Portal ONE-SHOTZ \\ READER INSERT

009 :: EERIE LEERING (P2)

Again, this is a reupload, except
I finished the end! I wonder
who we'll meet in the
next chapter, it shouldn't be
too hard too guess 👀

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1.1k Words | 13-03-23 | - 009
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And yet, you laid there, freezing in the pitch black. You felt like a ghost when you had barely opened your eyes to oblivion, merely ajar, you saw nothing but a gleam of light in your peripheral vision.

You could feel a chill in the air, it was crisp, though, felt stagnant to breathe in. There was a smell of motor oil lingering about as well.

The same light flickered, you turned your head on the graveled ground. It felt sore as you strained it, looking to your side.

There laid the flashlight you had brought along with you, barely working, but still producing a strong illumination against the gritty underground environment.

You urged yourself to get up, using sore arms to push your upper body from the floor. It took a moment to get fully back onto your feet as you opted to lean into the poorly tiled wall.

You carefully pulled up sleeves to check for any further injury you could've made along the way. And while you had some major bruising, and a few gashes deeper than you'd like, not yet a sign of anything broken.

Struggling to keep on the wall very long, you leaned down to grab the flashlight. It seemed to get even dimmer, you shivered.

Slowly, you guided the light throughout your surroundings, debris crunched underneath your shoes as you staggered upon another wall.

The luminescence shown every crack and crevice in the walls, the nonexistent ceiling, and exactly where you must've fell from above. The elevator from before was leaning onto the metal frame of it's interior, the left cable must have snapped entirely as it hung overhead, wedged in the roof and left immoveable.

The elevator's wooden floor must've caved through before you hit the bottom, you plunged into a mound of what appeared to be melted rubber and a mix of silt and gravel.

Moving the flashlight to your right, you saw that beside you was a vent covered in lichen, it had been previously unscrewed and looked large enough to fit within. You crouched down carefully, glaring into the darkness beyond the ducts.

You contemplated your choices for a short amount of time, considering you only had one option and that was to go through them. You were nearly caged in by your surroundings and large debris blocked any other nearby passages.

Inside the ducts, air proved to be even more stagnant, while toxic fumes likely emitted from within them. You held your breath and slowly hunched through the opening.

As you crawled along, the smell did not improve, although the temperature did, the walls of the ducts were seemingly warmer upon entering.

...

For quite a while there wasn't much to hear, nor see. For the number of minutes you were inside the air ducts you would have expected to be somewhere by now. You passed by a few other vents that led into dark, murky rooms, but other than that, there wasn't a way you could unlatch or unscrew the framing.

After taking a rough left turn, you noticed a dim light at the end of the vents. You had turned off your flashlight to preserve the remaining power and picked up your pace the best you could.

Eventually, you made through the airway, you found the specific vent that must've been weaker than the others, it showed further deterioration and had a few vines intertwining with the grates. You peeked through.

The inside interior was covered in a off-white tile, specked with grime and dents. Among it grew all forms of foliage and mosses.

There were pieces of scrap but nothing as bad as the room you had originally been in. This time, the corridors were passable.

Looking around inside, you were hoping to have luck with kicking out the frame. You positioned yourself, reclined, with legs in front of you and gave it a quick, tough kick. The frame flew outward and hit the tile, chipping it.

Your legs, in an even more sore state, aching as you tried to roll out onto the floor. You sighed out of exhaustion.

For a moment, as you look up at the ceiling, where the single light hung, you felt discouraged. Your whole body was racked with discomfort, and small bursts of adrenaline that would never last.

You knew you had to get moving again soon though. You had your mind deadset on finding somebody else in this underground hellscape. There had to have been another person down here at some point as you considered the unscrewed vent from earlier. Could've been from years prior, although it gave you a reason to keep going, for now.

After another moment's silence, you steadily got back onto your feet again, studying the environment around you.

There were a couple of passages, both were weakly lit, yet you could still see well enough down the hall to notice a large dumpster-like box with tubing hanging above it. It must have dropped waste at some point, not anymore though, as the dumpster had overflowed since then.

As you walked into the chamber, the smell of rot had resurfaced almost instantly. The curiosity you once had diminished and you backed out of the decomp soaked room, coughing into your sleeve. The aggressive fumes caused your eyes to begin watering, through them, however, you spot something laying amidst the rubbish, a tool, but better yet, a weapon. It was a crowbar.

Without another undecided thought, you grab it before dashing out of the chamber, once out, you take a deep breath of less than fresh air. You managed to take a few steps further before collapsing to your knees as the crowbar falls next to you.

In constant state of growing exhaustion, you began pondering the idea of using it in combat, such as self defense, you'd hope graciously that would never be the case. More often than not, though, it was much better safe than sorry. You decided to put that idea in the back of your mind, nothing worth overthinking now.

You held the tool in your hand, it was heavy and cold to the touch, much like the temperature in the air. You latch the crowbar onto a piece of piping nearby, yanking yourself up onto your feet again and nearly stumbling while doing so.

With one last glance at the horrid and disease ridden room, you started your descent into the next chamber.