Second Chances (Chelley)

A Second Chance at Escaping.

She'd had her second chance at escaping from that place, and luckily, that's all she'd needed. She didn't have to tell Chell twice.

"Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one. And let's face it. Killing you? Is hard. So you know what? You win! Just get out."

And with that, she did. She got out, and she never looked back ever again. Never, under any circumstances, would she ever go back to that place. Even the fields surrounding the shed made her shiver as she passed. There was nothing that would make her go back. Because if she went back, then she would want to think about him. And that, on its own, was dangerous.

Outside, it stormed. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and the floor shook slightly with the wind. Inside, she laid in her bed with a pillow over her head, but she couldn't fall asleep. Something was keeping her awake. She knew what it was, but quickly Chell blotted out that voice in her head and tried to drift off. As her digital watch beeped midnight, she squeezed her eyes shut and sighed in irritation.

Four.

0--0--0--0--0

I-, this is bloody ridiculous! I could barely walk 3 hours ago, this is hardly fair! To me! I mean, I understand that She isn't really into the whole, uh, fair thing, but, I-I guess it isn't much more than I deserve. Not any more than I deserve, really--is it? No. I had this coming to me, really.

His thoughts were just as all over the place as his usual rambling. Not that he noticed a problem. Although, it was kind of difficult to solve tests if your mind tries to be everywhere at once.

"I can't give you the answer, moron, but I practically already have."

She sounded annoyed. Which never meant anything good. He'd been stuck on one particular test for quite a while, and she seemed to have grown impatient with him a long time ago already. If he could talk, Wheatley probably would have blurted something out about how the test was absolutely unfair and probably rigged, and how he, in fact, was not a moron, thank you very much. But, when he got right down to it, talking was a lot harder than it looked. And we hadn't really seen anyone do it before, either, so he was gonna have to figure it out on his own. Later, though--right now he had this stupid test to finish.

"I'm going to leave you to it. I don't have time to keep watching you fail when I could be doing more important things," Her voice echoed. And then, a short click of static, and She was gone. Wheatley was by himself, and the silence alone would kill him.

Wheatley hated the quiet. Too much quiet, he reasoned, would only make things worse. Not saying something or hearing something else could only be bad; take space for example. Those years (though he hadn't the slightest idea how many) were some of the worst in all of his memory. The deafening silence was horrible, wracked his brain with a non-stop channel of useless rabble and negative thoughts. The voices were enough just when he was still on Earth, but when he had no choice but to listen to them all, a cacophony of screaming voices hardwired into his systems, each reciting all the things he hated regarding himself and his actions--there were many things, he guessed many hundreds of things, that he hated himself for--he had declared that silence was definitely, undeniably bad. If he could talk over them, and not listen to his guilty conscience kicking him in the ass for everything, maybe he could actually think correctly for once. Unfortunately, he talked more than he breathed ninety percent of the time, so thinking about what he said before he said it wasn't really something he'd accomplished often. Until now.

Now, when he had no choice but to keep everything to himself and think about every little thing he did before he did it, he found that he was a lot more efficient, up until this test. Wheatley was starting to get about as irritated as She was, and eventually broke down into an emotional mess, right in the middle of the testing track.

I'm never getting out of this place, am I? Wh- really? Really, what's the chance? How did the lady stay so... so calm? About any of this?! And, most importantly, how did she manage?

Wheatley had only been testing for a little while, and he'd already nearly been shot down twice by turrets, almost fell into acid, and had gotten stuck between two portals one time too many (he was still a little nauseated from that experience.) She'd done all that and more with nothing but neurotoxin in the room, or while carrying him, or even while dodging bombs. On that topic...

Oh, yeah. Almost forgot about that--not! that I forgot about her, it just... slipped my mind for a bit. First time that's happened in a while. He sighed heavily, trying to keep his hair out of his face as he stared at the floor beneath him. I can't apologise enough for that, can I? Maybe she'll come and save me, and I'll have the chance...

The room groaned, machinery tired of never stopping for a break, always working. A lot like Her. Really, She wasn't just Her. She was the facility itself. Not just one who rules it, but Her very presence in the building, giving Her orders, made the facility Hers as well as it was Her, and She was it. And if She said the building would work, it would. She was so used to being obeyed that when the lady had murdered Her and escaped, and then helped to nearly do it again, She took extra precaution with the new subjects.

Wishful thinking, isn't it?

She had explained that the new subjects were starting to become boring as of late, due to the fact that they weren't... well, human enough. GLaDOS wanted a challenge. Like the lady had given Her. He hoped She never found her, for the lady's sake--the lady didn't deserve for her life to be ruined by some, insane computer, with a craving for something She'll never achieve--and he felt bad for wishing she'd come and save him. But he wasn't gonna get out at this rate. If he insisted on pretending the obvious was irrelevant and that he could achieve anything (some rubbish like that) then he figured he'd need to start acting now while She was gone.

At some point after She'd crushed him like an insignificant little insect, which wasn't that long after he'd found the lady, he remembered looking around in the insides of the testing walls for any sign of her. If he were going to escape, he needed the lady. She was the only surviving test subject that he knew of, and if She got to her before he could step in, they were both as good as dead. The memories were kind of fuzzy, but he did recall seeing quite a few rooms hidden behind the walls of the testing tracks. If he could just find one of those, he thought, he'd be golden. Or, if he couldn't find one, all he had to do was pry a few panels from the wall and follow the narrow path until he came across one. There, he could probably make his way out of the facility undetected, with some patience.

In the meantime, he started to try to pronounce his name.