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Chapter 3

The Search and the Dream
    A young girl with darkish skin, dark grey eyes and dark brown hair ran through the rooms of the small house, holding a slimy potato about the size of a football away from a slightly younger girl who looked vaguely similar. The younger one grabbed at the potato. She laughed and shrieked with delight. The older girl stuck out her tongue at the other.

    “You can’t catch me!” She shouted, and blew a raspberry.

    "Calm down before you two break something!" The mother called from the kitchen, too busy cooking to be bothered. Tired, the younger one plopped herself down on the sofa. The older one gave a look of triumph and she herself flopped on to the sofa. "He's late." The mother muttered, craning her neck in order to see out the window. The front door opened and a tall man wearing a pristine lab coat with the logo of Aperture Science on it walked in. "Hello, honey." He said, planting a quick kiss on his wife's cheek. "Sorry, I'm late. It was busy this morning at the lab." The two children scampered into the kitchen, and the father scooped them up into a tight hug. “There’s my girls.”

    "Daddy!" The younger one yelled happily. "Can I come to? I want to see all the cool robots!”

    "I’m sorry Lin, I can only bring Chell."

    "No fair!" Lin cried. She tugged on her father’s lab coat. “You said it was ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day’. I’m your daughter! I should be going too.” Her father bent down and ruffled her hair.

    "How about next time?” He suggested. Lin stomped her foot.

    “You always say that, and it never happens!” Selfish, childish tears streamed onto her cheeks.

    “That’s just the way it works Helen.” Her father sighed, and turned to the older child.

    "Chell, are you ready to go?" He asked. She nodded her head slowly. Her father took her by the hand and gently guided her towards the door.

    "Bye honey, bye Lin." He called.

    “Bye Lin.” The older one whispered, never taking her eyes off Lin until a door separated them. The younger girl cried more, and by now even she had forgotten why.
I woke up suddenly and found tears leaking from my eyes. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I sighed and left my hand on my face. The feeling of it resting on my cheek was very real. It had only been a dream. I rolled over. The clock read eight-thirty. I let out a groan and kicked away my bed sheets. There would be no point in trying to sleep again.

    I flicked on the bathroom light, which flickered before filling the tiled room with a dull glow. I looked into the foggy mirror, watching the tired girl in the mirror rub her green eyes. She looked down, just like the me outside the mirror, at the black tattoo of Aperture Science, which was dark in comparison to her pale skin. My mother had one too, on her right shoulder just like me, as did the other Sleepers. It was as if Aperture wouldn’t let the world forget they existed. There was a sticky note on the mirror that read: “Leave scraps out for Ratt.” I ripped it of off the mirror and crumpled it into a ball before tossing it in the garbage.

    The living room was depressingly devoid of life, except for the spider sleeping on the ceiling, and a half dead potted plant by the window. The phone rang, and I almost ignored it before considering the possibility it was Gladys, the one person I could trust to help me.

    "Oh my god.” Gladys spoke promptly, leaving me no time to even say ‘hello’. “Lin turn on your radio now.”

    “Gladys what the hell?” My reply was groggy and confused.

    “Go to 1078 AM. Hurry, before it’s over!”

    “Okay, okay…” I switched on the radio and fiddled with the knob until the newscaster’s voice was as clear as the tinny speakers would allow.

    “Several teens have been declared missing after a camping trip gone wrong. Eighteen year old Amanda Langford, Dennis Marron, and Jessica Rottham allegedly got separated from their group while hiking near the Sandy Falls Campsite fifty miles from Gordon.” The receiver nearly slipped out of my hand at the sound of their names. I’d gone to school with each of them. In fact I saw them only a couple days ago during exams.

    “If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of these teens, please contact the Gordon Police Department immediately.” I clicked off the radio, leaving only silence and the sound of Gladys’ crackled breathing.

    “Good old Amy, huh?” Gladys said finally. “I can’t imagine you’re going to miss her that much.” Would I? No, I couldn’t honestly say so. Since graduating, I just wanted to forget her and all the bad memories she came along with. But now they were all coming back, and I couldn’t stop them.

    “After what she’s done? I shouldn’t.” I sighed heavily. “But I’m alive still. Can we say the same for her?” Gladys sighed as well.

    “I guess not.” She replied, and after some time she spoke again. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen, Okay?”

    “Okay.”

    “Bye.”

    “Bye…” Once Gladys was gone the living room seemed lonely and empty again. I couldn’t help but compare it to the bright light filled room where the children in my dreams played. How different it was, then. A mother there to take care of me, a big sister figure there to make fun of me and support me, and a dad to come home and hug us and scold us. My mother worked multiple jobs now, and everyday she came home too exhausted to pay attention to anything. “I want to go back…” I whispered to the silence all around me. “I want to go back so much…”
I left the kitchen scraps for Ratt by the compound gate, where I first found him. He was a scrappy little thing back then, skinny and malnourished, so I fed him. After that he kept coming back, like I knew he would today. A soft mew, announced his presence, and I bent down to scratch his head. I nudged the dish towards him and watched as he daintily devoured his food. A diesel engine roared. He stiffened, hair raised, and bounded away with a nasty hiss.

    "Sorry, I think I pissed off your cat." Gladys called from her truck. She leaned out the window letting her curtain like brown hair drape over the side of the truck. As far as I knew, she hadn't cut her hair since eighth grade. “What is this about, for real?” Gladys wasted no time getting to the point as soon as I set foot in her truck. I took a deep breath.

    “I think my family is still alive somehow.” I said. Gladys didn’t say anything for a moment. Her grey eyes gave no clues to what she could be thinking.

    “That’s impossible Lin.” She replied.

    “They were locked in Gladys, all of them, in a facility where that kind of technology was available. They could still be alive!”

    “I understand. I don’t think that kind of chance is worth it, but I understand.” She responded in an indecipherable voice. We made the rest of the trip in silence.
In the early years of our friendship, I used to idolize Gladys. She was everything I wished I could be at the time, a normal girl, from an influential family, confident, and pretty. Her future was secure, and as for mine, it was uncertain. I wanted to be her, have her life, and a future I could look forward to. I even tried my hardest to look like her, but in the end, I only looked and felt like a fool. I’m not sure exactly why she chose to stick with me, even today, as we walked past Gordon Freeman’s sun bathed statue.

    “Father?” Gladys’ stone grey eyes were fixed on the man with such slight fear that only I would be able to notice. She was frozen there on the spot, probably praying he wouldn’t see us. I’d never gotten the full story, not even in our eight years of friendship. I knew they didn’t get along, not in the slightest. Her father was a businessman in charge of his own construction firm, and dealings with the library were few and far between, mostly in the form of building inspections. “What is he doing here?” She whispered, although it seemed mostly to herself. “He doesn’t do business with the library.” Her father disappeared through the door and we both stopped holding our breath. “Let’s go.” She said, this time to me in particular.
    “This is utterly hopeless.” Gladys said, tossing probably our ninth book into the pile of uselessness. The hours were ticking by mercilessly slow in the library, with nothing to tide us over except for a couple false leads. Aperture was big, that I remembered. So why was it so utterly impossible to find?

    "Why don’t we, you know, use the internet or something?" I sighed, resting my head in my arms. "This is going to take forever."

    “The internet can be tracked.” Gladys replied, while flipping through pages of yet another book. “Books, however, cannot. Unless we were being watched or something…”

    “That doesn’t matter, we’re not doing anything wrong.” Gladys stopped flipping the pages, and glanced around before leaning close. She looked me dead in the eye.

    “I’ve heard some rumors.” Gladys lowered her voice. “There’s some people trying to bring back Black Mesa, resurrect their technology and everything.”

    “No way… Black Mesa? That place is practically a rumor itself! Do you think they found it?”

    “I don’t know, but that’s not my point. If someone’s bringing back Black Mesa, then looking for Aperture could get dangerous.” Someone tapped me on the shoulder, causing a tingling sensation down my spine. I whipped around in my chair, and was relieved that it was only Mark. There was a book in his hand, and a large one at that.

    “Oh, uh… hi.” I stammered. He looked anxiously around us.

    “This might help.” Mark spoke in a low voice, and glanced over his shoulder before setting it on the table.

    “Are you okay?” Gladys asked him.

    “Huh? Yeah, of course I am.” Mark wrung his hands nervously. A bad liar as always. “Oh, be sure to check the index first.” And he was gone as quickly as he’d shown up. Gladys and I sat silently, staring at the place where he stood only a moment ago.

    “That was…weird.” Gladys said finally. She picked up the book he left on the table, and wiped the dust off with her hand. “A History of Salt Mines in Upper Michigan? What does this have to do with…anything?” She flipped to the index and a note fluttered out. The paper was considerably newer than the book. Gladys carefully unfolded it. “Looks like Mark’s handwriting… why would he…” Her sentence trailed off, as she tried to decipher his handwriting. “You should read this.” She said abruptly, handing me the note.

    You are being watched. There is something going on here, but I can’t discuss it right now. Meet me at the café down the block at 12:00. Don’t bring anyone with you, especially not her.
Mark
    “Don’t go Lin.” Gladys said, stony-faced. “I mean it.”

    “Gladys, it’s just Mark.”

    “Lin, my father is watching you. Something dangerous is at work here.”

    “He might know something we don’t. It’s worth a chance.” I insisted.

    “I’m coming with you then.” She replied stubbornly.

    “No, you read the note. I can’t bring anyone.” I said, stepping lightly around the fact that the note specifically mentioned her.

    “You have no idea what my father is capable of Lin. I’m coming with you.”

    “Fine, just keep out of sight.”

    “I will.” She said, with a defiant glare. This was abnormal behavior, especially for Gladys. Yes, she was firm, and sometimes stone-headedly stubborn, yet I’d never seen her react to anything so strongly.

    “Alright then.” I said. “What about the book? I don’t think he gave it to us without a reason.” Gladys flipped through the book

    “I can’t believe it Lin, it’s actually there.” She said.

    “What is?”

    “Aperture. It used to be an abandoned salt mine, but in the 1950’s a salesman by the name of Cave Johnson purchased it and turned it into a research facility.” Gladys read out loud.

“No way…”

    “Lin, it’s 50 miles from here, near the campground where those kids went missing.”

    “So… this could actually work!”

    “You’re crazy Lin, this will never work. So we know where it is now, but what makes you think they’re still alive? I know they have technology that we don’t, but the chance is just too small.”

    “I understand what you’re suggesting, and there’s no way I’m turning back. Not when we’re so close.”

    "You're not giving up, are you?"

    "You should have known that the moment you met me."

    "I probably should have." She sighed.

Description
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Chapter 3

The Search and the Dream
    A young girl with darkish skin, dark grey eyes and dark brown hair ran through the rooms of the small house, holding a slimy potato about the size of a football away from a slightly younger girl who looked vaguely similar. The younger one grabbed at the potato. She laughed and shrieked with delight. The older girl stuck out her tongue at the other.

    “You can’t catch me!” She shouted, and blew a raspberry.

    "Calm down before you two break something!" The mother called from the kitchen, too busy cooking to be bothered. Tired, the younger one plopped herself down on the sofa. The older one gave a look of triumph and she herself flopped on to the sofa. "He's late." The mother muttered, craning her neck in order to see out the window. The front door opened and a tall man wearing a pristine lab coat with the logo of Aperture Science on it walked in. "Hello, honey." He said, planting a quick kiss on his wife's cheek. "Sorry, I'm late. It was busy this morning at the lab." The two children scampered into the kitchen, and the father scooped them up into a tight hug. “There’s my girls.”

    "Daddy!" The younger one yelled happily. "Can I come to? I want to see all the cool robots!”

    "I’m sorry Lin, I can only bring Chell."

    "No fair!" Lin cried. She tugged on her father’s lab coat. “You said it was ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day’. I’m your daughter! I should be going too.” Her father bent down and ruffled her hair.

    "How about next time?” He suggested. Lin stomped her foot.

    “You always say that, and it never happens!” Selfish, childish tears streamed onto her cheeks.

    “That’s just the way it works Helen.” Her father sighed, and turned to the older child.

    "Chell, are you ready to go?" He asked. She nodded her head slowly. Her father took her by the hand and gently guided her towards the door.

    "Bye honey, bye Lin." He called.

    “Bye Lin.” The older one whispered, never taking her eyes off Lin until a door separated them. The younger girl cried more, and by now even she had forgotten why.
I woke up suddenly and found tears leaking from my eyes. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I sighed and left my hand on my face. The feeling of it resting on my cheek was very real. It had only been a dream. I rolled over. The clock read eight-thirty. I let out a groan and kicked away my bed sheets. There would be no point in trying to sleep again.

    I flicked on the bathroom light, which flickered before filling the tiled room with a dull glow. I looked into the foggy mirror, watching the tired girl in the mirror rub her green eyes. She looked down, just like the me outside the mirror, at the black tattoo of Aperture Science, which was dark in comparison to her pale skin. My mother had one too, on her right shoulder just like me, as did the other Sleepers. It was as if Aperture wouldn’t let the world forget they existed. There was a sticky note on the mirror that read: “Leave scraps out for Ratt.” I ripped it of off the mirror and crumpled it into a ball before tossing it in the garbage.

    The living room was depressingly devoid of life, except for the spider sleeping on the ceiling, and a half dead potted plant by the window. The phone rang, and I almost ignored it before considering the possibility it was Gladys, the one person I could trust to help me.

    "Oh my god.” Gladys spoke promptly, leaving me no time to even say ‘hello’. “Lin turn on your radio now.”

    “Gladys what the hell?” My reply was groggy and confused.

    “Go to 1078 AM. Hurry, before it’s over!”

    “Okay, okay…” I switched on the radio and fiddled with the knob until the newscaster’s voice was as clear as the tinny speakers would allow.

    “Several teens have been declared missing after a camping trip gone wrong. Eighteen year old Amanda Langford, Dennis Marron, and Jessica Rottham allegedly got separated from their group while hiking near the Sandy Falls Campsite fifty miles from Gordon.” The receiver nearly slipped out of my hand at the sound of their names. I’d gone to school with each of them. In fact I saw them only a couple days ago during exams.

    “If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of these teens, please contact the Gordon Police Department immediately.” I clicked off the radio, leaving only silence and the sound of Gladys’ crackled breathing.

    “Good old Amy, huh?” Gladys said finally. “I can’t imagine you’re going to miss her that much.” Would I? No, I couldn’t honestly say so. Since graduating, I just wanted to forget her and all the bad memories she came along with. But now they were all coming back, and I couldn’t stop them.

    “After what she’s done? I shouldn’t.” I sighed heavily. “But I’m alive still. Can we say the same for her?” Gladys sighed as well.

    “I guess not.” She replied, and after some time she spoke again. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen, Okay?”

    “Okay.”

    “Bye.”

    “Bye…” Once Gladys was gone the living room seemed lonely and empty again. I couldn’t help but compare it to the bright light filled room where the children in my dreams played. How different it was, then. A mother there to take care of me, a big sister figure there to make fun of me and support me, and a dad to come home and hug us and scold us. My mother worked multiple jobs now, and everyday she came home too exhausted to pay attention to anything. “I want to go back…” I whispered to the silence all around me. “I want to go back so much…”
I left the kitchen scraps for Ratt by the compound gate, where I first found him. He was a scrappy little thing back then, skinny and malnourished, so I fed him. After that he kept coming back, like I knew he would today. A soft mew, announced his presence, and I bent down to scratch his head. I nudged the dish towards him and watched as he daintily devoured his food. A diesel engine roared. He stiffened, hair raised, and bounded away with a nasty hiss.

    "Sorry, I think I pissed off your cat." Gladys called from her truck. She leaned out the window letting her curtain like brown hair drape over the side of the truck. As far as I knew, she hadn't cut her hair since eighth grade. “What is this about, for real?” Gladys wasted no time getting to the point as soon as I set foot in her truck. I took a deep breath.

    “I think my family is still alive somehow.” I said. Gladys didn’t say anything for a moment. Her grey eyes gave no clues to what she could be thinking.

    “That’s impossible Lin.” She replied.

    “They were locked in Gladys, all of them, in a facility where that kind of technology was available. They could still be alive!”

    “I understand. I don’t think that kind of chance is worth it, but I understand.” She responded in an indecipherable voice. We made the rest of the trip in silence.
In the early years of our friendship, I used to idolize Gladys. She was everything I wished I could be at the time, a normal girl, from an influential family, confident, and pretty. Her future was secure, and as for mine, it was uncertain. I wanted to be her, have her life, and a future I could look forward to. I even tried my hardest to look like her, but in the end, I only looked and felt like a fool. I’m not sure exactly why she chose to stick with me, even today, as we walked past Gordon Freeman’s sun bathed statue.

    “Father?” Gladys’ stone grey eyes were fixed on the man with such slight fear that only I would be able to notice. She was frozen there on the spot, probably praying he wouldn’t see us. I’d never gotten the full story, not even in our eight years of friendship. I knew they didn’t get along, not in the slightest. Her father was a businessman in charge of his own construction firm, and dealings with the library were few and far between, mostly in the form of building inspections. “What is he doing here?” She whispered, although it seemed mostly to herself. “He doesn’t do business with the library.” Her father disappeared through the door and we both stopped holding our breath. “Let’s go.” She said, this time to me in particular.
    “This is utterly hopeless.” Gladys said, tossing probably our ninth book into the pile of uselessness. The hours were ticking by mercilessly slow in the library, with nothing to tide us over except for a couple false leads. Aperture was big, that I remembered. So why was it so utterly impossible to find?

    "Why don’t we, you know, use the internet or something?" I sighed, resting my head in my arms. "This is going to take forever."

    “The internet can be tracked.” Gladys replied, while flipping through pages of yet another book. “Books, however, cannot. Unless we were being watched or something…”

    “That doesn’t matter, we’re not doing anything wrong.” Gladys stopped flipping the pages, and glanced around before leaning close. She looked me dead in the eye.

    “I’ve heard some rumors.” Gladys lowered her voice. “There’s some people trying to bring back Black Mesa, resurrect their technology and everything.”

    “No way… Black Mesa? That place is practically a rumor itself! Do you think they found it?”

    “I don’t know, but that’s not my point. If someone’s bringing back Black Mesa, then looking for Aperture could get dangerous.” Someone tapped me on the shoulder, causing a tingling sensation down my spine. I whipped around in my chair, and was relieved that it was only Mark. There was a book in his hand, and a large one at that.

    “Oh, uh… hi.” I stammered. He looked anxiously around us.

    “This might help.” Mark spoke in a low voice, and glanced over his shoulder before setting it on the table.

    “Are you okay?” Gladys asked him.

    “Huh? Yeah, of course I am.” Mark wrung his hands nervously. A bad liar as always. “Oh, be sure to check the index first.” And he was gone as quickly as he’d shown up. Gladys and I sat silently, staring at the place where he stood only a moment ago.

    “That was…weird.” Gladys said finally. She picked up the book he left on the table, and wiped the dust off with her hand. “A History of Salt Mines in Upper Michigan? What does this have to do with…anything?” She flipped to the index and a note fluttered out. The paper was considerably newer than the book. Gladys carefully unfolded it. “Looks like Mark’s handwriting… why would he…” Her sentence trailed off, as she tried to decipher his handwriting. “You should read this.” She said abruptly, handing me the note.

    You are being watched. There is something going on here, but I can’t discuss it right now. Meet me at the café down the block at 12:00. Don’t bring anyone with you, especially not her.
Mark
    “Don’t go Lin.” Gladys said, stony-faced. “I mean it.”

    “Gladys, it’s just Mark.”

    “Lin, my father is watching you. Something dangerous is at work here.”

    “He might know something we don’t. It’s worth a chance.” I insisted.

    “I’m coming with you then.” She replied stubbornly.

    “No, you read the note. I can’t bring anyone.” I said, stepping lightly around the fact that the note specifically mentioned her.

    “You have no idea what my father is capable of Lin. I’m coming with you.”

    “Fine, just keep out of sight.”

    “I will.” She said, with a defiant glare. This was abnormal behavior, especially for Gladys. Yes, she was firm, and sometimes stone-headedly stubborn, yet I’d never seen her react to anything so strongly.

    “Alright then.” I said. “What about the book? I don’t think he gave it to us without a reason.” Gladys flipped through the book

    “I can’t believe it Lin, it’s actually there.” She said.

    “What is?”

    “Aperture. It used to be an abandoned salt mine, but in the 1950’s a salesman by the name of Cave Johnson purchased it and turned it into a research facility.” Gladys read out loud.

“No way…”

    “Lin, it’s 50 miles from here, near the campground where those kids went missing.”

    “So… this could actually work!”

    “You’re crazy Lin, this will never work. So we know where it is now, but what makes you think they’re still alive? I know they have technology that we don’t, but the chance is just too small.”

    “I understand what you’re suggesting, and there’s no way I’m turning back. Not when we’re so close.”

    "You're not giving up, are you?"

    "You should have known that the moment you met me."

    "I probably should have." She sighed.