This was a disaster. A complete, utter disaster. The whole facility just seemed to shut down on itself. And there was nothing that she could do, nothing worked and she didn't have any control over anything. GLaDOS tried to restore the system, but it just glitched and refused to work with her.

All systems offline.

She tried again.

Cameras; restored. Camera footage damaged: please wait while we try to fix the problem.

…

Problem cannot be fixed. Emergency shutdown activated. Automatic shutdown cancelled by the Central Core. This is an emergency call and we'd like to advise you to allow the continuation of the Enrichment Center's shutdown. Grand the approval to continue the emergency shutdown? Approval denied.

Warning: all systems offline.

Central AI Chamber; emergency energy supply activated.

The room lit up again. The soft light that shone down on the AI in the middle of the chamber was minimal and caused a foggy glow to spread around the room. The walls shimmered with red flickering shadows of the alarm lights in the rest of the facility. This was not good. The whole facility (or what was still working) was now running on reserve power. She was running on reserve power. And it got drained more quickly than she liked.

It was unclear what happened. She was blocked off from any information and the only thing she could operate was her own chamber. Everything else lay out of her reach. And all her monitors showed the same message.

Emergency shutdown. Evacuate immediately.

She tried again. The systems rebooted and failed every time doing so. And there was nothing she could do about it. GLaDOS eventually decided that allowing the emergency shutdown was her best option for now. If she would try to get everything working in this condition, it might break and the whole facility could collapse on top of her. So she accepted the action and everything fell silent. The sound of her own processors was the only thing that could be heard within the echoing chambers.

The whole facility was down.

''So ehhh… you've got everything under control again? Good…''

GLaDOS turned her chassis and noticed the mechanical ball below her. She had almost forgotten about him. Almost.

Wheatley didn't really seem to notice the look he was receiving. He was more than busy with his surroundings, glad that the flickering lights and alarms had finally been silenced. ''Looks like everything is working fine. Great job, really. Thank you very much, we appreciate the help with not letting us all been blown to bits. That was probably what would have happened… Like a giant explosion of some sort. But you stopped it. Tremendous. Now we know you're very busy and all with all your science and… tests. You have a whole facility to run. A very busy person you are indeed… and we get that, I totally understand. So we won't bother you anymore. It's all fine. We'll just go.''

Of course, he couldn't move due to the lack of any limbs or management rails. And it left the perfect opportunity for GLaDOS to pull him out of the core transfer receptacle with one of her claws. He yelped as he got torn out of it and got held up high in the air.

They found eye contact and Wheatley found himself completely torn apart by just that stare. ''O-or we could stay. Whatever you prefer.'' Even his nervous ramblings didn't seem to ease the awkward tenseness, so he just quickly looked away. Maybe the floor had not been his best option.

''Oh… that's, I'm really high up.'' He let out a little nervous laugh. ''Maybe you could like, put me down? Gentle! Don't drop me… please don't do that.''

''Shut up, moron.'' GLaDOS snapped. She turned around to look at her monitors. The systems were all still offline, it seemed like everything was cooling off. Maybe she could try rebooting a few again later.

Wheatley followed her gaze and noticed the flashing images on the screen. That was probably bad. Flashing things were never a good thing, especially not if they were coloured red. People seemed to like to use red for danger… or bad things all together. ''That's… that's not good. Is it?''

''No, it's not.''

''What happened?''

She looked at him again and Wheatley jumped back, (as much as he was able to do in his position) afraid that she would bite him or something, even though she didn't have a mouth. ''I don't know. But whatever it is, it's going to kill all of us if I can't fix it. And that's the kind of state I'm in right now. So before we die, I'm sure you'll enjoy me informing you that, in fact, all of this is your fault. Including our nearing death.''

''My fault?'' He protested. ''What did I do?''

''Don't act like you don't know. I'm sure you know all too well.'' GLaDOS purred.

She seemed calm, but the darker tone in her voice indicated that deep down, she was mad. Really mad. It probably didn't help that Wheatley had no idea what she was talking about either. ''I… I don't. Honestly, no idea what you're referring to. Might have confused me with someone else.''

''Of course it was you! You are the one who brought the lunatic in here in the first place. I don't know exactly what happened, but that button was obviously not for the core transfer.'' Which was odd. Why would it show up if it was meant for something else (say the destruction of her facility.) Also, according to the tiny bit of information she had access to, the button hadn't even been pressed.

''Oh… yeah…. Right. Nearly forgot about that part. Thanks for reminding me.'' Speaking of the human, where was she? Wheatley squirmed in the claw a bit so he could look back at the lady. She was laying on the floor, completely motionless. ''Is she alright?"'

GLaDOS looked up. She fully turned around to face the human and leaned closer to her. Only just her head was almost two times bigger than her and the AI towered over the still form. GLaDOS expected her to jump up and attack her like the crazed murder that she was. But she didn't. She just lay there. Lifelessly.

For a moment GLaDOS thought she was dead, but a quick scan showed that she was still breathing. She cautiously lowered a second claw to roll Chell over onto her side. She didn't put up a fight. Didn't do as much as stir. She had her eyes closed, her mouth silent in a thin line.

It was quite a sight to behold, the supercomputer thought as she studied her test subject closely. She'd never really gotten the change to take a good look at her. They'd never been so close to each other before. Even though she seemed completely unconscious, the look that was plastered on her features was tense. Her body must be running on some serious adrenaline vapors for her to keep running around like a lunatic all day without having been able to satisfy any of her basic needs. Of course she'd spend months in the relaxation chambers, but that could barely be counted as rest since test subjects got woken for small exercises every now and then for the stimulations of the muscles so their bodies would keep intact. She'd gotten nutrition and other various things humans needed through tubes that pumped it right into their organs and blood stream. But she'd never really gotten a real meal. It was a wonder how she managed to stay on her feet.

But not only physical issues were the cause of un-useful subjects. The ones that were indeed able to be woken up and be guided towards the test chambers usually broke down into the later tests. Then they would curl up as a ball or drag themselves into a corner and just sit there, mentally defeated, until GLaDOS eventually got tired of them not doing anything and just get rid them.

But not her. She'd just been going on and on without stopping. Completing test after test. She had been perfect. But then she had to escape out of GLaDOS' grasp, only to come find her and kill her. And even coming back years later with some mind numbed chatterbox of a core to wake her up, only to make a second attempt at murdering her. But this time she'd been onto all her little tricks and now she lay before her, unconsciously on the floor.

She was just a dangerous, mute lunatic of a test subject who'd thought she could beat the queen of science at her own game. She did succeeded once, GLaDOS had to admit (she had killed her after all), but not this time. This time she'd failed.

And that was all she was. And nothing more.

A mechanical claw grabbed the woman around her waist and pulled her off the floor. She hung completely limp as GLaDOS carried her to the other side of the room where a new glass cage came up out of the floor. She placed her inside, making sure to seal the ceiling in case she would try to climb out with her dirty talons. She couldn't take any risks. Especially not in this state where she had no control over the facility.

''What are you doing with her? Is she okay? Is she dead? I hadn't even thought about that yet. Oh no…. Please don't tell me she's dead.'' Wheatley said panicked as he saw the lady being placed inside the cage.

''She's fine. She only fell unconscious.'' When she'd made sure that everything was secure and checked twice that there was absolutely no change for the test subject to escape, GLaDOS dared to turn away from her. Her sight now fixed on the little metal ball that was quivering in her claws, she glared. ''As for you though… well, you'll see. Right now I'll be busy with repairing my facility. In the mean time, you can amuse yourself with coming up with different kinds of painful deaths we can try on you. After that I'll choose the one I like the most. How does that sound?''

His pupil shrunk to a tiny little dot. ''Oh… well. That's a bit of a difficult task.''

''I'm sure you can do it. If not, I have a few great options myself.''

The data she received from him shaking frightened in the claws made her chuckle as she turned back to her monitors. It left Wheatley hanging there helplessly, praying in his head for the lady to wake up soon.

-0-

Chell tried to breath. She tried so desperately to inhale, but all it resolved in was her gasping like a dying fish out of water. She was lying on a hard floor and her body quivered uncontrollably. She gritted her teeth, pressed her nails into her palms until little half-moon figures were cut into her skin, trying to concentrate on something else than this unbearable pain.

She had been laying like this for a while. Shaking in pain, whimpering in muted cries for help. She was dying, but she just couldn't.

It felt like an unviable force was holding onto her, preventing her from dying. It was pressing down on her like thousands of tons on top of her chest. And it hurt so much. Chell felt the tears streaming down her face. She was scared. More frightened than seeing a row of red turret lasers in her way, more than having to make a risky jump in the test chambers, more than having to face her.

Her ears were ringing and the pressure kept rising up in her head. Chell covered her ears, bonking her head against the ground repeatedly. There must be a red spot on the back of her head by now, but that pain was not even close to the rest she was feeling.

She breathed in rapidly, creating a hyperventilating rhythm of her chest moving up and down. It felt like a little bit of that pressure alleviated the claustrophobic feeling that build up inside of her.

After a few minutes of this Chell felt a slight relief from that invisible force, though it was obviously still there. She managed to look around a little bit through her teary eyes. The room she found herself in was completely blank. There were no walls, the plain ground just stretched out until it ended up in a thin line at the horizon.

She pushed herself up, only to fall back down as her arms were too weak to hold her. A sharp pain shot through her lungs, but she calmly breathed in and out again until it lessened.

It's okay. Everything's okay. Just take it real slow.

She puffed out a painful sigh and prepared herself to get up again. She put her elbows onto the floor and pushed herself up with shaking limbs until she sat up straight. It hurt a lot and her whole body felt so heavy and tired. But she did it anyways. Chell wrapped her arms around herself against the cold, even though it felt like all her muscles were on fire.

Breath in… and out. In and out. In and out.

She didn't know what happened or where she was. But it was going to be alright. It had to. Even though it hurt, she was still breathing, which meant she was still alive. Her memories seemed vague and unclear, but when she tried to think really hard about it she could kind of remember what happened.

She was in GLaDOS' chamber, standing behind that red button. She reached out to press it and then all those voices started screaming at her. Chell couldn't make out what they said or why she was hearing them. Why was this happening in the first place? Was this some other science experiment that Aperture was trying on her? Or was she really just going insane?

Or maybe it was something much bigger.

Chell gritted her teeth as another cramp of pain went through her, as fast as a lightning strike and as burning as fire. But as quick as it came it left again. She reminded herself that it was important to breath and focused on that again.

In and out.

A small echoing sound could be heard in the distance and it felt like a soft breeze of wind flew through her hair. It made her skin feel cold. Chell lifted her head. It took her a lot of afford but she managed. The sound became a little bit louder and something in the sky seemed to twitch. It seemed another one of those weird texts were coming up, maybe it would try to tell her something.

You died.

Very helpful.

Chell could have figured that part out herself, though it was a bit disturbing to think about. But if she really was dead, then why was she still here? Where was here anyways? Did she die and go to heaven? Aside from the endless nothingness and the invincible force that was crushing her, it wasn't all too bad, she supposed.

She pulled up her knees and buried her face into her arms which were wrapped around herself tightly. Who was she kidding? This place was awful and everything hurt. And she was stuck here. Probably forever.

She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, how much she could remember or feel anymore. But there must have been something. If she would be stuck in here for all internet there must be something for her to do, something to solve. Whatever this world was she found herself in right now, it wasn't nothing. She was there and she could move. There was something, she knew there was a way.

Chell lifted her head with difficulty and then noticed the blue panel in the distance with the backwards letters. Wait, she had seen that before. In one of the test chambers that had popped up as well. Her eyes winded hopefully, maybe that could be her way out.

But when she tried to move she gasped in pain. Everything hurt, but she had to reach it. No matter what. With an aching body she started to make her way there. She crawled and pushed and cried but she was making progress. When she had finally come there she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. But she was there.

Reaching out a trembling hand Chell stroked her fingers over the blue screen, touching one of the words. There was a soft clicking sound and the screen disappeared. She felt tired unconsciousness wash over her and Chell closed her eyes, a smile in triumph on her face.

The world turned black once again.

Loading…

Hey guys. As it must be noticeable this story was put on a hold there for a while due to a writer's block. Cri. Don't worry though, it's anything but abandoned. Sorry to have you all waiting for so long though. In the mean time I (re)wrote another little story Aperture High School and it's almost finished, it only needs one more chapter, so go read that if you want. After that this story will be all going again. But since I managed to write this chapter in between I decided to upload it so you can have a little something before I jump back into this story again, and also to show that it's not dead either.

Little note; yes I know the words you died don't show up in the game when you die. But it's just to…. I don't know. It just came up in my head to do that. Hope it's not a bother.

Extra little note; you can follow me on Instagram. My username is portal_fangirl, it's a fan account and I post daily and regular updates on my fanfictions as well. So if you're interested you can also follow me there.

Thanks for your patience.