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And just like that, it's over.
The last note of a song you didn't expect and didn't deserve fades away as you stumble out into the bright sun. It's so wide, the world, and so bright— you're unprepared for this. You don't know what to do.
Behind you, the door to an unassuming electrical shed shuts tight with a bang. You turn around, spooked, half-expecting a final surprise that will mean the end of you.
Instead you find your companion cube, badly scorched. You stare at it for a long moment in surprise, unsure. You thought it incinerated, long since melted down. And yet here it is, seeming none the worse for wear.
You approach it cautiously, half-expecting it to explode in your face as you draw near. But it does nothing, even when you nudge it tentatively with your foot.
You sit down heavily on the cube, head in your hands. Everything is so overwhelming. Adrenaline from that first glimpse of the initial turrets still courses through your system, putting you on edge. You inhale and your breathing catches on the lump that's formed in your throat. Your eyes sting with tears. It's over. You're done. You don't ever have to set foot in another test chamber, shoot another portal, place another cube on another button. You're free. Really, truly, one hundred percent free.
You don't know what to do. There are tears of relief building up, tears of relief and grief and exhaustion and exhilaration. Your slim frame shakes as you try to hold them in. You must not show weakness—
But she's no longer watching; she's gone for good— and at that, your resolve crumbles and you let let the tears fall, silent sobs making you shudder.
You cry for a long time and then simply sit for even longer. You stare at the landscape around you. You feel lost and confused. You've always simply kept moving forward, no matter what. Here all paths are open to you and you don't know which to take.
You stand up and walk around the little metal shed. It stands alone in this field, an odd accessory to the flowing grain. Behind the shed, off in the distance, is the great hulking shadow of a large building. Aperture.
You decide to walk away from the building.
Walking with the companion cube proves to be a bit of a challenge, as it's just the right size to be awkward and cumbersome in your arms. You have nothing to add to it to make handles or to attach it to your back. You're determined to take it with you; in your head it's become some sort of war prize, a bounty for defeating Aperture.
The fields of tall, golden grain soon give way to scraggly knee-high grass and thin, springy saplings, bursting with lime green needles. You set the cube down and drop to the ground, taking in deep breaths. The air is crisp and cool and faintly perfumed with the scent of green, growing things. You lean back, closing your eyes and tilting your face up to the sun.
For the first time in your memory, you smile.
The fields quickly give way to a young forest, trees not much taller than you, ground choked with thick undergrowth. You keep tripping over roots and stunted bushes, your view of the ground obstructed by the lump of metal in your arms.
After the third time a thorny vine wraps itself around your arm, you drop the cube and give it a frustrated kick. Plucking the tiny thorns from your skin, you take stock in your surroundings.
Half an hour later, the cube is tied your your back with several ground-running plants.
You press on.
Society is overwhelming.
You have no memory of your life before your first awakening in the Aperture laboratories, but you remember things about the world: cars, gas stations, farms, cows. General things, like how cities were structured, the names of the US states and capitals, the year of the revolutionary war, who won World War Two, spring with ease into your mind, but you can't remember your full name, or your home-town, or what high school you went to. The complexity of your memory loss baffles you.
It takes months for you to settle in. For one thing, your knowledge about the outside world turns out to be extremely dated. For another, you're whisked into police custody the minute you step foot inside the city. They refuse to believe you cannot speak, refuse your requests for paper and pencil, instead depositing you in a mental institute.
Once again, you languish in a cell, but with nothing to do you're afraid your brain will rot from boredom.
Your salvation comes in the form of an occupational therapist who thinks everyone else in the facility is a raving idiot, including all the doctors and staff. At first she has the same opinion of you, until she leaves you alone with her purse and comes back from the bathroom to find you've written mathematical equations plotting trajectories of objects moving at high velocities on the walls of your room in her bright red lipstick. From that point on she actually listens to you, actually pays attention to your scribbled words, actually responds, doesn't insult or belittle you, doesn't accidentally let an insult against humans slip; she treats you like a person, like an equal. It's a blessed, glorious feeling.
You ask for your jumpsuit and cube back. She says she'll see what she can do.
She comes back the next day, bearing the cube. She informs you your clothes have been torched. You nod.
Three months later and she's helping you move into your own apartment, a tiny living space on the top floor of a massive building located near the centre of the city. You settle into a daily routine soon enough. It's boring but safe. You feel something missing.
The answer comes to you one night in a dream. You repeat level one and over and over again in your sleep, each time the lift taking you back to the start. Wait for the cube to fall. Pick it up. Put it on the button. Get in the lift. Wait. Enter the chamber. Wait for the cube to fall. Pick it up. Put it on the button. Get in the lift. Wait. Enter the chamber. Wait for the cube to fall. Pick it up. Put it on the button. Get in the lift. Wait. Enter the chamber. Wait for the cube to fall. Pick it up. Put it on the button. Get in the lift. Wait. Enter the chamber.
"Excellent. Please proceed into the Chamber-lock after completing each test. First, however, note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grille will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it. For instance, the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube."
You wake suddenly, fully alert. That's it. You have it. The cubes store things.
Now you simply have to figure out how to open yours.
It takes you three weeks to figure it out; three weeks of scraping, pushing, wrenching, hitting, and throwing. But you do it. With the hiss of air rushing in to an enclosed space, the cube pops open.
With shaking hands you reach in and remove the contents. One pair of civilian clothes. One wallet, full of crisp bills. One box of chocolate cake mix. One cake recipe. One Aperture Science ID card. One small black device adorned with a speaker and a play button.
You press the button, box of cake mix clutched to your chest. The speaker crackles.
“It took you long enough to figure that out,” GLaDOS's voice says. You jump.
“Actually, I'm not sure how long it took, since this is pre-recorded, but I'm sure it took you far longer than anyone else would have taken.” You bristle, indignant.
“Congratulations on making it in the real world,” GLaDOS says, and she sounds sincere. “Your test scores show you'll do absolutely mediocre out there. You might even fail. But I won't know, so I don't particularly care.” There's a pause. “By that I mean you'll do great.”
You wonder if GLaDOS caught a virus before she recorded this.
“Here are some things to keep in mind in the real world,” and then GLaDOS rattles off a long list of practical things to remember, such as 'murder is illegal, you monster' and 'killing someone doesn't solve anything unless it's for science'. You're touched by the effort she put into this recording, and you remember the song the turrets sang. Caro Mio. My darling.
“And remember,” GLaDOS says, then pauses. “Remember. You were my best test subject.”
The recording stops. Your cheeks are wet. You play the recording again and again until the audio warps and refuses to play, until that last sentence fades away into static.
That night you dream of a woman just older than you, a woman with rich dark hair in a simple white dress, all alone in a black expanse. She wanders aimlessly, as if lost. Her footsteps echo.
Whispering voices start in the blackness, and the woman becomes agitated. “No,” she says. “No, sir, I don't want this. Please.” She's frightened now, trying to escape. Gray hands grab her and drag her away into the dark. “No, please, no—!”
She screams then, a single high note that twists and modulates into an artificial audio clip before fading away into nothing. Somewhere far away, a crow screams.
You awake in tears.