“Do you mark me?” asks Chell, pacing. “I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. But I have accomplished it now! She is gone, and that bright eye will trouble me no more.”

The observers sit and smile. The beat grows louder–flat and regular, like a watch wrapped in cotton.

They know! They mock! She stares at them, pulse pounding. Anything is better than this derision–

“Here!” she cries, smashing her chair into the floorboards. “Villains! I admit the deed!” Beneath the planks, they see it: the face of the Companion Cube, and its tell-tale heart.