Chapter Text
The door closed behind Chell with finality. For a moment, she simply stood there, blinking in the bright sunlight, the golden sea swaying in front of her. The sky stretched on forever, blue and impossibly wide after years of artificial lights and sterile ceilings. She took a shaky breath, picked up the companion cube, and let the feeling of the weight of freedom settle on her shoulders. It was heavier than she’d imagined.
She started walking, letting the wind brush her face, the sun warm her skin. Each step felt like a victory, a quiet rebellion against the endless tests and the cold, mechanical voice that had haunted her for so long. She didn’t look back. Aperture no longer had control over her; all that was left of that were memories she’d rather leave buried beneath concrete and steel.
At first, everything was exhilarating. The world was alive in a way the underground never was. She marveled at the way the light shifted through the leaves, at the sound of birdsong—real birds, not the distant echo of speakers or the hum of machinery. She found a stream and drank until her stomach ached, splashed water on her face, and laughed at the sensation.
But as the days passed, the novelty faded. Hunger started to gnaw at her, a slow, persistent ache. She searched for food, scouring the ground for berries, digging through the underbrush for roots. Sometimes she found mushrooms, but she hesitated—her memory was very patchy, and she couldn’t recall which were safe. She settled for edible-looking roots, plants, and fruits.
But it was not enough, and desperation pushed her to try hunting. She stalked anything that looked large enough to fill her aching stomach, rabbits, birds, even the occasional deer glimpsed through the undergrowth. More often than not, her attempts ended in failure: a thrown rock missing its mark, a makeshift snare tripped but empty, a startled animal vanishing before she could get close. Only rarely did luck favor her—a stunned bird, a rabbit caught by chance. Those small victories felt monumental, but they still were never enough. She decided to leave the companion cube behind so as not to waste energy carrying it.
Nights quickly became the hardest to bear. The darkness pressed in, thick and absolute, broken only by the pale glow of the moon. Sometimes so quiet that it managed to make her miss the hum of electricity and the soft whir of ventilation fans. Out here, every rustle in the grass set her heart racing. She slept fitfully, clutching a stick she’d sharpened with a rock, listening for anything that might approach.
She kept moving, hoping to find someone, anyone. Civilization, a town, a single house with a light in the window. But all she found were ruins. Crumbling buildings, their windows shattered and doors hanging open, streets choked with weeds. She wandered through the remnants of what must have once been a town, her footsteps echoing in the empty silence.
It wasn’t entirely silent, though. Sometimes, she heard strange, guttural noises that made her skin crawl. The first time she saw one of the creatures, she froze. It was nothing like the turrets or robots she’d faced underground. This thing was alive, twisted and wrong, its movements jerky and predatory. Her memories from before Aperture may be blurry and half-formed images, but she was certain these things hadn’t existed on the surface then. She ran, heart pounding, ducking through alleys and over broken fences until she was sure whatever it was had lost track of her.
Among the ruins, she found an old backpack, a battered thing with damaged straps and some holes, but the zippers still somehow worked, so she slung it over her shoulder with a sense of triumph. It felt good to have something useful, something that was hers.
Another problem on the surface was that the weather was relentless and unpredictable. One day, the sun beat down with relentless heat, and then a few days later, a snowstorm would whip through the empty streets, leaving her shivering and cold. Then rain would come in sudden, violent bursts, turning the ground to mud and soaking her to the bone. She learned to catch the early signs to have time to find shelter wherever she could: inside a rusted car, in the shadow of a partly collapsed wall, or inside what was left of a building, hoping that the weather would improve soon.
While she kept searching in ruins, the creatures kept coming. She tried to move quietly, to listen for the telltale sounds of their approach. She scavenged for anything she could use to defend herself: a length of pipe, a shard of glass, a rusted screwdriver. It took almost getting cornered one day for her to decide to make a proper weapon. Piece by piece, she fashioned a crude axe, inserting the crude blade made from a broken but sharp sheet of metal into a strong beam of wood she found. It was heavy and awkward, but it made her feel safer.
Sometimes, when the wind howled and the cold seeped into her bones, when she did not manage to gather enough food, or when she slept with an eye open, waiting for a creature to attack, she thought about going back. It would be so easy to retrace her steps, find the door, and beg GLaDOS to let her in. But the memory of that final conversation made it clear that GLaDOS did not want her back. And Chell still refused to give up the freedom she’d fought so hard to win, even if it wasn’t nearly as nice as she hoped.
So she pressed on, walking and exploring, but barely moving farther from Aperture as if she still wanted to make sure that she could go back if needed. So she kept moving, driven by a stubborn determination to survive on her own terms.
Despite her determination, she had no idea what she was looking for. Maybe a sign of life, a flicker of hope in the emptiness. Maybe just a place to rest, to catch her breath and remember what it felt like to be human. Whatever it was, she would find it. She had to. The world was vast and empty, but she refused to give up.
As she trudged onward, she crested a hill and gazed at an enormous building made of concrete, with a big hole in the middle, and despite being far away, she could clearly see that inside the enormous building, there seemed to be a very small town and a heavily damaged but unmistakable logo. The logo of the company that had made her life a nightmare.
Chell stood for a minute at the crest of the hill, the battered Aperture Science logo glaring at her from the distant building. Every instinct screamed at her to turn around, to walk away, and pretend she’d never seen it. She could vanish into the wild again, lose herself in endless fields and ruined towns, and never think about that name or that place again.
She told herself she should do just that. Just leave.
But her feet betrayed her. One step, then another, and soon she was descending the slope, heart pounding in her chest. She tried to rationalize it—maybe she’d find food, or shelter, or something useful in the ruins. But she knew the truth: she was drawn to the building by something deeper, something she didn’t want to admit.
To be honest, she was drawn back by the promise of having a purpose or goal again. If there was one thing on the surface that was worse than anything else, it was the lack of an attainable goal. Instead of knowing what she needed to do to reach her goal and using her determination to make it happen, she spent days just surviving while searching for something that she was now sure no longer existed.
She claimed the ruins of the enormous building while the wind picked up, tugging at her hair and the straps of her backpack. When she finally made it to the small town, it became apparent that it was only a small cluster of buildings that looked fake. Doors hung crooked on their hinges, windows were little more than empty frames, and weeds grew tall in the cracked pavement. It was clear, even from a distance, that this place had never been a real town, just a facade, a shell.
Except for the largest building at the center of it all, the structure loomed over the rest of the town, a hulking mass of concrete and steel. The Aperture logo was everywhere—faded on the walls, stamped on rusted doors, even etched on what was left of glass panels.
She walked towards the building and paused at the entrance, staring up at the familiar symbol. Memories flickered at the edges of her mind—test chambers, white walls, the voice that had guided and taunted her, the endless drive to reach the next goal. She realized, with a pang, the one thing she truly could not continue without: purpose. Out here, on the surface, she was just surviving, wandering from one ruined place to another with no end in sight. In Aperture, she’d had a goal, a reason to keep moving. Even if it had been forced on her, it was something.
She stepped inside.
The air was stale, thick with dust and the faint scent of mold. She found herself in a big room that probably served as a reception before quickly deciding to search elsewhere in the building. Her footsteps echoed through the empty halls. Shafts of sunlight pierced the darkness through shattered windows, illuminating piles of debris and broken furniture. The walls were lined with peeling posters and motivational slogans.
Chell moved cautiously, her axe gripped tightly in one hand. She explored room after room, finding nothing but decay. Desks overturned, papers scattered across the floor, machines long since dead.
She found herself drawn deeper into the building, past collapsed corridors and locked doors. The further she went, the more the place felt like a tomb, a monument to a forgotten era, haunted by the ghosts of experiments and ambition.
Eventually, she found herself in front of what was clearly at some point a door, but now looked like a wall that was falling apart. Drawn by curiosity and using her axe, she damaged the wall even more until it collapsed and revealed a pair of elevator shafts, although only one was present, which looked very old and rusty.
She approached the elevator, running her fingers over the cold metal. The elevator looked ancient, even compared to the rest of the building. There was no call button, but after searching for a while, she found the controls in an office nearby. She pressed the one that said open and then waited, half-expecting nothing to happen, but then the doors of the elevator slid open with a groan. She saw a switch marked as shaft gates and turned it to the open position. The gate under the elevator opened up.
She should leave. She should turn around and walk out, find somewhere safe to sleep, and keep moving. But she couldn’t convince herself to do it.
Instead, she decided to search the lobby for any clues about where the elevator led. At the end of the day, she should at least know where the elevator leads. She found old maps, directories, and documents, and although most were too faded or damaged to read, one battered document describing the closure of a section of the building caught her eye: “Direct Access—Aperture Science Lower Testing Sectors.”
Her mind raced. That definitely sounded like the part of the facility she traversed while with potato Glados.
Why was she even considering this? Why would she willingly go back underground, back toward the place she’d fought so hard to escape? Maybe she was crazy. Maybe the endless days of wandering and hunger and fear had finally gotten to her. But a part of her could not deny that maybe down there, she’d find more answers about what happened. Maybe she’d find purpose again.
At the end, she decided to compromise by telling herself that it was just curiosity. She’d go down, take a look, and if it was too dangerous or pointless, she’d come back up. It wasn’t like GLaDOS had control of those old sectors. Nothing would stop her from just going back to the elevator and getting back to the surface.
With that flimsy justification, Chell made her way back to the control room and found the button that would make the elevator move, which was connected to a set of convenient timers. Ignoring that detail, she set up a timer for two minutes and another one for two days just in case. She then pushed the button and made her way to the elevator.
A few seconds after she made it to the elevator, the doors slid shut behind her, plunging her into darkness. And as the elevator began its slow descent, Chell gripped the straps of her backpack and the handle of her axe, her mind swirling with doubt and anticipation. Because even if she refused to admit it, she knew deep down that doing nothing, wandering aimlessly, was worse than risking going down there.