Subject 3281; Chell's Story

The Sequence

As Subject 3281 opened her eyes upon waking the next morning, a motley of irrational emotions—she believed them to be mainly composed of embarrassment and fear—swept over her. Was the evidence of last night's breakdown still clear upon her face, and could the tracks of her tears still be seen upon her cheeks? Were her eyes red? Puffy? She seemed to remember, albeit rather vaguely, that one's eyes and face tended to retain evidence of tears at the most inopportune moments, and she feared lest her suspicion should become a reality.

Her partner really didn't need to see her like this. Not here, not now.

Nevertheless, she thought to herself, I need to get up sometime soon. The adrenal vapors have been pumped into the room, and, assuming we're being watched—as was, she believed, quite a likely thing—it'll look strange if I don't get up now. It was then that another thought, one that she hadn't entertained until now, hit her with surprising force. What if the people behind the wall had witnessed her tears the night before? A fresh wave of shame and absurd terror washed over her, though she couldn't put her finger on why she felt this way—that is to say, ashamed.

Why should I care what others think of me, she asked herself. Why should I need to hide my emotions so fiercely?

You don't, said her younger self; finally back, it seemed, from her absence the night before. You really don't, you know. You've always been rather secretive with your emotions, but that doesn't mean that hiding your feelings is a good or natural thing to pursue.

It does if I want to stay alive down here, she shot back. If I want to live, she continued, I must test, no matter what it does to me. I don't need to like it, I don't anymore as it happens, she thought with rather bitter undertones, but I still need to do it, and testing well requires me to possess little to no emotion. That's the only reason those nut-jobs in charge of running the Enrichment Center haven't killed me yet. I'm valuable. I'm different. I'm... I'm...

You're just a scared little girl with a mind full of scars, said the voice of days gone by, trying to forget her past, and to survive to see your future. The girl felt her lips tighten slightly.

She was pathetic.

A rustle of sheets behind her made her mouth relax into a more serious sort of frown once more. The boy, her partner, had apparently decided to start his day without awaiting her lead. Subject 3281 steadied her nerve, drew a cautious hand over her face, sat up, and—without turning to face the boy at her back—shoved her left arm into her schedule printer. With that done, she turned to strap on her Longfall boots, conscious of her partner's eyes upon her face.

After her boots had been sufficiently tightened, she turned her gaze to the boy before her. He was still staring at her, a mixture of shock and something else—possibly sadness?—clear in the very lines of his face.

Subject 3281 met his look with a scowl—an over-exaggerated one for her, in fact—and made as if to stand, but something in her legs didn't seem to want to co-operate.

In an instant, the girl found herself falling, arms outstretched. Just as it looked as if she was going to hit the ground, reopen the cuts on her hand and sprain her wrists, she felt her partner's strong, able hands alight under her arms to steady her. As soon as she realized that she was not indeed going to fall, she felt her partner take hold of her right arm, and didn't protest as he helped her to her feet.

"Well," he said with a slight—and was that look pitying?—smile, "I guess those trust fall exercises really paid off, huh?"

The girl replied only by yanking her arm free of his over-large hand, and giving him one, sharp nod. She might have thanked him, but the almost tangible pity in the eyes of the boy that towered nearly a foot and a half over her head silenced any thanks she might once have bestowed upon him. The boy looked down, and a pang of something—guilt, she believed—seemed to hit her square in the chest. She brushed it aside as best as she could, though traces of the insufferable emotion seemed quite insistent on staying and tormenting her.

No matter, she thought as she stepped to the room's chamberlock. We'll be testing soon enough, and the boy won't hold my silence against me. He never has. At that thought however, no matter how consolatory it had been originally designed to be, her guilt and shame returned; and indeed, with greater strength than before. Who was she to take advantage of decent people in this way? And, if she did insist on taking advantage of them, how was she any different from the people that had imprisoned them in the first place? How was she different from a criminal, or those looney Aperture Employees, or her birth father?

No, she thought, I. Am. Different. Her partner stepped up beside her, and the chamberlock opened into the previous night's sanitation facility, giving the girl an idea.

"At our current rate of testing," she said in a quiet, though nevertheless clear voice, "we can expect showers in about four days."

"Then we should pick up the pace," her partner said with a smile in his voice, "you stink, '81."

"Don't call me ''81.'"

Her partner sorted, and even the girl's lips tightened ever so slightly at the familiar rhythm of their little bantering comments. There, she thought to her younger self, happy now? The girl within her didn't reply, but Subject 3281 thought she could detect a note of satisfaction in not just the girl that she had been, but the woman she was becoming. The girl let this thought simmer within her as she relieved herself and washed her hands, arms, and face.

She was still contemplating this surprising new emotion-related development in the two's small, gently descending sleeping area, and suspected her mind would wander thither more than once during the course of their testing that day.

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