Chell.

[smelltheashes]

It's easy to miss a lot of things in the heat of combat, even if you're not, technically speaking, a combatant yourself. Gunfire and monsters have a way of concentrating the attention.

It's hard to miss the world itself going dark, though, and everything around you simply stopping. A few speckles of light remain on this or that feature of the surroundings, seemingly at random. It's just enough to make it all the more obvious when the door opens in midair and the tall, gaunt, pale figure in the grey suit steps out of it.

"Well, well, well. Good... afternoon, Miss Johnson."

Comments

[subject-lj-here.livejournal.com]

She looks around, because she does notice the world going dark, and it's another cage, a vault, and she's trembling. Things should move.

"What... wh-who are you? That... that isn't my name. You must... have the wrong p-person."

[smelltheashes]

"On the contrary, Miss Johnson. I take c-c-considerable pride in selecting precisely the right... person." The stalled sounds, the hesitations, bear none of the hallmarks of mockery. They have the feeling of natural errors incurred in an unnatural kind of speech. "Call it a knack, if you like. I would offer you my... own name, but it really wouldn't mean anything at this point, would it, Chell?"

[subject-lj-here.livejournal.com]

"M-my name is Ve-Valerie. You don't un-understand. I-I have no life, no me-memory."

"My only life is that of a te-test subject."

Her tongue lapses into sounds even more unnatural than his, remembering the time when speech was foreign, and her tongue was nothing more than a shriveled, unused muscle. Those times are far past, of course, but they come back far too easily under the terror. It's like Aperture but worse, so much worse. Because this is a person, some sort of being. And he's been watching her. She flinches a little, resisting the near-overwhelming urge to cower in the face of the eyes.

[smelltheashes]

He cocks his head; the gesture is a little too far to be a human one, a little too short to be that of any of mankind's companion animals. "We're all given names to bear," he says. "Some have... a little more weight than... others." A patch of the darkness gives way to the wall of a church in Ravenholm, where a tiny brass plaque under a stylized window of somebody Chell knows speaks of the Opener of the Way. "You've done very well with your nom de guerre, Miss Johnson, but I think-k-k-k it's time you and I found out what lies beneath it, don't you?"

[subject-lj-here.livejournal.com]

"Weight?" she manages to squeak out, wondering if this thing--for he's not human, even she can tell--knows her as well as he says he does, inexplicably.

Her eyes narrow at the plaque, and she sees Gordon's picture but--

"Wh-what are you... talking about? I'm m-me, I have a n-new life, GLaDOS--she stol-ole the old one; what do you w-want with me?"

[smelltheashes]

"Inaccessible hardly means 'gone forever'." He shakes his head fractionally as the window fades into rippled, frosted, colorless glass, which gives way to the observation offices of Aperture Science. "You of all people ought to be aware of that. The road ahead is a harsh one; I feel safe in telling you that muchhhh. Circumstances being what they are, it isn't a wise idea to move... forward without... a real foundation to build from. Otherwise, you're working from nothing but an unstable scaffold."

The corners of his mouth turn up. There might even be something like a smile touching at his eyes.

[subject-lj-here.livejournal.com]

"What do you--uhhh!" she groans, as everything comes back to her at once--

...Summertime, in Chicago. The Navy Pier, eating ice cream by the Ferris Wheel...

...Her father, a mystery to her, poisoned, haggard eyes and a husk of a man, coming home for the first time in weeks...

...her first kiss, in first grade, with her next-door neighbor when they were playing 'Save the Princess'...

...the last time she ever saw her parents, her seventh birthday, the beautiful party cake and all her friends, before her father took her to work for the first time, as a present...

She doubles over from the pain, the weight, of remembering everything at once, crystal-clear in her mind, perfect and whole, just like all the memories she's made since waking up. Remembering everything again, not sparing a single moment of minutiae.

Her brain throbs and pulses, as if it were going to explode; she's screaming for it to stop, it wasn't suppose to happen like this, no triggers, she's been reading--

"You bastard," she grunts, through the pain, looking back at him for the first time, eyes just barely held from rolling into the back of her head.

[smelltheashes]

His expression doesn't change a whit.

"My apologies, Miss Johnson. I've never been an advocate of moving any more ssssslowly than necessary. Prolonging a bad situation seldom helps."

[subject-lj-here.livejournal.com]

She just stares back at him, jaw clenched and tears falling, as long as her eyes will hold out before they roll back into her head.

At least she has her portal gun, she manages to think as she clutches it to her stomach. It's the only thing keeping her alive, because she's certainly not sane. Not right now.

[hecu_marine]

Some time later- no one's likely ever to be able to say just how much time- there's a sound of trudging footsteps in the distance. It's a heavy, scuffing sound, not of shoes so much as boots, and not of pavement or floor so much as dirt.

It pauses. There's a muffled exclamation.

A few much faster footfalls later, and something cold and metallic nudges against the unconscious woman's side. "Hey," says a man's muffled voice. "Hey, lady, you awake in there?"

No response. The metal is taken away; two fingers, light as can be, press for a few seconds against the groove in the throat. Then the presence withdraws a little ways, assuming it's being sensed at all, and things are as they were.

Eventually, though, there are words spoken aloud:

"Well, I can't leave you here for the damn squid things..." There's a sigh. "Guess you're comin' to camp with me. You just... you just stay there, okay? I gotta go see if I can rig up a tarp and some branches."