The storm loomed like a tidal wave: a monolith of sand that would've towered over the likes of even GLaDOS had she been present.

All tiny little Wheatley could do was watch helplessly through his stuck optic and brace himself for what was to come.

It hit him with indescribable force, screaming winds finally putting his audio feed out of its misery and forcing new sand into the few gaps that remained within his chassis. Still more was piling up and over him, as it had been since his landing, only now at a much faster rate.

Soon—within minutes—he would be buried completely.

Is this it…? He wondered. Is this how I die…?

Then, all of a sudden, the world turned off.

There'd been no warning, no fanfare, just 'blip' and everything was gone—desert and all.

Wheatley was dumbfounded.

The sand was gone, which in itself hardly seemed a bad thing, replaced by what he could only describe as a silent void.

Had he died…?

No, he told himself, how can I still think if I'm dead? I'm still here, still alive, more or less… Well, my mind is still here, I'm not so sure about the rest…

'MISSING INPUT', his console supplied.

Ah, so that was it, his optic had gone dead. Vision, offline. Not typically a good thing. He'd fiddle around a bit but his usual GUI wasn't running, and he wasn't exactly overly familiar with his console—yet another thing he'd been warned against messing with, or else he'd die.

It wasn't as if there'd been a whole lot to see, anyway.

Meanwhile, the storm raged on—or didn't—how should he know?

Well, that's just great! I'm stranded in the middle of nowhere on some god-forsaken planet, and now I'm broken! What am I supposed to do now?!

The answer withheld itself, a punctuated silence that somehow screamed "Nothing, that's what! You're just going to sit here and continue to think about what you've done, like always!"

Or maybe that was the void itself, sending him on another guilt trip. Brilliant! Add that one to the pile! He could just hear Her now…

Look at you, sitting there in the dirt like a piece of litter. She'd probably say something like that. Try and hack your way out of this one—oh! That's right, you can't, because you ARE a bloody hack!

He tried to think of a good comeback—a real zinger that would put Her in her place—but who was he kidding? If there were a more compromising position than the one he found himself in right now, he didn't know it. He had nothing. No Aperture engineer or repair technician to fix him, no lady to carry him, and certainly no legs to carry himself…

…but his train of thought promptly derailed when he felt himself suddenly yanked upward.