Dream / Portal 3: Caroline's Adventures in Limbo
The title screen of the game.
I had a dream that Portal 3 finally came out. The premise was that Caroline was stuck in some sort of weird limbo realm where she had to solve tests to atone for the sins she had committed when she was uploaded to GLaDOS (namely, killing the scientists’ children during Bring Your Daughter To Work Day)noteFor those of you who get pedantic about lore, yes, I know GLaDOS killed the scientists with neurotoxin on Bring Your Cat To Work Day, not Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. However, that did not occur to me in the dream.. The tests were mostly the same as in Portal 1 and 2, but everything was monochrome except for the portals, which were each both orange and blue. There were three portals, and they were square. I didn’t get to see what the portal gun looked like, or any of the cubes or buttons.
Then it started getting really weird. In one level of the game, Caroline was transported to this gigantic house that was really a combination of all the scientists’ houses (almost a cross between a mansion and an IKEA). In it, the kids she’d killed and their parents being happy, with seemingly no memory of being killed by her. The objective at this point of the game was to find all of the children. While playing the game, a strange emotion of guilt overcame me, and I made her go talk to two of the parent. This exchange resulted:
Them:
Me: If it makes you feel any better, I really regret doing it. I think I’m here as some sort of punishment? I’m sorry.
Them: No, it’s fine, we forgive you. You can talk to us about whatever you want.
Me: So, um, anyway, I think I have to find everyone’s kids and bring them back to their parents?
Them: Thanks!
I was surprised and a bit disturbed about how nonchalant these people were about me, but it felt really cathartic for me. As I kept playing, however, I noticed that some of the kids were already with their parents. It soon became clear that Caroline wasn’t finding these kids to bring them back to their parents, but to kidnap them. When she found one, she would point her finger at them and say something like “There’s another one!” and tiny Halloween witches would come take them away.