The date is ''May 16th, 200X''.
Your name is (text-colour:orange)[''Gordon Freeman''], a research assistant working at the Black Mesa Research Facility, in New Mexico.
(click: "Black Mesa Research Facility")[You are currently getting ready to start an experiment using a crystal you... don't know much about, to be completely honest. You're //supposed// to put it into the anti-mass spectrometer, but it keeps... crackling.
(link-style:(text-color:green))[[[Green lightning flashes.|across]]]]The date is ''September 13th, 2023''. Somewhere, a printer whirrs.
(click:"printer whirrs")[You are standing before a desk, with some sort of screen showing a bedroom and a computer screen. Messages with someone called "Vergil" are open. There is (text-color:#5e548e)[''a man with canid-esque ears on his head, dressed in a blue sweatshirt with a scar on the left side of his face and glasses similar to yours''] sitting at the desk. He looks over towards you.
You look behind, and there sits (text-color:#820e0f)[''a woman dressed in a gray sweatshirt with some kind of scar on her neck, and eyes with a (text-style:"smear")+(text-color:#5988FF)[light blue glint] if you look at them a certain way''] and (text-color:#69350b)[''a man dressed in some sort of uniform, with somewhat similar patchy stubble and glasses to (text-color:orange)[you] and the (text-color:#5e548e)[dog-eared man] with a rather... //peculiar// arm, insectoid in nature.''] As you look at his appendage, he looks... displeased, but only a little bit.]
(click:"appendage")[... You feel as though, somehow, (text-color:#FF9C38)[you've been in a similar situation as him, but more... ballistic].
Shaking the notion off, the dog-eared man looks towards you.
He sounds hauntingly familiar.
(text-color:#5e548e)[''"You want to say hi?"'']
You open your mouth. ... Right, you can talk.
(text-color:orange)["... No thank you, I can [[watch just fine|now]]."]]You are (text-color:#C56B11)[``Gordon Freeman``].
(click-replace:"Gordon Freeman")[(text-color:#FF9C38)[Gordon Martinis Freeman]]
(click-replace:"Gordon Martinis Freeman")[(text-style:"smear","buoy")[(text-colour:orange)[''[[The Free Man|wake]]'']]]The date is ''September 20th, 2023''.
It is late at night, and you have worked up the courage to join a voice call alone, using the newly-made //proxy//. You still aren't sure what that... means, exactly, but (text-color:#d3744d)[''Tillman''], a strange crab-person who bonded with you over an appreciation for the color orange, went through the trouble of explaining it.
So, you join the voice call, send a message, and... people call you by //name//. It's not "Lunar", the collective title you all run under as a unit, or "Flowers", another name you all are called by. You are called (text-color:orange)[Gordon], by name, and it makes you very happy.
Another thing to note, that Vergil person has somehow taken to calling you (text-color:orange)["Mr. Freeman"], which you are //also// very happy about.
To sum it up, you are content. However, you can't [[help but wonder...|back again]](text-color:#C56B11)[Snarky quips and fast-paced fights.]
(text-color:#FF9C38)[Desperately trying to keep your team together.]
(text-color:orange)[Staring into the abyss.]
It's... it's //hard// being a protagonist. Everybody always wants to be the hero, but nobody focuses on the toll it takes.
Such is the life of the true Free Man, a puppet's attempt to shake strings it can't see off.
(click:"Such is the life of the true Free Man, a puppet's attempt to shake strings it can't see off.")[... But at least, here, shaken from your home realities, you are allowed to rest. You are allowed to experience life with a manageable crew.
[[fin]]](text-size:2)[(text-color:orange)[''THE FREEMAN EXPERIENCE'']]
//a reflection on... many things, by gordon "crowbar guy" freeman of the LUNAR SYSTEM.//
special thanks to:
townsend, mike, for helping me with wording this out
duende-yasuhira, miles, for twine assistance
bard, vergil, for being a good friend
the gamerzone for allowing me to speak
and you, for taking the time to read this. thank you.
- λ