in an almost strangling death-grip. Beside him, Steve already held his gun up, ready for a coming attack.

The man took a step forward, and then stopped.
Nervous and quavering, he looked again into the shadows. There was nothing there. He was sure of it.

But what if there is?

Slowly, the man took another step forwards. He knew he couldn't take any more chances.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
On the dry, hard concrete, the only sound he could hear was his own silent footfalls.

Steve tensed, his trigger-finger twitching dangerously. Beside him, Nick's grip on Chell got tighter, and she could almost feel his anger resonating off of him. No one dared make a sound.

Another step, and the man came into view.

Mute shock numbed the man's brain, and before he could react, Steve had already lunged at him, using his elbow as a block to roughly push the man away. Taken by surprise, the pistol flung from the man's hands, and he stumbled back with a yelp, falling to the ground. On the ground, momentarily dazed, the man looked up, only to see Steve's pistol leveled at his face. Before he could yell, before he could scream, the trigger was pulled.

A large, resonating pang, and the quiet, almost disgusting sound of a body hitting the floor. By then, the man was no more.

~oOo~

On the corner of the dead end, sitting atop what looked like a large closed waste disposal can, Chell hung her head in shame.

After a large, lengthy amount of scolding from Nick, his frantic lines of "What the hell where you trying to do?!" his "You could've died!" and Steve's cold, disapproving silence trained directly at her, Chell had resolved to wait at the edge, where she could cause no harm.

"This is a really important mission. We can't let you get in the way." Nick had said, his face invisible underneath the mask. "This is too dangerous for you to be part of."

Quietly, Chell sighed.
What had started out as a training session for her seemed to have developed into something much more urgent after the two had revealed the contents of the box the resistance member was holding.

Five Overwatch Standard Issue Pulse Rifles, and numerous amounts of ammo.

In a small city with only the Civil Protection – a protection group of otherwise normal men who'd only had minimal training and experience with combat – and the territorial Hunters guarding the area, this gun could cause absolute havoc. And if Nick's prediction was correct, this man was most likely just the first among many to smuggle in this same weapon, and prepare for battle after the reported downfall of one of their main city's, City 17.

They were really going to start a war.
And if the three hadn't discovered their secret first, this was a war they could've possibly won.

Nervously peeking at the body that still lay quietly on the floor, Chell shivered under her thick clothes.
If one battle meant this, she didn't want to imagine what a war could look like.

Around her, the two were searching around for an entrance, or whatever the resistance used to open that entrance to their city's base. If they could find it, and if they could rat out the resistance members who trained and lived in it. They could possibly divert the coming tragedy. They would be rewarded like heroes.

At least that was how Nick explained it.

Now he was pretty audibly (thanks to the microphone receptor system underneath the mask) muttering profanities toward his surrounding terrain, and complaining to Steve to work his ass harder (whatever that meant). Steve on the other hand, worked quietly, only bickering once or twice when Nick's profanities toward him went overboard. Oddly, enough, not once did either mention Chell.
Under her mask, Chell frowned at the thought. It was either that she wasn't worth mentioning, that they were both disapproving of her mistake to the point that she was non-existent in their minds, or that they were trying to keep the topic of her mistake out of the way, in concern that she might be hurt by their words.

For most likely the eighth time in that thirty minutes, Chell held her head in her hands. Whatever it was, Chell wasn't used to this 'silent' treatment.
In Aperture, when they had something to say to her they would tell her, whatever it was straight-forwardly, even if it was just something on the lines of "You're fat" or "You're adopted". And even when they didn't have anything to say, they would still say things, meaningless things, but all still directed at her. They didn't ignore. Nor did they avoid.
But then again, they were robots.

It was just her second day in society, and Chell's actions had already resulted in an absolute train wreck.

Sighing heavily, Chell looked up, attempting to observe her surroundings rather than be brought down by her darker thoughts. It didn't do anything to just think, anyway. Even if she couldn't be of help to the two, she could at least take in what she saw of the surface and observe what she needed to.
This is what she wanted, anyway.

At the dull, cracking wall of brick across her, Chell stared, trying (and failing) to keep her mind off what she didn't want to think about. Idly, she noticed the pictures on the walls.
A wide variety of large and small pictures- drawings and posters covered the wall, each arranged messily on the worn-down brick of the building.

'Graffiti' the word popped up in her mind.

Though they were of various shapes, colours and sizes, they all shared the same theme, the same solemn tone.
Slightly to the right of her view, she could see the more minimalistic of the etchings; a white poster with the dark outlines of a finely inked open hand, and on its open palm, a badge that adorned that symbol of the resistance. On the bottom of the drawing was bare, open space, spare for a cryptic message, 'Born'. To the diagonal bottom of that, she could see the spray-painted images of three creature's heads- or, to be exact, their profiles. On the right, the first of the three, there was an 'ape', his head drawn half open as if to expose what lay within its skull. Beside it was a man, his brain showing in the same way, though obviously more advanced than its predecessor. Finally, there was an unknown creature – no, it was a man in a mask – that showed his brain, its shape similar to that of an ape's. Not as advanced, not as intelligent as the humans.

Idly, she wondered if that was supposed to be them. The Civil Protection.
Was it insulting them? Maybe, she thought, shrugging. Maybe.

In all honest truth, it didn't exactly have much effect. Even if it had quite adequately displayed that the Civil Protection was filled with mouth-breathing, ape-headed idiots (to which she disagreed with) the message seemed to come out as too subtle, too weak for her to comprehend. But then again, almost anything could be described as 'Too weak' in comparison to Glados's tiresome, unrelenting verbal abuse.

Slowly, against her own will, Chell's mind drifted back to Aperture.

She recalled the first time she had discovered writings on the walls- when she was first awakened, confused and alone, she had searched all the cracks in the walls in search of an exit, people, anything that wasn't made of cold, hard metal. Anything was okay, even if it was just a glimpse of something of natural, a glimpse of something human. And in the end, she actually did find what she was looking for.

But what she saw there wasn't exactly what she had been expecting.

On a certain secluded wall of a test chamber – the place she had first received her companion cube – a single, inconspicuous panel protruded out, revealing a small concealed space behind it. With her strong sense of curiousity and the aid of her portal gun, Chell found a way inside, almost immediately regretting her decision as she stepped foot in the room.

On the walls, scrawled in dark ink and a sickly red colour that reminded her oddly of dried blood – was the scribbles and the writings of an utter madman. Cryptic poems and obsessive lines concerning the companion cube were spread all over the place, the chaos within the artist's mind strung all across the walls.
Along with that, there were several pictures of men, women, and all sorts of other people – all with their heads replaced by a companion cube. On the corner of the room (although the area was more of a small space than anything else) there was a sad, tattered cardboard bed and several empty cans of beans. The only signs of life left behind by the mysterious artist.
The same signs she would encounter again, and again, over the duration of her first escape. When she was in need of direction, she followed his markings. Whenever she was lost in the belly of the facility, she would always see the arrows.
And soon, what was once an unsettling experience to see the artist's scribbling and his numerous 'dens', strewn across Aperture, slowly became an odd sort of comfort, a sort of peaceful seclusion from her metallic captor. Slowly, she was beginning to understand.
Art was a human concept. A way to send the message. And though she had failed, and failed again to heed the artist's warnings ('The cake is a lie!') she understood where he had come from. What he had been through. And she respected him for that. It was odd, to say the least, that this insane, most likely long gone companion-cube obsessed man (woman?) would have been the one Chell could say she owed the most gratitude to.

As her eyes scanned almost unconsciously around her, her thoughts drifted in and out of the memory of the man's scribbling and paintings, all that she had seen, all that she had found. And idly, she noticed how observant she had been. She remembered the sad, quiet song of the radio that played in one of the broken chambers, and the messy, crazy, almost beautiful pictures that adorned the walls of the same room. She remembered the picture of the unknown woman she had seen when she got her third portal gun lead by Wheatley (strangely enough, the woman seemed to bare some resemblance to herself) and the bright, vibrant colours of blue and orange-

…Orange?

Chell's head snapped up, her chin rising from her palms.

In front of her, almost completely obscured from view by a large waste disposal container that lay before it, was an especially mossy and cracked, almost crumbling part of the brick wall. Above it, and covering almost all around it where the numerous amount of pictures and posters put there by the resistance members, almost each picture repeated, with a dull, quiet shade of black and white. But on the bottom, just underneath the mess behind the dumpsters, the only place you would have expected it to be empty, Chell spotted the top half of a round, orange, sign. And though it was still new to her, this sign was something she had come to learn all too well.

The sign of the resistance.

Almost leaping from her perched spot on top of the dumpster, Chell got off and ran to the other side, grabbing hold of the sides of the opposing container and successfully capturing the attention of the other two.

"…What's she doing?" Steve asked quietly.
"…I honestly don't know." Nick returned with a shrug. "Maybe she saw something. Doubt it's anything big, though."

Quietly the two made their way toward her, just as she pushed the light, seemingly empty dumpster to reveal what lay behind.

And what they saw was a rather large, orange resistance symbol – the same symbol they had seen on the top of the box of rifles and the now-deceased resistance member's back – and just underneath it, easily concealed by any object covering it, was a small, functional lever. Beside it, the words encrypted, 'Key'.

Without as much as a moment of hesitation, Chell pulled on the lever, and to her right, two large, concrete slates once situated on the middle of what seemed to be the wall of a dead-end quietly slid open, revealing a moderately sized entrance, and a dark, dimly lighted stairway leading down.

Jackpot.
Chell mutely grinned to herself in triumph.

For several moments, the two behind her stood quietly, both silent and frozen in place with surprise.

"…Holy hell…" Nick finally muttered, still regaining his control on his posture.
"Holy hell." He repeated, as Chell quietly rose from her currently kneeling position.
"Daisy you're brilliant!" Nick almost yelled as he brought her into a tight, unexpected hug.

Amongst Nick bellowing complements and laughing his head off, Chell kept still, almost choking from his strong grip and grinning, almost giggling with her own laughter. Human contact and actual, non-sarcastic appraisal… Though it was new, she knew this was something she could get used to.
But beside the two, Steve still stood, unmoving as a rock, as if dazed- or unimpressed by her actions. And although she couldn't see his face, obscured by the mask, she could almost faintly tell that he wasn't pleased. That whatever emotion he had received from her actions was not – if anything – joy.

Well, she thought, turning her head from him. Whatever I do won't seem to impress him anyway.

After some odd, but treasured moments of Nick's bear-hugging and his loud, obnoxious laughter, Nick loosened his grip, and held her firmly by the shoulders.

"…Now that that's over with, we have to go to the next step." he said, a serious quietude returning to his voice. "Now, we rat out the rodents."

~oOo~

Chell's brief moment of joy passed as quickly as it came.

The happy, talkative thoughts that had built up in her mind was instead replaced with a nervous, tensed silence, as she and Nick walked quietly down the stairs of the entrance, each with their guns in hand and ready for combat.

The two had gone in ahead, while Steve stayed behind for the time being, ordered by Nick to call for reinforcements.

"For the first few people at least," he'd said, "Surprise should be a bigger winning factor than numbers."

Quietly, cautiously, the two continued on their way down the steps.
They didn't know if the entrance they were going into was the main entrance, the larger part of the underground base, with more people, or the back entrance, connecting to the other parts of what lay beneath ground.
If it was an entrance with people, they would have to be careful not to arouse suspicion. And though Nick knew he didn't need to, he raised a finger to his lips (at least where it should've been, above the mask) and nodded toward the door. If the cackling of their voices from under the mask was heard, it could blow their cover in a matter of seconds.

On the bottom of the steps, a seemingly normal, forlorn-looking wooden door stood, a sharp contrast from the foreboding, dim stairway that held it.

Quietly, Nick twisted the door knob. Locked.

"…Hey, is that Paul? Sure took him a long enough time. " A muffled voice came from inside the room.

At that Nick looked (presumably) warningly towards Chell, to which she returned with a quiet nod. Apparently, this was the entrance with people.

"Paul, buddy, we've been waiting for you for like- what, an hour? " The man laughed to himself. Gradually, the sound of footsteps approached closer, and the two lifted their guns.
The door unlocked and twisted from the inside, the man complaining on to unhearing ears.

"Sorry we had to lock the door," The man said, swinging the door open. "That old geezer 'Sgt.' Bill was pretty paranoid about those new weapons you were gonna bring in-"

As the man in a beanie looked up, white, masked faces met his, and his casual, lax smile immediately flipped into a frown.
"-Well, you're not Paul." The man said, his voice flat.

Without even as much as a nod to acknowledge his words, Nick pushed him forwards, barging into the room.

In the furnished, rather casual entrance room, three other people sat behind couches facing a television screen, turning in shock as they saw their team-mate fall back, and the two civil protection members breaking into the room.
Before any of them could react, Nick raised his gun and shot the man who opened the door twice, one bullet hitting him on his right arm, where he reached for his gun, and another, squarely on the head.

Their brains finally kicking into action, the three others present recoiled at the sound of the gunshots, sudden realization hitting them hard.

"CP's!" Another man in a beanie yelled as he fumbled and raised his pistol.
In a matter of moments the others followed suit, leveling their guns at Nick just a second too late before the first man was shot down.

From behind Nick, another CP- Chell appeared, and instead of using her gun, she lunged at the standing man – one of the last remaining two resistance members, using the couch as a catapult to jump over, and kick him down. Taken by surprise, the shocked man couldn't do as much as yell or shoot before the odd-looking boot flew towards him, landing heavily on his chest. Ungraciously the man grunted as he fell, the gun flying from his hands. Now, there was only one left standing.

The woman turned in shock as she looked around, her mind spinning as she noticed she was the last survivor. Her hands quaking and her body screaming at her to move, she lowered her gun and ran, making a mad dash towards the hallway.

At the end of it, she knew, there was an alarm. An alarm that would raise the emergency Klaxons of all the areas in the base.
If she couldn't get out alive, neither would they.

Nick raised his gun, shooting and closely missing the woman as she ran, the dimmer, darker lights of the hallway and his missing right eye contributing to his mistakes. Following her, Nick ran, his pursuit followed closely by Chell as she sped up beside him, soon overtaking his heavy strides.

Dazed, but still uninjured, the man who Chell had, in her panic, forgotten to check coughed quietly, rising up from his laying position as he reached for his gun.

In the hallway, Chell had almost reached the woman – just a second too late before she stopped at a certain lever on the wall, and turned to the two as she smiled. The audible, loud crack of the rusty lever sounded as she forcefully pulled it down.

From the corners of the rooms and hallways, a red, almost blinding light filled up the space as the Klaxons turned, their call loud enough for Chell to momentarily stumble and resist the urge to clamp a hand over her ears.

From behind her, Nick gritted his teeth from under the mask. Their cover was blown.

Now, the resistance would either take this as a chance to fight back, or run and escape like the cowards they were. But nevertheless, if this woman had thought that ringing the alarms was going to save her, or anyone else here, she was wrong. It was already far too late. And he was going to prove it.

Seizing the moment, and the bright, red, lights, Nick regained his posture, and shot the woman twice. Once on the hand that gripped the lever, and another in the head. This time, his aim was perfect. As the body fell quietly, motionlessly to the ground, he thought he could almost hear her triumphant, dying laughter.

Pushing past Chell, who stood stock-still beside the body, Nick reached for the lever.
His right hand on the bottom of the lever, he began to pull it up. From behind him Chell looked on as she turned nervously, looking anywhere and everywhere- doing anything, anything to get away from the overwhelming sounds, the red, and the still, unmoving body before her. On the corner of her eyes, at the opening of the hallway, she thought she saw a shadow move.

In the presence of the loud, ringing sound of the Klaxons, she almost couldn't hear the shot being fired.

A bullet flew past the her, and landed hard, embedding itself directly into Nick's right wrist.
"-Gah!" Nick yelped in pain as his position crumbled, taken by surprise.

Chell whipped her head at his reaction, turning to see the shooter at the end of the hallway.
The man she couldn't kill.

His deed done, the man staggered in the hallway, slowly closing in towards the two; the shell-shocked, unmoving Chell, and the momentarily defenseless, curled up Nick.

Slowly, the dark, still smoking point of his pistol turned to her.

Alarms rang in her own head, as in reality, and as the pistol aimed calmly, slowly at her, only one thought resonated in her head.

He's going to kill me.

It was a quiet, disturbing thought that had come up many, many times in the past.

I can't let that happen.

Though in the end, she always gave the same response.

In a flash, even before she was given time to think about her actions, she instinctively leveled her pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. Just a flash of a moment faster than him, her bullet flew, embedding itself squarely on his forehead as his gun was knocked out of his grip, his bullet digging itself harmlessly into the wall beside her.
Again, she had saved herself.

But in the red, loud room, flooded with both the sound of the alarms and the four immobile, dead bodies of the men they had killed, Chell dropped her gun, sinking weakly to her knees. As she looked on at the man who continued to stare at her in death, as she saw the blood seep from the wound on his head, only one voice, one quiet sentence was processed in her empty, fragile mind.

"You murderer."

From far away, in a foggy, distant world, she thought could hear Nick's short, pained grunt as pulled up the heavy lever with his left arm, and the rumbling, almost audible sound of a hundred footsteps. As numerous Civil Protection reinforcements stormed in the scene, and the Klaxons ceased to turn, the hallway dimmed back down to a dark, stagnant space. In the dark, on the cold, hard concrete, Chell felt the silence piercing into her. The silence of the dark- the silence of the dead overwhelming her senses.

On her shoulder, only one feeling- the feeling of Nick's firm hand on her brought her to reality as she looked up, staring straight into the hollow, almost glowing eyes of the mask.

"That's my girl." Nick's voice whispered soothingly from her earpiece. "Good job, Daisy."