My first fanfic ever!

I do not own Portal or anything from the Half-Life universe.

It was the day after she was released from Aperture.

The first day all she did was sit outside the shed, dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events and terrified it was all some cruel joke. Something that Chell had learned to never put past Her. So she sat on the ground with her back leaning against the gifted Companion Cube and looked around at her new surroundings. After about three quarters of an hour she realized that what she was looking at was indeed real, that she was now outside.

For the first time that she could remember, Chell cried.

She stayed the night next to the shed, cold, hungry, and frightened but still in too much shock to move. It was not until late the next morning that hunger and the need for shelter gave her a new willpower to keep going. She decided to take the Companion Cube with her. Though it would most likely slow her down, Chell just couldn't bring herself to abandon it. She walked for maybe an hour before reaching the edge of the wheat field, what she found surprised her.

A small town, or at least what was left of one. It was more like some odd complex of houses, a general store, and post office. She wondered if perhaps this is where many of the Aperture employees and their families used to live. The remains of the rusted fence surrounding it were hardly an obstacle yet somehow were still comforting to Chell. Signs of human life and one step closer to what she assumed was normal. She wasn't surprised to see the place abandoned, what with Her takeover of the Enrichment Center and all, but the place looked so decayed it reminded her very much of Aperture when she woke up that second time; just how long had she been down there?

The day after she was released from Aperture, Chell made camp in the least decayed looking of the houses.

She found a few cans of food, she had no idea how old it was but she was starving and that was all that mattered. What was left of the furniture was in ruins so she slept on the floor in a corner of what was once a living room. There was a basement that could provide more protection, but the thought of being underground again was terrifying to her. In Aperture she had been brave, she couldn't say fearless as she had been terrified the entire time, but she had been brave enough and strong enough to get through. But now that there was no immediate threat of death, no direct set of instructions on how to survive, she felt less of a lion and more of a mouse. But the goal was still the same, to survive. So if anything she had that. She also had the Companion Cube, which again she fell asleep next to; it acting as her own silent night watch. Turns out the canned food was not a good idea, the next day she was as sick as a dog.

Having food poisoning on any day, anywhere, is terrible. Having food poisoning in an abandoned town with no access to running water or medicine was outright retched.

That evening, weak and tired, she found a small patch of potatoes in an old garden of another house. She laughed, her voice cracked and odd from disuse, and peeled one to nibble on. The day after that she found a large pond, having learned her lesson from the canned food Chell made sure to light a fire and boil the water before drinking it.

Chell told herself that as soon as she was well again then she would be on her way. She had to find civilization, she had to find people.

That evening, sitting by a small fire in the house she had first found, the cube began singing. It was the same song sung by the other cubes back in Aperture, tiny and sweet; Chell could only fathom why the cube was to suddenly start singing but the sound was comforting, and that night was the easiest so far that she had slept.

The next day she feasted a breakfast of more potatoes and began to explore the town, she needed supplies, and she needed answers. She had hoped perhaps for an old newspaper or even better a place with working electricity. Even better than that, people. But nothing, she did find however a wild growth of plants in another backyard that must have been at one time a vegetable garden. In another house, an old cast iron pot; in a rotted kitchen cabinet and protected from the elements just enough. To her absolute delight, that evening Chell had vegetable soup. It was more like hot water with vegetables floating in it, but there was something incredibly comforting about it.

Even in its most basic form, soup is always a comfort.

Chell fell asleep again that night to the Companion Cube's singing.

The next day Chell discovered the large pond held fish. Also, somewhere in the recesses of a long forgotten past, apparently Chell had been taught how to fish. The day after that she began contemplating moving on, finding civilization and finally ending this nightmare once and for all.

Two weeks later Chell still had not left.

She had however finally taken to sleeping in the basement at night. One night Chell awoke in a panic at the sound of tap- tapping on concrete. A deer had wandered into the house, it was just a deer nothing more. But still Chell had been unnerved and more than ever painfully aware how unprotected she was. There were other things that also prompted this move.

The first was the discovery of a field of solar panels on the other side of the hill that bordered one side of the town. They were all carefully maintained, their wires practically humming with electricity. This must be how She kept Aperture going, or at least one of several ways. Chell had come to wonder how something as power needy as the Enrichment Center never attracted attention, now she knew how. She suspected there were other ways but the sign of Her use of solar panels gave Chell the realization of just how self sufficient the A.I. really was. Which would go with the other discovery Chell had made. On one end of the town many of the buildings looked completely destroyed, not by the wild hand of nature that had claimed so many other buildings, but these were in crumpled ruins. Scorch marks on the remains of walls, the rusted facemask of some kind of thing found under a rock. Chell had assumed that She was the reason the town had been abandoned, but now… what happened? What about the rest of the world?

The Companion Cube often went with her on excursions, sometimes it would emit cheerful little chirps or pure static, it had been a long while however since it had sung to her. For weeks it had been just the two of them and other then the deer and fish, no sign of any life at all.

One night Chell had a very horrible thought, what if she was just in one giant test chamber? What if She was just torturing Chell in a whole new way for Science?

Up to that point Chell's nights had been blissfully dreamless, but that evening Chell had a nightmare. She was back in the test chambers, the world was white panels and recycled air. A portal here and a portal there, an endless maze of mediocre test chambers. None of them were difficult; there were no turrets, no pits of acid, no threat of falling into an abyss. They were not complex nor too tedious. In short they were completely boring. Most importantly there was no sign of Her. Not her voice, her presence in the walls, nothing.

The next day Chell began preparations to finally leave.

The plan was to leave the day after, she was going to follow the road that lead out of town and hope that eventually she would find people. The idea of coming back into civilization was both exciting and terrifying all at once. But to not be alone anymore, to not become increasingly paranoid that she was still testing, it was worth it.

That evening something came.

Or rather several somethings. Chell was already down in her basement when she heard the sound of stamping feet above her, was it people? Chell stood up and looked at the ceiling, she contemplated going upstairs to see but something didn't seem quite right. Her instincts were screaming at her to not go up there, to hide. If there was one thing Chell knew best, it was to always trust her instincts.

Picking up the Companion Cube Chell walked over to the wall where the was a small grate. Perhaps the previous owners of the house were even more paranoid than she was but none the less she had never been so thankful for paranoia, for a panic room.

Pulling the grate off the wall Chell was just able to fit in the Companion Cube and crawl in herself. She reached out and pulled the grate back in place then grabbed the rotten piece of plywood that covered up her side. The room was tiny, as if it was once a small closet that had been walled over to convert into a panic room. Inside was a few cans of food, her own rations, and a molded old blanket that created a terrible smell. There was also an old flashlight but the batteries had long ago corroded leaving Chell in utter darkness save for the dim light that was always emitted from the cracks between the Companion Cube's panels.

Chell sat and listened to the sounds of many marching feet above her. Soon came the sounds of breaking glass and unearthly shrieks that chilled her to the core. There were small explosions and the sound of crumbling buildings, plaster dust rained down on her head forcing Chell to repress a fit of coughing. There was the sound of creaking floorboards suggesting someone was coming down the stairs, to the basement.

Chell grabbed the old blanket and covered the Companion Cube, quieting its tiny light and listened to the sound of one pair of boots walking into the basement. The room was thankfully bare meaning there was nothing for whoever it was to search but it still felt like an eternity before it finally left. When it was all over and the sounds of marching feet finally had past, Chell let out a small sob and hugged the Companion Cube tight.

It was even longer after that when the cube began singing.

Chell spent the night in the panic room, leaning against a wall with her arms wrapped around a singing cube, the little heat it emitted being like a small fire for her. As Chell finally dozed off in her half awake state she thought the song changed. It sounded the same but now instead of some strange humming it was words. The words of a very. Very familiar song.

The next day Chell refused to leave the basement, worried that whatever it was last night would come back. That evening the Companion Cube started singing again, something that Chell had become very greatfull for. Some time later she awoke again to a cube still emitting noise, only it wasn't singing. Often the Cube would emit nothing but static from its tiny speakers, why Chell did not know but it was doing that right now. She was about to go back to sleep however when the sound changed. It was still static, only now there was something else, like a radio transmission that struggled to get through. Listening very closely Chell could actually hear someone speaking. It sounded like… it sounded like….

No.

Chell jumped up and ran to the panic room, reaching in to grab the rusted old toolbox she had found. Bringing it over to the Companion Cube She sat down and by the dim light of the cube's core set to work on prying off one of its panels. The static grew louder as if panicked, the transmission more garbled and difficult to understand. Chell pulled off one of the heart panels and with a startlingly loud beep the static cut out.

There it was.

The next day, after nearly a month, Chell left the house.

Around her many buildings had been destroyed, as if they had simply been in someone's way so they were knocked down. She walked past it all. She walked on out of the town, the Companion Cube tucked under her arm. She walked on back into a sea of wheat. She walked farther still until she reached an old shed, the elevator arriving as soon as she opened the door. Above she was afraid and alone, uncertain of everything and hiding. But down here. Down here she had faced countless dangers and dealt with the scariest thing that could be offered, twice, and walked away.

She was not afraid.

The elevator took Chell straight into GLaDOS' chamber, the A.I. blank and watching. The two stared each other down daring the other to break the silence first, a stalemate.

Between Chell's filthy and starving appearance, and a Companion Cube with one panel gone exposing the tiny microphone and camera; both had a great deal of explaining to do.