Author's Note:

Alright, lets just say that I have no plot line whatsoever at this point, just setting up an introduction which includes my take on what Chell is up to after leaving Aperture. I am trying to be as realistic as possible. I really don't want to make it cheesy, so here is my attempt at submitting my very first fanfiction. I hope you guy's like it.

Everyday, Since Leaving

Prologue

It was a cold day, and there was still no sign of shelter in the immediate area. The wheat grasses had turned a dull gray instead of their usual golden hue and the overcast sky blended evenly with it at the horizon. It seemed as if she were walking into an infinite landscape with infinite gray and an expanse of nothingness in every direction.

Funny.

It matched her mood perfectly.

Where was she to go? Not back to that damned facility, where her life had been hanging by the narrow thread which was the whim of any AI that took control. And now that her life was hers to control, there was no point. What was her survival for? There was no one else! No one! She had been wandering past settlement after settlement seeing nothing but the evidence of a rushed abandonment of the area. She closed her eyes and could almost picture what had occurred in each town, but what happened? What were they running from?

Too many questions!

She had no idea even how much time had passed since she had been put into cryo. She couldn't exactly ask back at the facility, the words could never form themselves in her throat. She was either born that way, or it was a side effect from her long sleep. How many years does it take to max out the internal clock in the Aperture Science Relaxation Chambers? How many hundreds? Thousands?

No!

Stop thinking!

There was too much going on at Aperture to think about the long term. She was either running for her life through the various catwalks of the mausoleum or risking it theory after theory during her time in the test chambers. There was no time to philosophize about what had happened to the world during her absence from its surface. Had she been here before? If she had, there was no memory of it whatsoever. Brain damage or no, she had no idea. It was not familiar. There was no recalling of anything before her testing with GLaDOS. So the scientists must have done something. Because there had to have been a life for her before, she was 23!

Who had obviously grown since then? She had tried to put her upper jumpsuit back on due to the recent cold weather, but the sleeves were a bit short. It was better than nothing, but it made her wonder. Did the amount of time she slept in cryo affect her body composition, as if it were rebounding after years and years of stasis?

OH wouldn't the scientists just love testing that? She mouthed the words laughing as she shook her head at the sky. So that's why GLaDOS kept insinuating that she was fat.

She crossed her arms to shield herself from the biting cold, continuing her brisk walk over the flat plains. She assumed that she was walking in a strait line, since the setting sun stayed at her direct left-hand side. The pink-orange colored dot in the sky was easy to see through the clouds, thank goodness. Without it she would have had to sleep here for the night. Up ahead a few miles there must definitely be something, she just knew it.

The intuition that had taken over her body and will as a wave of adrenaline and determination at the scientific institution was back. There was no way she would have been able to navigate Aperture if it wasn't for her instinct. The relief that had washed over her as the elevator opened to reveal the sunny atmosphere of the natural world was enough to bring her to her knees. She remembered a hissing noise, as the processed air that she would have been breathing for the rest of her life in that sterile white laboratory, collapsed with that of the organic environment. To her surprise the scorched and abused companion cube was tossed out the shaft after her. But soon found that without the hand-held portal device, she could not carry the cube for very long. Thankfully GLaDOS had left her with the long fall boots, which she wouldn't have been able to walk her first mile without.

Knowing that it was slowing her down she had left the cube at the first settlement she had reached, underneath a large oak tree, where dark green grass sprouted underneath it. It was beautiful place, really, but she couldn't stay. Chell had to see more, and nothing could hold her back.

Her cloud-gray feeling of loneliness propelled her.