There are two main types of insanity. You have the all-out completely random and potentially dangerous madman or madwoman, and the well-hidden, slightly abnormal, casual person who's just clever enough to actually pass as an everyday citizen of whatever city or town.

Chell, with her extreme stubbornness and calculating personality, was a mixture of the two.

She wasn't what you would call crazy, that is, unless you asked one of her enemies. She wasn't exactly brain damaged, either. She could hold a nasty grudge, wasn't too easily forgiving, short-tempered, and protective of her own well-being like anyone else. But she was still a lot more kind-hearted than any psychotic supercomputer addicted to testing and "Science".

She would seem perfectly normal to any onlooker that happened to also be trapped in the same underground facility. But unlike her appearance, her mind worked a lot differently than anyone else on earth. Her train of thought had been altered, adapted to the strange scenarios that occurred almost daily. Her thoughts moved surprisingly quick, she could solve any jigsaw puzzle or figure out any optical illusion within seconds. But that meant that emotions weren't easy to handle; emotions were long-lasting sensations that either sped up or dramatically slowed the brain's functions. She was immune to regret, invulnerable to sorrow. Anger or fear, however, caused adrenaline to pump through the body, quickening her actions. She valued fear, she lived off of her determined attitude and was constantly choked by rage at whatever happened to be on the opposing side.

But something had turned her whole mind around.

At first, she had planned on leaving him, abandoning him the moment she gained her freedom, to run away from everything that would remind her of Aperture.

Except, when he had freed her from the testing chambers, just before he had planned to come get her, she had reconsidered her thinking strategies.

It had been hard, her way of thinking had evolved into something anyone else could only dream of, and at first her mind had refused to let any jolt of worry for him shake her or a blaze of fury at whatever had hurt him ignite.

When She had crushed him with that claw, a little thank-you for waking Her up, not a drop of pity had been felt.

But what was this strange guilt, this saddening emotion that made her slower than usual? Shouldn't she feel angry? He had betrayed her! He deserved to die! They had a deal, wasn't he going to follow through? She should have never actually trusted him, it was a stupid thing to do on her part. Why had she actually believed he would be able to contain his lust for power?

But she didn't want to hurt him, and a part of her was truly shattered. Whenever she saw his metal face, his unnatural blue eyes gazing intently back at her through that screen, her heart seemed to drop a thousand feet below her, into an icy cold sea of saltwater. It stung, it burned, a strange feeling that she couldn't identify.

Perhaps this was her insanity finally strengthening, maybe his rambling had somehow caused the madness she held in her heart to become a raging inferno of complete delusion.

That must be it, that had to be why she felt so sorrowful when she heard his usually nervous voice twisted into some kind of almost desperate wail that disguised itself as a casual comment or an angering insult.

But, as his eyes narrowed in frustration now, his calm blue pupils transformed into almost white pinpricks, all she could feel was a strange emptiness.

"Well? Aren't you even going to try?" he hissed through gritted teeth.

She gripped the portal gun tighter, if that was even possible, and looked around the room once more.

The walls glistened with a clean surface that was almost impossible to obtain unless it had never been touched, which it hadn't. Panels of both white and dark gray made up the floor, walls, and ceiling of the chamber, but in such an odd formation that is would be easy to just look at it forever, thinking about what went where and why.

Chell, being experienced with identifying an easy test from a difficult one, looked back at the large monitor, giving him a familiar determined but confused expression.

The potato battery stuck on the end of the portal device remained silent, probably trying to find a way to even reach the door that remained teasingly open at the other side of the room.

"Oh, come on! It's not bloody impossible, you've done things at least ten times more complicated than this before, just figure it out, for god's sake!"

Her own gray eyes were reduced to annoyed slits as she tried to tune out his progressively maddening voice.

"It's perfectly obvious! Just solve it! We don't have all day! Well, we do, but that's no reason you should stand around just staring! You-"

He cut off abruptly as a wicked smirk spread across his face.

"Ah, clever, clever girl. You almost had me tell you how to solve it! That won't happen, I can assure you. You have to figure everything out. I already know how to finish it, I bloody built it! Remember the last test? That was harder than this, I swear! So you should have no problem finishing this, just place a portal here and there, and there you are! Just do that, won't you?"

His voice wasn't irritated, nor pleading. Just a calm remark that made Chell wish she could hit him straight into next week. But, considering where she was, that wasn't going to happen.

The potato's bright orange "eye" flickered for a moment, as if deep in thought, then its yellow glare strengthened.

"You'd better believe once I get back in my body-" it's sentence ended, incomplete, with an unsettling crash-like sound.

Chell sighed. No matter how much she knew that she couldn't defeat him without the complaining vegetable, there was always a spark of regret for even taking it with her. It had proved to be a thoughtful companion, but it wasn't exactly a friendly one.

"Reactor core unstable. Please attend to the required needs of the core," an expressionless recording droned somewhere in the background of his chamber, just barely audible through the low-quality recorders he spoke through.

He screwed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, listening, a very annoyed look on his face.

He raised his head again, looking quite mad, and shouted, "SHUT UP!".

Chell rolled her eyes, unamused by his loud retorts at the warnings, and stepped forward, trying to get a closer look at the testing chamber.

The white panels were placed in the most random of spots, but they all seemed purposely stationed in the most useless of areas. Several just above a deadly pool of brown sludge, a few over a bottomless pit, a couple more right in front of a sentry turret's range of fire. None were actually able to be any use whatsoever. He had purposely created an impossible test. Not even a Weighted Storage Cube nearby to block the bullets of a turret. It wasn't exactly appealing to be standing in front of a potentially deadly room full of poison and a dismal shadow of dread hanging over the facility.

She doubted he actually even noticed that it was impossible, he often overlooked obvious things like that, but a small feeling of anger was still felt in the pit of her stomach.

"Well?" she nearly jumped, his voice was so sudden and quiet. "Aren't you going to do anything? Such as, oh, I don't know, bloody even placing a portal?"

A crease formed in between her eyebrows as she glared at the monitor, gesturing to the room as a whole, trying to get him to look closer at the details.

He stared for a moment, obviously confused, and glanced quickly around the chamber, much too quick for him to notice anything she had wanted him to.

"What is it? I don't see anything wrong with it," he commented casually.

Chell gazed at him intensely, determined to get her point across.

He returned the stare, mocking her with an almost amused grin. "Come on, just figure it out!"

The potato awoke from its idle state, the orange light containing an almost enraged atmosphere. "It's impossible, moron! I honestly thought that even you would be able to see that! Take a look! Exactly how are we supposed to even get to the door?"

He snarled, "It's not impossible! There is an obvious answer! It's right in front of your noses! How can you not see it? And I'M NOT A MORON!"

Almost immediately after his furious response, the paneled walls that surrounded Chell disappeared, and the interworkings of the facility behind were exposed.

Her eyes widened, black pupils shrinking until they were just barely visible, as spiked plates appeared where once dark gray walls were. Suddenly, the former paneled walls seemed equivalent to a field of daisies and soft grass bathed in safe sunlight.

Her heart skipped a beat, and proceeded to thump harder than a hammer on nails and wood.

The potato, however, remained undaunted.

"Trying to intimidate us, are you? Fat chance. We know that you won't, we're the only test subjects currently available, and you wouldn't even consider really eliminating us. We're your only means of testing. How stupid do you think we are? Oh, that's right, you don't think, because you were BUILT TO BE AN IDIOT!"

The blue pupils became hot sapphire flames, his hands that were already clasped together tightened to the point where it looked as if he would rip his own arms off.

His voice was menacingly low at first, but then gained volume until it quaked the entire room.

"I do think you've quite exceeded my limits, missy..." he whispered. "And I won't tolerate it anymore!"

The spiked plates shot forward with such force she felt the very air rush out of its way.

Her heart stopped for a moment, her thoughts froze, and she drew in a deep breath of air, savoring her last feeling of oxygen rushing into her chest, and closed her eyes.

Chell felt as if a huge amount of weight had been lifted off of her as her eyes shot open, awake and very alive.

"Chell! Wake up!" a distant voice shrieked in her ear, jolting her brain awake, and she sat up so fast that she ended up lying face-down on the hardwood floor.

"Chell!" the voice yelled again, this time much more close-by.

Chell picked herself up, only to see the white sheets of her bed in twists and a very worried Penelope standing over her.

Her ginger hair was wild, as if she had just woken up, and her dark brown eyes were darting around franticly.

"Chell, are you okay? I heard you scream!" Chell's roommate said, still worried.

She stood up, floorboards creaking like usual, and put a hand to her forehead, gritting her teeth together. The dream had seemed so real, she had felt the strange material of her long-fall boots against her skin, the weight of the portal device in her hands, felt the burning of his glare on her face.

She nodded wearily, still clutching her forehead, her breathing quick and desperate. "I-I'm fine. Just a nightmare," she reassured her friend, smiling.

Penelope wasn't convinced.

"You've had a lot of nightmares lately, Chell. Maybe you should see someone. It's not getting better at all. It's starting to really worry me."

Chell shook her head, and glanced out the window. It was still dark, and the digital clock on her nightstand showed a glowing red 6:00 AM, JULY 7th on its tiny screen. The stars and moon made the gray window curtains look white, and cast its soft light across the small room.

Chell looked around her bedroom, almost expecting to still see the dreaded spike plates or shining panels. She breathed a silent sigh of relief as she saw the boring eggshell wallpaper. She never thought she'd be so happy to see such a common, dreary color in her life.

Penelope continued to stand before her friend, a concerned expression on her face, right hand holding her left arm behind her back.

"I'm serious, Chell. If it doesn't get better in a few nights I'd really consider seeing a psychologist."

Chell shook her head again. She knew no profession in the world could include erasing memories of what horrors she had experienced, no man or woman on earth could relate to what she had been through and guide her.

The emptiness, the guilt, the fear.

And he was still up in space, never to come back down. Never to return to the little blue and green planet they called home. That only added to her nightmares, she could never forget that.

And the little spark of insanity she harbored in her heart had never left. It was still there, haunting her and effecting her thoughts. A scar, one only visible to her, and would never leave until the day she died.

Can you tell I rushed it at the end? I loved the idea at first, but then I got hit with a wave of my old enemy, writer's block. Sorry for the abrupt ending, I was just tired of writing for the day and wanted to get this done as soon as possible.

So, it kinda went a bit downhill, don't you think? At the beginning I was describing my own insanity, which I do have due to multiple mental disorders, and I wanted to somehow weave them into Chell's personality without destroying her stubbornness. I don't know if I did that or not, though. But, uh, I did get a chance to write Evil!Wheatley for the first time, which was loads of fun. And I have to write GLaDOS more often. She is so hard to get right, but really entertaining.

Umm... Yeah, that's it. I don't have any more ideas to work with, though... Well, I probably will have one tomorrow morning, except it'll have nothing to do with Portal. And I'm really tired right now, so I'm not making sense, just ignore me. My head is all "Oh, what's this, and that's pretty!". So I'm practically half awake. *blinks slowly* ... Those marshmallow peeps on my desk tease me...

This story does not make sense, I know. I apologize if I confuse you.