Subject 3281; Chell's Story

Their Penultimate Peril

The period of time that Subject 3281 underwent before her feet touched down at the other side of the chamber was endured with even breaths—well, they were breathed as evenly as one can breathe while hurtling through the air at a ridiculous speed; aware of the fact that at any second you may crash into something, fall, and dissolve in a pit of deadly acid—and making herself as small and vertical an object as possible. This span of time couldn't have lasted more than three seconds, but the girl still let out a little huff of relief when she felt her feet and legs skid across a hard surface—a surface that was definitely NOT deadly goo—and when the rest of her body soon fell to skidding across with it.

As soon as the girl had stopped moving, she opened her eyes—she had screwed them shut just before her boots had connected with the Faithplate, you see—lifted herself onto her elbows, and surveyed her surroundings. Her lips tightened in spite of herself. The boy had placed his portal beautifully; not in the largest areas so as to avoid hitting the Faithplates, and not too far to the right so as to avoid the standing finger button—that definitely would've been a nasty thing to hit. In fact, it looked as if he had placed his portal right smack-bang in the middle of the wall; almost as if he had beed showing off.

An absurd wave of pride threatened to compromise her cool reserve, and Subject 3281 fought to keep her emotions in check. This is the time for testing, she reminded herself for what seemed like the millionth time, not feeling. You can feel when this is over, yeah? Not now; remember, when this is over, not now.

With that thought still fresh in her mind, the girl put her emotions aside. After this test she could congratulate or even thank her partner, but now was indeed the time for concentration; she had a rather shot to make.

The girl looked over to the boy across the way. He was still standing where she'd left him—just beneath the portal he had shot on the wall behind him—and, she imagined, wearing the exact same expression of wariness she had left him with as well.

The girl let out an almost imperceptible huff of exasperation. Of all the stupid times for him to misunderstand why I'm acting like this, this is by far the worst. He doesn't understand, and that's bound to lead to trust issues. It was true, of course—the boy not being as likely to trust her now—she could see it plain and simple in his actions; the stiffness of his back as he turned away from her, the measured manner of his steps, and the thing that spoke of his mistrust and resentment even more than those; the fact that he hadn't even asked her if she was okay after she had skid across the rough, dark-tiled ground beneath her. He was slipping away from her, she could feel it; moving further and further into himself as he moved to stand in front of the launcher.

Subject 3281 swallowed, and army-crawled her way nearer to the edge of the platform she had landed on in order to get a better position to shoot from. With a bit of maneuvering—and a whole lot of reshooting—the girl managed to replace her partner's blue portal at the top of the launcher with her own yellow one. Her lips tightened ever so slightly. Now, she thought, repositioning herself so she could get a better look at the violet portal on the wall before her, the pressure is on.

The pressure—to her intense relief—didn't stay on for very long.

In fact, she realized, a touch of relief coloring her thoughts for an instant, the pressure had never really been on for her at all! All she had to do to guarantee her partner's safety—as well as the completion of the test—was to place her darker portal atop his. Subject 3281 could have scolded herself for being so nearsighted and melodramatic, but she didn't; there wasn't time for it, now.

As the girl placed her red-orange colored portal atop her partner's violet-indigo one, she saw the boy look up into the portal she had placed between himself and the emancipation grill. A wave of nausea seemed to hit him rather suddenly, as he staggered back a pace, hand pressed to his stomach, and sat down rather abruptly a few steps away from the contraption that would bring him to the exit.

The girl's brow furrowed slightly—whether out of concern for the boy or frustration at his uncooperative actions even she couldn't tell. This picture reminded her very much of something that had occurred at the beginning of their partnership; the boy faced with an element which required him to put his trust her, he refusing to participate, and finishing it all off by sitting down with his head between his legs like a frightened child.

But that's not how that had scene ended, was it?

"Hey," she had said the word without even thinking about it—and she hadn't even said it very loudly at that—but her monosyllabic call brought the boy's head up in an instant. The words of that day in the Trust Training room came back to her.

"I won't fail. You don't have to trust me, I don't have to trust you; but we both have to get through this test. Understood?"
It might have been her imagination—except for the fact that Subject 3281 didn't have much of one—but she thought she could discern a ghost of a smile playing across the face of the boy across the way.

It took about a minute after that for the boy to actually work up to the mighty task of standing up, but when he had managed that—albeit on rather unsteady legs—he turned once again to his partner, and spoke in a voice that made both his apprehension and determination quite clear.

"I don't know if I'm being stupid to trust you," he began with an air about him as if he were giving a speech, "and I'm pretty sure what I'm about to do could be considered mad, or even suicidal. Especially," he continued with a quiet snort, "given what I know about your changeable and removed character. But I... I've chosen to trust you despite all of this, because if I know one thing, just one thing, it's this; testing keeps you alive, and you need me to keep testing.

"Just be a decent human being and do one thing for me," the boy said, apparently wrapping his little speech up for the time being, "keep your promise. Don't fail, '81. Please just don't fail." Subject 3281 looked him strait in the eye and gave him one full solemn nod of her head before scooting a little bit closer to the edge in order to give him some more space to land well.

His piece said and his mind apparently at rest, the boy turned away from his partner, muttered something under his breath—most likely, "Here goes," or something of the sort—and walked strait onto the Faithplate in front of him.

His flight started out well; he had flown from the portal with all of the requisite force behind him, but he showed none of the planned poise or peace of mind Subject 3281 had demonstrated. Quite the opposite, in fact; the boy seemed determined that none of his limbs were to touch the rest of his body as he sailed through the air, flailing around as if swimming half-mad through shark-infested waters.

The girl watched this in abject horror as the boy began to pass between the pillars before him and a realization struck her.

The only reason I got through those pillars, she realized, her eyes growing wider by the second, is that I kept myself calm and my arms and legs tucked in; but with the way he's going, he'll be lucky if he makes it halfway before hitting one of those pillars! A shout was just beginning to form on her lips when—

Cri-screeeep

—one of the heels of the boy's flailing Longfall boots caught halfway on one of the pillars that he had half-left behind him, robbing him of most of his momentum, and turning his—already rather awkward and graceless—flight into a sort of forwards-fall that was sure to end shortly, and not very agreeably.

The girl could see her partner's eyes widen and his mouth open in a soundless scream as he realized what had just happened, and he began to fall, arms outstretched, into the pit of no return.