Gordon Freeman

This is too good to be true, Gordon thought as he hefted Barney through the entrance of the cave. His orange armored boots echoed sharply throughout the cave, and from the sounds emitting from it, it extended for a long ways away. Alyx had flicked on her flashlight, and Gordon did the same, reaching down to pull the lever that turned on his suit's flashlight. The light reflecting off the ice embedded in the walls, highlighting the glistening rock and ice embedded throughout every surface of the cave. Gordon could see the tunnel widen and open into a semi-large cavern, with a frozen-over pool of ice in the center.

A chill wormed its way up Gordon's back, partly from the temperature, and partly from the uneasy feeling the cavern was giving him. A dull throbbing in the front of his head soon drew his attention. Of all the places Alyx chose, and it's the one that most resembles the Ant-Lion colonies? Gordon shook his head, startled by his unexpected bout of complaining. Shephard quickly glanced at him and quietly asked,

"Freeman. You good?" Gordon bit back the sharp retort he was about to let loose, and quickly nodded, the headache abating a little. Alyx quietly motioned towards them and pointed to the next tunnel, whispering,

"We need to get moving, the Combine will be looking for us." Doctor Kliener nodded and started forward, nearly slipping again on a shiny smooth rock as he carefully moved toward the tunnel. Gordon and Shephard refastened their grip on Barney, who seemed to be breathing a little easier, probably due to the med-kit they had applied earlier. A twinge in Gordon's gut was his method for detecting danger.

But for all the times he had listened to it before subconsciously, he ignored it now. It's probably just because I'm in a creepy cave running from an alien dictatorship, hefting an unconscious Barney. The group marched on just as cautiously as before, not realizing that hostile eyes were watching.

?

The corrupted being knew better than to expose itself, for the insignificant ants were vicious and feral, willing to shoot anything they saw. Pathetic. They had no sense of caution, no ability to sense real danger. They thought the bright and flashy things were dangerous, or the dark and solid troops. They have no idea. The being basked in the knowledge that it was the most dangerous enemy to these idiotic "humans." Then again, perhaps They deserve some recognition. It snarled silently in irritation, knowing full well it's abilities were a gift from Them, despite Their obvious shortcomings. Maggots, the lot of Them.

It suddenly realized the humans were getting further and further away. It snarled again, irritated it was slipping in its abilities. The corrupted thing shuffled its wings, feathers and metal whispering softly together. It slowly took off behind the rag-tag group, marveling at their stupidity to continue carrying one of their injured, before disappearing from sight, and reappearing in front of them, now visible yet still unseen. Yes. That one.

It ruffled its feathers in anticipation of the now expected shouting and bright lines and bangs from the angular components of metal the humans so desperately needed to function. It loved sensing the confusion and outrage, as well as the sorrow and angry, and the fear. Oh, the sweet, delicious scent of pure terror. Yes. If it could smile it would have. This will be good.

Gordon Freeman

Something's off, I know it is. Gordon thought as he glanced around at the walls of the cave, his headache even worse than before. His vision was flickering; everything around him seemed to be flashing grey. It looked like the tunnel was flashing between the ant-lion colony, the ice cave, and the Xen caverns. His grip on Barney slipped and the man dropped to the ground, Shephard grunting in surprise as Gordon fell back with a groan, clutching his head. He felt himself sweating, yet the ant-lion cave was freezing. Did…did I get another concussion? From the helicopter? And where are those damn voices coming from?

A group of people was murmuring somewhere, barely audible. From what Gordon could hear if he strained his ears, they seemed to be whispering only one word, something he had heard before, something…Someone calling his name, but it sounded miles away, away from the thought destroying Pain that quickly consumed him. Gordon slipped to the ground, groaning, and shut his eyes, praying for the relentless assault to end, watching the light burn patterns into his eyelids as a sledgehammer lay siege to his head. Suddenly, it vanished. Nothing. No whispering voices driving him crazy, no sledgehammer into his skull, it just vanished without a trace.

Gordon hesitantly opened his eyes, wincing at the light shining into his eyes, then lunged backward with a yelp. A Combine Elite soldier stared down at him, muttering gibberish, as Gordon swiveled his head around and screamed. A burnt and charred corpse stared at him from the ground, its mouth drawn out in a silent scream of death. A running zombie stood close to the corpse, moaning unintelligibly as it stared at Gordon with its massive head and frail body. Yet the worst stood in front of him. The Stalker reached out towards him, metal arms close enough to touch, its face horribly familiar but dreadfully altered and twisted, perverted to become a literal tool and nothing else, stripped to the irrefutable core. He yelled again and scrambled up from the ground, hand naturally reaching for his crowbar.

He had faced these things before and they scared him, but now they filled him with a complete and utter terror. He couldn't think, he could barely breathe, his throat was so constricted-The Stalker reached out again, murmuring, its dead metal mask seeing nothing, yet Gordon backed up, his eyes so wide and the pupils so dilated they resembled fish eyes. The terror was overwhelming, he felt-he KNEW-he was about to die, his heart was pounding like a racehorse. He knew he was going to die, but even through the terror destroying his mind, he had one quality that would never be driven out of him. He wouldn't go down without a fight. His only regret, being his last sensible thought, was that he had never said goodbye to his family.

Adrian Shephard

He had once seen someone go bat-shit crazy after taking a shot of heroin, he later heard, when he was sixteen. The man across the street had started attacking a lamp post for no reason, eyes red and terrified, completely unreasonable, screaming the entire time, even when the police arrived. He only stopped when the police tasered him, for they were given no other option to subdue the violent and terrified drug addict. Now, Gordon Freeman beat the record of, 'Highest and most terrified person I have ever met.' The orange-clad man was crouching in front of a wall, switching his terrified gaze between him and Alyx and the doc and Calhoun. When Alyx had asked him what was wrong when he had dropped Calhoun, the guy started screaming in terror, before pulling out his crowbar. It reminded Adrian of a cornered animal.

Whatever had happened to him, Adrian needed to make sure neither of them was seriously injured. This topic had only been briefly mentioned in training, and when asked, the instructor had replied,

"If you see an ally under the influence of something that renders them hostile and unable to think clearly, knock them out as quickly as possible." Not an ideal solution, and Shephard had gathered from the whispers he had overheard that Freeman was an extremely capable fighter, and not to be underestimated. Hell, anyone brave or stupid enough to single-handedly siege a massive alien citadel, AND survive AND win, was definitely not easy to take down. Adrian held his hands in front of him, preparing for the difficult fight ahead of him.

"Freeman, calm down. Put down the crowbar." At least he doesn't have the gun. Freeman's eyes held no logical thought, yet he paused briefly, before flinching back and holding his head in his hands, moaning unintelligibly. Adrian looked over to Alyx, who looked as confused and as scared as he felt. Well, he wasn't scared about why Freeman had gone mental. Rather, for the unavoidable fight. He wasn't scared of fighting; it was just terrified people could be very vicious when fighting. Sergeant Halifax nearly lost an eye to a refugee in Iraq, because she was scared and thought he was coming to take her children and kill them.

"Vance," he looked over to Alyx.

"I'm going to need your help." She looked between him and Gordon, understanding entering her eyes.

"No. No. NO! You can't!" she exclaimed, eyes beginning to blaze with anger.

"Vance," he calmly stated, not taking his eyes off of Freeman,

"He isn't in his right mind, and the best way to help him is to knock him out quickly before he gets hurt or hurts someone. Besides-" Freeman suddenly stood up straight. His groans vanished and his eyes…oh Christ. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head. Adrian could see that he was still trembling, but everything else about him was mute. Cut off. Freeman's unseeing gaze focused itself on Adrian, and without any adieu, he shot towards him, much, MUCH faster than should have been humanly possible. Adrian stumbled back, his training taking over his movements and thoughts. Need to back up, he's too close, where's my gun-no, wait-shit- Freeman's crowbar-wielding hand swung towards him, with the business end pointed towards his face. He stumbled backward, hand reaching for his wrench. THWIP. Quickly Freeman slapped a hand to his neck and pulled out a thin needle, studied it for a few moments, then lunged for Adrian before stumbling and falling on top of Adrian.

Being caught by surprise, he grunted as Freeman's dead weight collapsed on top of him, struggling not to fall to the cold ice. Just as suddenly as the needle, an explosive bang shot through the cave, immediately followed by a shrieking cry of pain and anger, so loud the cave itself shook from the force of it. It quickly stopped, and a low crackle of electricity buzzed through the tunnel. Then he heard someone speak.

"Damn. They're getting harder and harder to spot." Adrian's ears were still ringing from the amount of noise assaulting him, and it took a moment for him to realize what the person had said. Long enough for someone to grab Freeman and hoist him off of the young corporal. He drew in a huge gasp of air, coughed a couple of times, and looked up. A middle-aged man in heavy winter clothing holding a pistol stared back. He looked roughly Calhoun's age, maybe a little older. Adrian could see a medic's armband circling his arm. Looking up ahead, he saw two more people, a young man and a middle-aged woman staring back. The woman was holding a strange sort of gun, and it took a few seconds for the gears in Adrian's head to turn. She must have tranquilized Freeman. The young man was holding a rifle; smoke was still rising from the barrel. Adrian turned his gaze downward and saw one of the most horrifying creatures he had ever seen. It was mostly white and grey, with a hole going through the middle of it. It wasn't bleeding, except for a small splatter of blue-white fluid. Instead, electricity jumped and crackled over the entire thing. Especially where metal had replaced flesh and bone. The thing had three legs, made of metal. But the head…where eyes had once been, only metal was there, covering it like a grotesque mask. When Adrian refocused his horrified gaze, it was made apparent what the thing had been. A raven, he thought with a shudder.

"Yes. The Drivers are everywhere around here. And they're still increasing." The older man said, his tone brisk and full of authority.

"Drivers?" Alyx asked shakily. The doctor replied,

"Yes. They drive you to insanity with enough exposure. You're lucky we heard the commotion so quickly. If he had remained under it's influence for another five minutes or so he would have been quickly on his way to insanity." Doctor Kliener suddenly spoke up.

"Will he be all right though? And we have another injured person who requires medical attention." This time the woman replied.

"Yeah, he'll be fine. Doc's patched up the people who have been caught by them plenty of times."

"Well, not plenty of times. Not enough to completely understand these new Nightmares," he replied.

"And we'll help your friend. Our new command post is right this way." He said as he pocketed his pistol and leaned down to turn Freeman over. When Freeman finally rolled over, the man let out a gasp, backing up unexpectedly. He tentatively asked,

"Gordon?" His sharp gaze threw itself to Alyx, who he assumed was the leader of the group.

"You have some explaining to do." She turned her hard gaze to him.

"And we will, once Barney and Gordon are ok. And how do you know him?" He didn't reply, instead hoisting up Freeman himself without any visible strain. The young man shouldered his rifle and jogged over to grab Calhoun. After a moments hesitation Adrian bent down to grab Calhoun's feet. The doc took a few steps towards the tunnel, then looked back, grimaced, and quickly said,

"The name's James Freeman. And we must go. The Combine will be looking further." And without another word he disappeared around the corner, followed closely by the woman who had pulled out a magnum. Adrian quickly tore his head to Alyx, who looked as confused and as startled as he felt. Then he hefted Calhoun.

"Let's go." And he began walking towards where the trio of people had disappeared. Alyx soon followed, confused and upset. Only Doctor Kliener remained where he was. Oh dear. He thought. Gordon won't be happy about this. And he set off towards the corner.

A/N I am so, so sorry. It has now been over a month, and I apologize for the long overdue chapter for taking so long to write. I hope I will do better for the next chapter, and I hope you guys understand. On a more positive note, a cover is now in the works! (Shoutout to Jee Zed of Mars). Also, for those of you who caught the slight easter egg, no, I don't own the name. It belongs to a certain morning breakfast choice who writes about apertures. It just feels like [redacted] could be a really good army drill sergeant. Anyway, trying not to steal, all rights belong to the creator, I have nothing but admiration for him, etc. Also, yes. Gordon has a brother. I wonder how they'll get along. Finally, try to guess where I got my inspiration for the new enemy. I think this will be pretty easy. Finally, again, I'm sorry about the late upload, I'll try to do better next time, and I'll see you all hopefully in a few weeks. Please R&R, and I hope you enjoyed. Best wishes!

-RRS-15