a sheep to lead the flock

escaped through a hole in the fence

He was only 22.

He was only 22 when the Black Mesa incident happened, he was only 22 when his entire crew died because they were sent to fight a battle they had no clue was even happening.

He was only 22 when he beat what was called the Gene Worm, and taken by a man in a suit who had been watching him for a few weeks even before that.

Corporal Adrian Shephard was only 22 when everything happened, and he was still only 22... he hoped.

The G-man. That was what Adrian called the man... thing... alien that took him after he beat that tentacled monstrosity. 

And then Adrian was put in the void, against the discretion of this guy's so-called "employers". 

So much for wanting action and adventure in the military. Sure, he got it in Black Mesa, but most of that was adrenaline-fueled and thoughtless action and adventure.

He isn't too sure how long he's been in this horrible void on the Apache helicopter, just that he knows it's been a long fucking time. And it seemed this G-man didn't know shit about humans either. He had to be informed by Adrian himself that humans needed food to live!

At least the food he was given was better than those MREs you had to eat during boot camp.

And anyways, Adrian supposed he found ways to occupy himself. He had managed to get all his military gear off (besides the gas mask, he could never take off the gas mask, the G-man appeared too frequently) and would set it up to pretend he was back on the Apache before everything went to shit, joking around with his buddies like they did before the helicopter crashed.

Sometimes he found that if the G-man came to visit him in a good mood, he could mention wishing he had something and the guy would mysteriously reappear a couple days later and talk about realizing he had extra of that thing. He got pencils and paper that way, so he also spent his time drawing.

At that moment in time he was drawing. He had started realizing that pretending he was talking to his squad buddies made him look like a crazy person when even the G-man gave him a weird look because of it. 

Little knew this of him, but Adrian Shephard (the one who still had dreams and hopes) liked to draw. He was an artist. He took art classes in middle school and highschool, and extra art classes outside of school where his foster parents could afford it or cared enough to sign him up. 

He was just mindlessly sketching, trying to find some way to pass the time before his next visit from the G-man. God, he was actually starting to look forward to those things. It was like he was Belle in the castle developing Stockholme syndrome for the goddamn Beast.

Well, it wasn't technically Stockholme syndrome, because this time he had a plan for what to do during this visit. 

See, he's seen the G-man come in and out of this Apache helicopter enough times to know how he did so. It was this odd portal-looking thing- it looked almost like a doorway with a green outline and green stars inside. Kind of an odd contrast to what he thought the G-man's magic color would be (blue) but whatever. 

Usually it closed as soon as the G-man stepped through it, but there was a tiny tiny window of time where it stayed open before closing. The G-man probably thought Adrian didn't notice it, but he did. He always did.

If he could just get to that portal and through it during that tiny window of time, without arising the G-man's suspicion, he could get out of here and to wherever the G-man went when he went through that portal.

Sure, he would have to hope the G-man didn't spot him and just bring him back, but that would be no biggie right? He had plenty of experience in having to evade enemies that were taller and stronger than him! Not bigger, though, Adrian definitely had more muscle than that twig.