Ask-henrymiller-onvariousshit - I Prefer Honesty

Half-Life²: Anticitizen Prologue

It starts as a very distant, rhythmic tapping. Barely audible, but any noise sounds ear-deafening in this void where all sensory inputs are non-existent. Nothing to be seen but an endless, black abyss. No sounds of gunfire, no smell of burnt flesh and blood. For days there had been nothing but that, and then suddenly everything had been stripped away in one instant. Now there is not even the comforting weight of my suit confirming that I still have a body. It is not sleep; in sleep you either dream or are completely unconscious. This… is something else. Like my mind is floating just out of reach of my body. Like I am looking at my own thoughts through backwards binoculars.

Time. Another such thing that seems to have lost all meaning in this place. When left alone with nothing but your thoughts to hold onto, every minute seems to last an eternity. I have tried counting them multiple times, but I always lose count. How long have I been here? It feels like it was centuries, but also only seconds ago that I entered that cursed portal, naively hoping that the man with the briefcase would give me a way to atone for my mistakes at Black Mesa. Maybe this is it. My atonement. Maybe this restless slumber is purgatory, endlessly thinking about everything I should and shouldn’t have done. If it is, it’s no wonder people fear death.

The tapping grows louder. It sounds like footsteps. Is it the devil coming to claim my soul? Before I have the time to dread or ridicule that thought, an invisible door slides open and a blinding light floods in. I can somehow avert my eyes, finally having a point of reference again, some form of orientation. When I look down, or, at least, what I think is down, I can faintly see the outline of my body. But this, too, is like I am seeing it through someone else’s eyes, distant and disconnected. The footsteps come to a halt. A brief moment of silence, and then a chilling voice: “Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman.” I direct my eyes back toward the light and look into the eyes of the devil.

His face is distorted like a badly fitted mask. As if someone tried to build a human but didn’t quite succeed. His eyes are pale and lie deep in their sockets. His lips are curled into a twisted, emotionless smirk. I can’t escape his gaze. He doesn’t blink.

“I do believe I’ve kept you waiting long enough.” The movements of his mouth are awkward and sluggish. It’s like all his facial muscles that are vital to conveying emotion are paralyzed. Everything about him is just ever so slightly off. “Not that the passage of time has had any meaning to you… but elsewhere it’s a different story.”

The light from the doorway grows brighter and for a brief moment consumes everything, including the man. Hope flares up inside me that he is gone, but when the flash of light dulls his soulless eyes are still staring into mine. But there is more now: behind him is a blurry wasteland of dead grass, dried riverbeds and clouded skies. He is standing further away from me, and I can more clearly see his blue suit and the black briefcase in his right hand. His other hand moves up and nonchalantly wipes his vest. “Ten years is a long time, Mr. Freeman. Long enough for humanity to swallow its pride. Long enough for the first scars of whiplash to begin to heal. Long enough to…”, he produces a strange, stuttering gasp for air, “… forget how things used to be.”

I start hearing another rhythmic sound in the distance, but it sounds different from the footsteps. More mechanical. The surroundings fade away and he continues: “But you haven’t forgotten, Mr. Freeman. You still remember how freedom felt. You remember how the air used to smell.” He is starting to become translucent. The machine sounds grow louder. A hiss of decompression. A shriek of stainless steel. I see myself get pulled back as in a dolly zoom. “So wake up, Mr. Freeman.” I am now inside a long room with dark windows and rows of seats on either side. A chill sends feeling back into my body as the man slowly fades.

“Wake up and… smell the ashes.”

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4 years ago