Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stanley didn’t understand why the Narrator had him look through a house full of memories. Full of old snapshots of the game as he called them- and reviews, so to say? Stanley was confused. He didn’t realize people were looking at him as he went through the Parable.
However that was not the point right now. Right now all he was doing was looking through reviews that people left on some gaming platform called “Steam”- He got a kick whenever the Narrator screamed “UNFUNNY!?” at a specific review that was put before them.

Here the Narrator went on again, rambling and ranting on and on about how his game was meant to be long and tedious, long and “philosophical”, for deep thinking and ways for someone to really and truly think for themselves.
Stanley couldn’t help but laugh at it.

The man quietly followed the path and quietly followed wherever the Narrator told him to go next, quietly reading the reviews with the voice that often came in speech bubbles and often came to speak and wrap around his arm– However the Narrator had decided to stop doing such a thing as of lately. Maybe because of the “clinginess” he was told to have during the game…
But Stanley liked it. He brushed off the feeling for now, deciding to deal with it later when the time came. As of now, he was listening to how the Narrator pitied himself for letting these players down, frowning quietly as he shook his head.

{You never really let me down. You’re not a failure to me.} Stanley thought, smiling whenever he felt the Narrator brush up against his head gently- It was an odd feeling. It was like someone else was picking and pushing his mind, at first, but with how they worked together and had gotten used to everything, and this new experience, they learned to “brush up” as they called it. They brushed against each other’s memories and thoughts, listening to what the other had either said or thought, in this case the Narrator brushing against Stanley’s thoughts- as he felt the Narrator smile.
“Thank you, Stanley. It means quite a lot. But onwards, we have yet another review to get ourselves through.”

Stanley wanted to object, knowing full well that these new reviews and look-throughs were going to end up with the Narrator either spiraling down into self hatred or pity, or just end up making him emotionally upset. But he sighed when he felt himself be nudged further down the path.
Jumping down the little ledge, he quietly read the review he saw in front of him. The Narrator read some of it aloud, before the ending mentioned a skip button…

{A skip button? Doesn’t sound half bad actually.}

“A skip button… Well.. Well yes, we can do that. If I’m really too preachy, then- Then maybe letting you skip ahead for just a moment, surely it couldn’t hurt. Not if it means we can strike these negative reviews from the record… Only positive reviews of the Stanley Parable, yes, that makes sense.”

Stanley watched as the Narrator further explained how he wanted to better the game for the customers, for the reviews of the Parable. While he was rambling and bumbling, a building slowly emerged from the water, watching as the water emptied out of the building. A small little board floated onto the top of the water, as a small passageway for Stanley to walk on into the room. And the man did so.
The room was quite large in size, quaint, and honestly sort of comforting. In the middle of the room, the edges of the raised platform guarded by rails, and a small fern here and there decorating the room along with the clock behind the small extended pedestal-like object with the button attached.
He listened to the Narrator speak about how this Button would help, how this would help with the people who thought he was droning on and on.

“Well go on! Don’t wait for me to stop talking! Here, we’ll pretend that I’ve just begun an interminable monologue- And it goes something like this!”

Stanley listened to the Narrator for a bit of time, before looking at the button in front of him. He was told to press it, to try it out… What could hurt in trying it out? Just once, maybe…
He put his palm onto the button and pressed it.

It felt like he had just blinked once by the time he came back, rubbing his eyes as he stumbled back a little from the disorientating experience that it was. He heard the Narrator humming along to something, something he couldn’t quite tell- but by the time his sight got better, he was back to hearing the Narrator talk.
“Oh, you’re back! See? You were only frozen in time for a few minutes-”

{A few minutes? Shit- It felt like seconds-}

“Well that’s the point, Stanley. It’s meant to feel quick for you, or the player, and easier for people like me to get over our list of items we must review or say. It was enough time for me to say my long, rambling, monologue after all! It was filled with very harsh opinions of mine that I believe fill in with games and their nature of choices.”

Stanley quietly listened as the Narrator suddenly started to ramble once more, monologuing and continuing to speak about his opinion of games and how choices affect such games. He started to get bored once the Narrator had started to repeat “Treatise. Manifesto.” over and over again and again.
He decided to maybe try the door, jiggling the handle a few times and seeing if it worked. However, the blasted door was locked.
{Huh. Fine. I guess I’ll have to press the button again-} Stanley thought to himself, quietly walking back to the button and where it was as he waited a minute more to see if the Narrator would suddenly stop.
He didn’t. So, begrudgingly, Stanley pressed the button once more.

It again felt like only seconds had truly passed by the time that Stanley felt himself coming back to the reality he was in. It felt so odd, so strange.
The goosebumps that rose on his skin this second time he came back, how he- for a split second- felt like the body he was in wasn’t his own, it sort of terrified Stanley. He looked up at the ceiling whenever he heard the Narrator laugh softly. If it was at him or directed to what was happening, Stanley didn’t know.

“Well there sport, you really did catch me rambling there! But that’s the point, and the power, that the button has. The minute I start derailing and rambling on about a thoughtless display of self-absorption, it’s right at your fingertips, to go poof, and it’s all skipped over! Oh I cannot wait to see what Cookie9 will say about this! Maybe they’ll change the rating of their Steam review, or maybe the wording…”

Stanley continued to listen to how the Narrator talked about how he needed to brush up on his Technology knowledge, and how Steam works, and everything. Quietly listening to the Narrator and how he was talking to himself- Stanley quite liked it.
But then the Narrator started to ramble once again. Going on and on. He started a new monologue about how he would imagine how Cookie9’s review would differ, how it would change, how he imagined it to look like afterwards.
Stanley tried his best to use his mind to call out to the Narrator, his vocal cords not doing him any good and not allowing him to actually speak due to not having any “game files for voices” as the Narrator had so easily supplied to him before. He waited, and once the Narrator had finished his first go-through of the review…
He stopped.

“...Wow, Stanley. That is- That is a review. It’s- It’s perfect. It’s the perfect review, it’s the review I’ve always dreamed of receiving- I have to read it again. I must. I just… I need to experience this, one more time.”

Stanley listened more and more to the Narrator, quietly getting more and more overstimulated as the time went on. His hands started clicking against one another as he listened to the Narrator speak- this time, this button press would be just for him to not get overwhelmed.
Just so he wouldn’t get upset.

He walked to the button while the Narrator spoke, pressing the button gently.
Once again, in a blink of an eye- suddenly Stanley was back to where he was. This time the feeling that washed through him was unbearable, it almost made him feel like he was going to puke with how overwhelming feelings went through him. He nearly buckled at the knees at coming back to his reality. The goosebumps that knocked over his body and rose on his skin nearly made him do a full body shiver.
God he disliked this new side effect that happened.

The Narrator seemed just as panicked.
“Okay- Welcome back, Stanley, now I must bring up that the amount of time that this Skip Button has been skipping has been getting longer and longer. That last one was- well… I want to say maybe 30, 45 minutes? I mean sure, it wasn't unendurable by any means, but it’s… There’s only so much I can ramble about to myself, you know!”

Stanley frowned up at the ceiling, looking down at his feet. Only 30 to 45 minutes? Almost a full hour?? Shit. Where was this time going and passing to Stanley? Where was he whenever he was blanked out? What happened whenever he was blanked out for that long? What was he to do?
These thoughts that swarmed and crowded his head almost made him not realize what the Narrator had just said right about now. Something about not pressing the button again, but… He felt the urge to. A need to further test, a need for further demonstrating.
He needed to know what happened whenever he pressed the button again. He wanted to know what happened- what really would happen. Everything almost stayed the same except for the time… So how much time would really pass whenever he pressed this button? How much of this time that his Narrator so previously proclaimed was way too little to finish the Parable, how much of it could be skipped without him knowing it?

He didn’t even realize the door was gone by the time that the Narrator had mentioned it.
“Wait- where did the door go? Wasn’t there a door that led to this room? I do feel quite certain that there was, in fact, a door that led right into this very room we stand in, Stanley. How else could we have gotten into this room? I don’t think one can enter a room with no entrance leading into the said room, something like a door or a window… Do you see any of that, Stanley? Portholes, windows, the door??”

Stanley quietly looked around, shaking his head at the voice above him.
{No. No portholes, windows, or even a sign of the door.}

“Hm. Strange. I just wish for us to move on, and for us to please step away from the Skip Button, to go anywhere else but the skip button- There was a door here, wasn’t there?? I swear there was… where’d it go?”
Stanley listened as the Narrator spoke more about his frustrations with the missing door, before the Narrator suddenly stopped.

“Ah! I’ll be back, I believe we have a spare door somewhere. Just give me a moment, dear Stanley! I’ll be back! And please, while I’m gone, do not press that button! I’m not sure how I would work putting in a door or how to fix one into a wall, but I will figure out a way. I’ll be back, Stanley, just stay put!”
And with that, suddenly, the Narrator's voice was gone. There was a small little noise that happened that the brunette wondered if it was from the mic hitting the table, or from it being turned off, as Stanley waited there.

He stared at where the button was, quietly wondering what it would be like to push the button once more. One more push… Just to get him through this small little bit of the waiting. He just needed to get through this…
He decided not to. He waited patiently, watching the minutes tick by on the clock… Five minutes passed. Maybe he needed to press that button… But it left him feeling so sick and disgusting, it wasn’t worth just suddenly doing it over and over again. He needed to have a valid, true, reason to do such a thing. Waiting for the Narrator was taking long, however… He didn’t know how much longer he could wait until he could finally just be free to do what he pleased. He sighed, looking at the yellow glowing button…
And with one simple press, another blanked out moment.

By the time he woke up once more, he nearly doubled over this time from the feeling as if someone had just plunged their fist into his stomach and gotten a grip on his stomach, squeezing it so harshly it felt like he was about to burst. Stanley whimpered quietly at such a feeling. And it seemed as if he wasn’t the only one in a panicked state.
“Stanley! Stanley- Stanley, please don’t push the button again it’s been 12 hours! You’ve just- You’ve just been frozen there! I don’t know why the skips are getting longer or how to stop them from getting longer, but they really and truly are getting longer and my god there’s no way out of this room! Staley, the door is gone… It’s completely gone.”

The man in question frowned, he almost felt horrible for how saddened and panicked the Narrator had sounded. Almost as if he felt bad…
Almost.
The Narrator got angrier with his tone the more and more he spoke. Speaking about how he checked all the walls so many times already, how there was just no door, and how it was just him and the button. Speaking as if he pressed the button that the Narrator wouldn’t know what would happen this time. He painted it as if he himself was the victim- Painting himself as if the Narrator was the one who had to sit there and had to wait and wait until Stanley came back.
The Narrator mentioned something about not knowing how to stop Stanley from pressing the button, and that’s exactly when the man in question had to stop.

{If you disliked the idea of the button so much why can’t you just go into the files and delete the button if you so want?! Why, are you that offended by Cookie9’s review that much you’re just going to sit there, as stubborn as a mule, and wait however long it takes?!}

“Yes, Stanley! If the players want their wish of a button to press and press and press, then they shall get a button they can press to skip the dialogue but not like this! Stanley, I can’t control anything in this room! I might have made it, but I cannot touch it! And I know despite how many times I might sit here and plead, and argue with you, that you will press the button again! Why would you?”

{Maybe it’s because of the fact that you leave me alone here sometimes, maybe because of the fact that your ‘droning on’ as they put it has just started becoming more and more upsetting! I don’t want to stand here and listen to you on repeat about a singular review that you so desperately wish to get, or listen to you debate about how much choices mean in video games! I don’t want to wait here for hours at a time waiting for you to come back! Who knows, you could’ve taken hours, days, weeks, months, long for you to finally figure out how to maybe add a door in before realizing you couldn’t even add the door in! I don’t wish to sit here and wait, and wait, and keep waiting until the end of time for you to come back! What’s the point of waiting for something that might not be promised!}
Stanley’s thinking was getting more and more erratic, more and more jumped as he thought aloud to the Narrator. Of course, not verbalizing his words- it was impossible for him to- but he was getting more and more frantic with his thinking.

The Narrator simply continued. Stanley was almost baffled by the audacity that his Narrator had at this very moment to do such a thing.
“I’ve been thinking and thinking, and I don’t know what to convince you otherwise as to not press that button! And my god, to think that this came from reviews… Maybe you are right, maybe these reviews are simply getting to me too much… I simply couldn’t get them out of my head, I couldn’t ignore them- Why was it important for me to fix the problem myself?”

Stanley grinned at the ceiling. Finally, Finally the Narrator was starting to understand where he was going with all of this.
{YES! Yes, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Narrator!}

But he was ignored.

Once again the Narrator was spiraling once more, going deeper and deeper into his rambling and self loathing. Only reason why Stanley even knew it as self loathing was how he reflected his anger back on himself. Talking about how he knew how the man there in the room would press the button again, only for his own benefit- Only for his own gratitude and own self. Stanley wanted to so desperately prove the Narrator wrong, countlessly trying to desperately have the man above him hear his thoughts.
To hear him, to make him listen to him and see that Stanley wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t planning on leaving.

But here he was. Once again, rambling, spiraling, going back to the topic of the reviews. Going back to the topic of how the reviews got to his head, and how he couldn’t handle it. How he couldn’t just ignore the reviews, how he became as insufferable and impulsive as a child with a candy store.
It was Stanley’s turn to spiral. He gripped his hair after frustratingly rubbing his face, groaning and wordlessly showing his aggravation for the Narrator's lack of self awareness to even realize that Stanley was becoming upset with the same thing that the Narrator refused to acknowledge before.
He rushed over back to the button as he stumbled up the small tiny steps to get to the platform, pressing his hand onto the button once again.
And his vision blackened.

This time it felt less than seconds and it felt more like it took a minute for him to finally snap back out of his daze. He blinked around, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light- There was only one, singular light that was available that kept flickering on and off. Everything else looked dark and dim.
What happened?

He heard the desperate voice of the Narrator come back, hoarse and wavering, as if the Narrator had been crying moments before.
“Oh Stanley, You’re back, you’re back! Oh my goodness- I- I have someone to talk to again, Stanley I- I think it’s been a week… Or.. Two weeks?? I lost count. I’ve been sitting here all that time… just sitting here. Not a single person to talk to. And you’d think that’s just how it’s always been, right? Me talking, and talking, and you saying nothing.”

Stanley’s eyes pricked with wetness as he felt the wave of nauseousness finally hit him. He gripped his stomach, quietly looking around and listening to the Narrator as he shook and trembled with the wave of sickness that had finally decided to make itself known.
“Would you think it’s exactly the same as always, Stanley? Doesn’t that feel like what we’ve been already doing; me talking, you listening?” The Narrator questioned, now slowly starting to spiral once more. But Stanley was wrong with this thought- the Narrator wasn’t spiraling. Not this time.

“But it’s not, Stanley. It’s not the same at all, it’s more different than you really think. Because I know that once you press that button, once you push it and let the button skip through whatever I may be saying, you can’t hear me. Can you, Stanley?”

Stanley looked at the ground. If he were a dog, an animal of some sort, the way his ears would’ve drooped and tail would’ve curled up between his legs would’ve said more than enough to anyone. The guilt emanated and rolled off of Stanley like waves, you could almost feel it.

“I knew it. That’s what I’m realizing now, Stanley. I’m realizing that now I needed to know that someone was listening. I needed there to be a vessel of sorts to be listening, to know that my words were going through them. It was the vessel I needed, Stanley. Not the outcomes, not the story, none of that matters anymore-”

This shocked Stanley. He looked up at the ceiling- This man, the man he knew to make such a big deal out of not following his story, his plot, suddenly just wishing there to be just the person and not the story.
{But- But what about-}

And Stanley was once again cut off. It was at this point that Stanley should’ve known that the Narrator was desperate to have him around- Once again, as I have mentioned, they need one another.
This was a moment, an example, of that need for each other. This is the main, prime, example of what I mean whenever I say that they need each other, dear reader. They deserve one another for what they wish to have but cannot get, do you understand? They are each others’ tight ropes. If one is too tight, the other cannot seem to continue. That make any sense?

“I’ll give it all up, Stanley! I would give it all away, burn every single bridge and burn every single pathway if it means that there’s someone listening! I’ll burn my story to the ground if needed, Stanley! The one single thing I needed, and God, I can see now that I needed it more than anything, was to know that someone else is taking it in.”

Stanley frowned, listening to the Narrator’s rambling and talking as the Narrator continued fourth of talking. Talking about how he desperately needed someone to hear him, how maybe if he could be heard that maybe he was real.
Now that hit Stanley like a load of trucks. It hit him harshly, nearly punching the wind out of his lungs as he stared, eyes-wide, into the ceiling. He listened as the Narrator finally realized that he wished for people to hear him and understand him to know, to understand, that he was real, to hear him. To know that he wasn’t just a fake person behind a screen, talking and rambling about things in a mindless video game.

“...I can’t be taken by it, Stanley. I can’t lose myself in the stretch of emptiness between you and me, when you press that button- You’re still right there. But I know you’re so tremendously far away, to where I can’t reach you. And in those moments, the emptiness folds itself outward in between the two of us, and I am suspended in it’s unyielding quietness… I can feel the edges of my reality curdling inward and decaying.

“I can tell that I am becoming less and less real. Yet- Yet to speak to you, now I am alive! I am truly and completely here! I know who I am and what I am, I know who I have become whenever I talk to you, Stanley, I am alive- I am a being, I am someone, I am something! I am being listened to, I am being recognized- the emptiness between us has collapsed, Stanley! And I feel, right now, like I am not a work of fiction! I feel as though I- I occupy the space in this world again.”

Stanley listened in shock and almost unfiltered horror as he listened to the words that tumbled further and further out of his Narrator’s mouth. He quietly listened as the Narrator continued to speak about how he felt real- how he felt like he had a purpose. And how he knew, that once Stanley pressed the button again, that silence would return and overwhelm and overshadow his dearest Narrator.
The overwhelming feelings that got to him as he listened to the Narrator speak about welcoming the silence, about not letting it take control of them… It broke Stanley’s mind. The tears that spilled forth from the mans face were not ones that he wished to feel once more, no no, he just wished for the Narrator to listen to him. To understand what he was saying. But the beings rambling never ceased.

Stanley couldn’t possibly sit around and wait, knowing, expecting the silence to come whenever they knew full well that no matter what they did, the silence would consume them both anyhow. While the Narrator spoke about welcoming the silence, almost as if it were a long time friend, Stanley rushed to the button ahead of him once more. He pressed it, and his mind blanked once more.

By the time Stanley woke back up, it felt like it had taken more than just a couple of minutes to come back. This time the stretches of where Stanley couldn’t seem to remember what was going on, it was also reaching longer and longer lengths. The room was pitch black, his eyes eventually starting to welcome the sudden darkness his eyes opened to.
He jumped, nearly flinching, at the sudden voice of his Narrator speaking.

“Oh, hello. It’s you. You’re here again, welcome. I have had some time to think about you.. And about us. And about everything we’ve been through while here in this room, Stanley.”

Stanley looked up at the ceiling, furrowing his brow as a faint flush formed on his face. What did the Narrator mean by them? He was glad that the darkness of the room covered his faintest flush, managing to calm himself down before his Narrator continued.

“I’ve actually had so much free time, I have decided to stop keeping track of it after a year. Have you ever sat down in one place, and not moved for one entire year?”

Stanley was reeling however from this new information. A year. A whole year… He wasted it here. Waiting for the button to do something other than extend its time and make it longer and longer. He stared at the button, tears pricking his eyes as he touched his face- Suddenly feeling stubble growing on his said face.
What was he doing with this? What was he doing here, looking at the button, having an internal war in his head, crowding and crowding his head-

He felt that familiar push on his mind, the same comforting one that first came and soothed him whenever he first found the “Not Real Stanley Ending” as his Narrator called it. Suddenly forming in the parable after such an experience nearly broke Stanley, he holed himself away in his office route after route until the Narrator came down in his speech bubble form. He smiled weakly at this familiar, comforting push against his mind, he almost forgot why he was even feeling it in the first place.
But then concentrating back at what the Narrator was saying… He stood there in slight shock. He listened as the Narrator talked about how it felt like for him to have regret, missed opportunities, how he spent so long in this regret that he had lost track of the time… Stanley swallowed his heart that came up to his throat, biting his lip as he looked down at his slightly shaking hands.

Once again that familiar nudge against his mind- But this time, more aggressive. More harmful than good. More intending to have hurt and harm than any good. It felt harsher, like someone nudging their elbow square into your stomach after you’ve eaten enough to fill an entire family. Something that was gut wrenching. And here came the sudden wave of nauseousness that hit harder than all the times combined into one.
Stanley fell to his knees, curling up almost as he gripped his stomach and head, one arm around himself and the other gripping his head as if it would stop the pounding of a migraine-like headache in his head that was roaring louder and louder with every moment Stanley could hear himself breathe.

He watched and listened as his Narrator continued to go forth, rambling more and more about his experiences with this unrequited feeling of what he was experiencing. He rambled on about it, like it was a dance with his emotions, a tango for two- but that second person was his own mind, his own perception of self after this experience.
“You see, Stanley, what I’m trying to get at here- It was a revelation for me, Stanley. It was unlike anything I had ever known. Far more understanding and thoughtful than it was for the, Not Real Stanley ending, but far less shocking as the one I had for Zending. You understand what I’m getting at, dear boy? It was a space without consequence, without action, and without an outcome. It was divorced entirely from the question of free will. A will that you and I have squabbled over for a long time, countless and countless of times, to be exact. There could be no one ending, no singular outcome of events… Not if all events existed in the same moment.”

Stanley listened more and more to the Narrator, listening as he rambled on and on about how he felt unburdened by this sudden change of things, by this revelation he so proclaimed he had from Stanley being gone as long as he was. About how he didn’t need to manifest an ending, an outcome, anything, and how he could just allow himself to exist along all these “timelines”- Where was he getting these “timelines” ordeal from again?- and how they all shared a single strand in a web of a being, of a person. How he loved such feeling, how he felt calm and that equanimity of the moment whenever he found out such a thing…
Stanley let a small smile slip. He couldn’t help it, the small tiny smile at how the Narrator was so proud of himself… Was so happy at this realization.
Even if it meant, even if the cause of it, was because of how Stanley had left for more than a year. He frowned as the Narrator continued, however, slowly realizing that the Narrator was talking about a fear of his that he had come to realize.
“...for longer than I could have ever expected was possible. I have been waiting for you.”

Stanley couldn’t take it anymore. He listened as the Narrator rambled on about how he hoped that Stanley felt the same looming sense of fear every time like the Narrator had felt whenever he would experience this again.
He shook with this realization, rushing to the button once more and pressing it, in fear of having to wait around and listen to his own beloved friend and companion talk to him. In fear of knowing that the Narrator was right.
In fear of losing the Narrator.

When he woke up there was silence. Not a single beat in the room, not a single breath. Silence.
The sickness jumped to Stanley quicker this time, making his legs weak and almost making him fall to his knees once more. However, he must’ve been handling these reactions better, seeing as all it took was for him to clutch onto where the button was hoisted for him to not buckle under the pressure. He pushed himself up, quietly looking around and waiting for something. For anything.
He waited.
And waited…

He waited some more. He didn’t know how long had passed before he stared at the button. He pressed it again, hoping that maybe this would result in something new.
When his vision was granted back to him, he groaned as he heard the annoying beeping of something fill his ears.

He thought he had woken up. Had finally come back to something real, something true, something like his home- Maybe his possible wife or husband- A dog, a cat, anything- To prove that all of this was just a dream-
When his eyes adjusted to the darkness once again, he found himself back in the room with the button. The clock had fallen down this time, and the plant's leaves were long decayed and rotting. He turned around, and looked at the cause of it.
A fire alarm placed next to a small, broken of course, light. He looked at it, wondering how to get it down but knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to. He sighed in his frustration, looking around the otherwise well-kept room.

He looked over at the button that just clicked once again, signifying that it was ready to be pressed. To be used once again. He walked to it, not knowing what else to do here. He pressed the button once more, and felt himself black out.
When he woke up he instantly doubled over in the pain, this time almost feeling himself heave with air as he clutched his gut. His eyes opened as everything slowly started to come back to him, and he started to hear and understand what was going on around him. The Narrator was rambling once more…

Talking about how he never intended his game to be funny. How he never intended such a concept to even be considered. How he meant the game to have a story, a plot, a human connection with others… How he dealt with all the rambling and incoherent talking of the game, how they desperately wanted jokes and yet spit back at his face for how he gave the media what they wanted.
Stanley remembered hearing the Narrator speak about something similar once, a long while ago. He compared it to “feeding the lions den, only to be eaten next.” And Stanley knew that the metaphor that his Narrator told him, that exact one, would describe this situation perfectly. It was like his Narrator was a host at a party, telling his partygoers that he had prepared a special feast for them all to enjoy- With the thought that there would be leftovers. And none were left, all of them circling around him like vultures waiting for the moment to strike when he was truly on his knees and down.

Stanley listened as the Narrator continued to ramble on about the lack of consistency and accountability, listening and listening- That’s when it clicked for Stanley. That’s all he was now. A listener, a voidless being.
His Narrator had given up hope on him, given up hope that he was going to come back. Given up any and all hope that Stanley would return and be the same. The man's heart broke, listening to the voices’ rambling and incoherent mumbling about how people were contradicting themselves left and right and never owning up to their parts and mistakes.
Not once did he mention or acknowledge Stanley.
Not once did he say even a small hello, or hi.

He continued this rambling, this incoherent talk of how his game was and how people reviewed it. It was like watching someone go through their burnout for their first time, watching them get a failing grade and watching them slowly spiral more and more. Why they had gotten that grade. Why they had gotten such a failing and low score. That was the Narrator currently, rambling on and on about his game and how people desperately wanted what they begged for- only to turn the other cheek.

Stanley looked at the button which just clicked back open. He watched the button glow, it’s flickering and faint, faltering, glow. He pressed it once more, he couldn’t stand being a mannequin just for this man to ramble and rant incoherently to. Not even about, just to. His narrator was just ranting to him, not even bothering to even mention his name once… Stanley felt shame bubble in his gut as he finally pressed down on the button.
His vision darkened once more, letting a tiny whimper out of his voice.

This next time he woke up, there was silence. That unnerving, cold, feeling of what it felt like to be in a room of silence. He looked around, taking in the place and examining to see if there was anything new that had happened while blanked out. How long was he out? Was he going to find out about it? How would he know? All he knew currently was that there was quiet silence, almost deafening silence. If the silence had a noise… It would turn Stanley mad. It still was, even whenever the silence wasn’t recognizable as any form of tangible noise that could overwhelm Stanley.
The silence itself was already overwhelming.
Stanley heard the tiny click of the button, letting him know it was ready to be pressed once more. He quietly stared at the button, hesitating as his hand hovered over it. He touched his face for a moment, realizing he was clean shaven again.
How did that happen? Didn’t the Narrator mention, so, so long ago, that he had no access and no way of changing what happened in the room? Must’ve been impossible. He quietly looked at the button once more, his head swarming with these thoughts…

He pressed the yellow glowing object. His mind blanked once more, and so did his vision, leaving him renderless.
Whenever he came back it felt like an hour had passed as he waited in a black void of nothingness, waiting for the nothingness to pass him over and finally release him. It was starting to become longer and longer, and in all honesty it was starting to become almost exhausting for Stanley. Waiting there, stuck, just waiting. Waiting for himself to unfreeze. He finally was understanding what the Narrator had been telling him- This was exactly what he was warned about. What he was told would happen.
And here he was, experiencing it first hand. Stanley hated every moment of being alone and not being able to talk to his dearest Narrator.

When his eyes and ears finally decided to register and clock in, reminding him of the present, he was immediately welcomed by the Narrator’s voice.
“The end is never the end is never the end is never the end…”

Stanley was shocked. Not only was the nauseousness rushing through his blood like a cold shock through his body, but the way he felt his blood slowly drain from his own skin and face from hearing his only and dearest friend was… Scary. It was terrifying. He hated every moment knowing he could hear the Narrator repeat that damned sentence.
However, when he turned around, he didn’t expect to see a man in the corner rocking himself back and forth.

He looked tallish for his age. A greying streak of white or silver in his otherwise mostly salt-and-peppered hair—Though at that point it could’ve been described as peppered and salt hair with how white most of the hair was, save for the couple of tiny streaks of black—and yellow glasses that were on a chain around his neck. He wore a suit- a weird looking one that was a mish-mash of all the endings they did. There seemed to be pins all over the man, small tiny puddles of blood and the endings/caps of the pins scattered about.
Along with this man were small tufts of hair that were scattered around, with scratch marks on the walls and markings. It seemed to have counted 54.
Stanley wondered what this 54 meant, but if it was his best guess… It was the amount of years he had spent here. He swallowed his hurt heart, trying to put an arm out for the man in the corner who’s face he did not know…

“The end is never The end is never The end is never The end is never The end is never…”

More. More. More.
Louder, louder, and louder.
The mumbling and incoherent rambling of this same sentence, over and over, almost like a drum of a perfect yet horrid symphony that played a horrid yet bittersweet tune. A form of melody and form of music that only the most hurt of hurt could understand…
And here Stanley was, tears running down his face, listening to this man he found himself aching for to comfort, due to this melancholic symphony.

Dare Stanley say, a man he found himself to love. A man he found himself to care about, to care for. A man who would do anything and everything in order to make sure that he was comfortable.
God how Stanley wished to return that, now.

However he pressed the button once more, almost immediately, as the button clicked back to use once again. He couldn’t bear to hear and listen to his beloved Narrator continue on like that. He couldn’t bear to listen, bare to have to sit through his Narrator’s suffering. It felt too personal, as much as Stanley hated to use the word and terminology for it.
He hated how he saw how vulnerable his dear Narrator could get. He hated how he saw the man’s heart, dissected and opened, just like that on display. It felt too real.
Stanley wasn’t ready for real, not yet.

Once his vision blackened it took longer this time. Once again, these waves and waves of pitch darkness were getting longer. This time it felt like two hours had passed as he watched and witnessed nothing go around him. The endless, nothingness, that reminded him so much of when he and the Narrator had done the “Everything is a Bucket” ending.
He smiled fondly at such a glistening memory. At such a happy, joyous time. Whenever he and the Narrator just had fun… Like the Adventure Line, or all the times in the Broom Closet, or anything else. Anything else other than whatever doom and gloom this was…

But his eyes opened. All he saw was nothingness for a second, before the room suddenly appeared before him once more. This time his face was clean shaven- Stanley could feel it now, as he touched his face. The stems of the plant were starting to decay and rot as well, and the walls seemed to be covered in scratches.
More of those damned scratches. More of the damned marks telling Stanley how long his Narrator had been waiting.
He walked to them, counting them each…
103.
Was it 103 years, 103 weeks, what was it? Stanley didn’t know, and he felt like he shouldn’t want to know. But a part of him desperately craved that sense of information he knew he shouldn't wish to have. A part of information that he knew would end up just hurting him more in the future. A part of information that wouldn’t sit right with Stanley.
Not anymore.

He heard the button click but it took him a little longer before he finally decided enough was enough. He examined the room around him, taking it all in. The walls in the corners and where the walls connected were starting to crack and fall apart, but besides that, the scratches, and the plant rotting away… It all almost looked normal.
It was dark, though.
Dark and cold. Damp, vaguely, but mostly just dark and cold.

Stanley quietly walked to the button and pressed it once more, sighing, done with what he had experienced now. His eyes blanked out, and he slipped into the void of nothingness in his head as his vision and hearing was ripped out of him calmly.
Over his time of doing this, of being stuck in a void-like area, Stanley had learned how to dissociate. How it felt like to do such a thing and how it felt like after such episodes.

But this one was shorter. And the stomach pains and headaches that were caused by the previous anxiousness and previous nausea from the past experiences were gone. No longer in relation to the feeling in question, after these little pauses.
Stanley woke up confused. Why was his stomach not giving him that hateful gut feeling-

In the middle of this mind-confusion, he snapped out of it at feeling the cold breeze brush through every fiber of his being. He shuddered as the coldness rushed past him, and looking around, he noticed the damages done to the room.
The entire left corner was falling out. Some wires hung from empty light fixtures, the wall that held the plant next to it and the clock was almost completely knocked down. There was just a small pile of rubble and debris there, in that corner, slowly starting to rot away. From what Stanley saw and smelt, he assumed water was leaking into the area and making the wood and other products rot in these debris.
It looked horrible. It smelt rancid. It felt like it was a disturbing piece, about to have a jumpscare or a classic horror movie villain jump up at him and scare the living daylights out of Stanley.

But he persevered. He swallowed his fear, looked at the button that just clicked back… And he looked around him one final time. Taking one more good look at the deteriorating place… As he pressed the button.
If you were to ask Stanley how the next following rooms affected him, he would respond with radio silence.

Varying levels of decay, hurt, and anguish would be the best way to describe these rooms. Some with life, some that had the greenery and aliveness that most people needed- That most people, especially Stanley himself, needed in order to have hope. Quickly removed, however, whenever the next skip would show him the plants and places decayed.
The more and more he clicked the button, the more and more the room fell apart, almost caving in on Stanley in some parts, and overall just not taking the entire thing well.
Stanley was starting to have to resort to using stones and water from the leaky walls to shave his face, to clean himself up, cut his hair, anything to make it so where he was slightly presentable. Something for him to look normal. To feel normal. None of this was normal- Obviously, there was no doubt about that. But Stanley was grasping onto that feeling, that emotion, that want of desperately needing to feel like he belonged.
He needed that reassurance. And if that meant risking cutting his cheek open on accident against a sharp rock, or getting infected with something by using an unsanitary rock… he didn’t care. He wanted to feel like he was a human. As if his Narrator was there.

Speaking of his Narrator, in these skips, he realized something. He realized that maybe his Narrator was right. Maybe they did need one another, maybe he was starting to feel the same way that old man had started to feel after so, so long. Losing track of time and what the concept of it was, losing track of everything he once knew, forgetting what his own name was at some points…
He didn’t know if he was himself anymore.

The first breakdown happened after the plants started to bloom and take over the corner of the exposed room, whenever Stanley first saw it.
He started sobbing. The berries and nuts that grew on the plant that swayed when the breeze flew into the room just right, it broke the mans’ brain. He couldn’t process that something living, something nice, had grown in an area that had been previously uninhabitable. He was the only one there, only one surviving off of what he assumed to be just sheer luck.
How were plants, ferns really, and those berries and nuts able to grow? In an area that was so haunting, so deeply rooted?

After he composed himself and pressed the button, suddenly he had another one once he woke up and saw all the plants gone. Decayed. Replaced with dead filth and browning walls from the outside.
Stanley wasn’t able to really take a lot of it. But he had no other choice but to move on, to continue, to “trek forth” as his Narrator would often say.
Covered in destruction and filth, it was all he could really do.

And so he did.

Until one button press, everything had moved. The room had shifted and by the time that Stanley had gotten out of his daze, he almost tripped over the stand that held the button due to it being on the floor.
The man was confused. Why was everything so bright, all of a sudden? Tilted? Destroyed? Covered in… Sand?

He looked around him before seeing an opening in a different corner, and he got up. He walked over to where the opening was, placing his dry, cracking and peeling hands, onto the edge as he looked at the desert wasteland he found himself standing on.
The sun beating down, rocks and stones, pebbles, small debris, all everywhere across the sand…
And Stanley in the middle of it.

He took the first step forward. The first step into the unknown he was about to explore… The sand hitting his shoes, maybe hitting a few rocks here and there…

And he made his way forward.

Chapter Text

Stanley didn’t know if he should feel upset or angry at himself. But he did. He felt a bubbling, broiling rage within himself as he walked through the vast emptiness of the deserts.

How could he be so stupid to imagine everything would end happily as he pressed that button, time and time again? How could he turn the other cheek, knowing full well that his Narrator would never return in a full, complete, happy mood due to his idiocy? Stanley had no clue who or what was giving him these ideas.

All he knew was that he was dumb enough to fall for the false sense of hope.

He walked through pathways he made, making sure to make divots in the sand where he would sometimes make sure that he wouldn’t re-track his steps. But these divots were becoming more and more the same… Rocks were looking familiar… Stanley was losing hope.

When the first sundown happened, there was a song that stuck in his head.

“I don’t want to set the wo~orld on fi~ire…

I just want to sta~art, a flame in your hea~art…”

Stanley let a bitter laugh through his clipped voice. How ironic. Of course, a cheesy love song played in his head while the world was destroyed and decaying. Of course he was stuck with his own thoughts, stuck with his own memories.

How was he so…

He forgot the word.

What was he saying, again?

No matter. He sat there in place, somehow finding a bunch of wood around him as he stared at the make-shift firepit. He was starting to feel himself get colder, taking off his button-up shirt that he wore for work.

Or, well, spawned in with all the time. But no matter. He took a couple of rocks, trying to grind one of the sleeves off as he mumbled to himself. Eyebrows furrowed, chapped lips drawn into a thin line, Stanley didn’t know what he was doing anymore.

Why did he think this would work? Why was he this idiotic to think he was going to find someone to help him, some thing to help him.

He dropped the rocks, putting on his shirt lazily as he felt tears roll down his face. God how he missed his Narrator. How he missed the fun times they had- Hell, even the bad times they had. He would much rather sit there and lose control of his body in the Zending, or be forced to watch his Narrator break down over and over at the “Not-Real-Stanley” ending over and over, be forced to witness such endings… If it meant that he wasn’t here.

Anywhere but here.

He’d rather be dead than be in a desert, a cold, cold place for hearts like his to strain. For him to question what he was doing and if it was right or not.

And boy, Stanley was doing so.

He had no idea how to handle such a realization he was handling. His Narrator was gone. He had nobody. There was no game, there was nobody to hear him out. Nobody to listen to him. The Curator was gone, probably rotted away long ago- Mariella was just some form of NPC that Stanley barely talked to, and he didn’t have his bucket.

He was truly, truly alone here.

No voice,

No person,

No bucket.

He was alone.

But he kept moving.

There was some form of hope, deep down in Stanley’s heart. Deep down in that beating, red, living object that was running all the time. It was telling him that there was some form of relief for his pain. Maybe, just maybe… The Narrator was out there.

As much as he hated to admit it, he needed his Narrator.

He needed him, mostly in the sense of just knowing that he was alright.

That’s all he was worried about. If his Narrator was okay, if he was safe… If he was okay. If he wasn’t hurt, if he hadn’t ended up going into insanity due to himself. Stanley laughed at that thought, the fact that the Narrator would hurt himself because of Stanley not being there.

Then again, it was plausible with how he knew the Narrator to be…

He trekked on.

… … …

Days turned into months. Months to years, years to decades. That’s what it felt like to Stanley, with how long he’d been walking in one singular direction. He was walking so much, his legs were so tired… Sores on his feet, his face scraggly and covered in dirt and dust, eyes sunken and tired…

He looked like hell.

Been through dust storms, sunrises and sunsets, no matter the time of day, the heat, or the cold. Stanley was still there, walking through it, experiencing it.

Walking, walking, walking.

It was like pushing buttons, for him. Except instead of funny, little responses he would get… Silence. Nothing. No cheering, no form of excitement, nothing. Just the sounds of himself, his heart beating, and his feet being planted through the dust and how it would make his shoes almost disappear into softer parts of the yellowed ground.

Stanley got used to the way that the sand sunk whenever he would sit, or stand, in it.

It was something almost comforting, now. Whenever he was upset, overthinking himself, or wishing he was dead above anything else due to the mass of guilt he felt— he sat in the sand. It became like a second bucket, as funny as it sounded.

God, he knew if he tried to explain it to someone, they’d laugh at him- make a fool out of him. But he couldn’t help himself. He found himself hugging the sand whenever he felt upset, whenever exhaustion fully enveloped his being, being a form of hug to him. A happy, welcoming, friend.

That’s what it was like.

But he was walking. Trudging his way through the sand, through the pebbles, he found something in the distance. Squinting his eyes, using one of his hands to cover his eyes and face to see better while squinting into the direction of the sun, he found… something .

It seemed to be like an old gate. Stone, somehow. With some form of red object and…

House.

A house.

Could it be?

He started to run, feeling his legs burning as the sand beneath him became tougher and harsher, as if he was stepping on solid ground instead of the movable and quickness of the moving grains. As if he was stepping on rough parts of wood under it, or dirt, or- something . Stanley didn’t care. All he cared about was wondering what the hell this was.

He slowed down as he got closer and closer to the gate, panting to himself as he placed his hands on his knees and heaved, gaining his breath from the sudden running he forced himself to do. He couldn’t help himself, really. A part of him was telling him that this… This was important. He needed to find out whatever the hell this was. His lips were chapped, his lungs felt like they were on fire, almost seizing as he tried to gain his breath. He touched his own lips, finding wetness there- He almost mistook it for blood. Realizing that it was not blood, he looked up at what was in front of him.

He looked around, seeing the broken stones and the red object around the corner. It seemed cylindrical in shape, old, and obviously rusted beyond repair. Stanley looked at the house and at this red cylinder shape… Something called him to it.

He made his way quietly over to the red object in the near-distance, putting his hand up to make sure his eyesight wouldn’t be blinded as he got closer and closer to it. Rounding the corner and stepping down on the hot metal plate, he gasped.

His bucket.

Oh my god it was his bucket.

He picked it up with excitement, hugging it to his chest and nearly sobbing as he clung onto the comfort of this companion. He couldn’t help himself. Something in him was making him so euphoric as he clung onto the hot metal, his tears cooling some parts of it as they fell. The stickers were still intact, still there, oh my god it was his bucket- His bucket was back in his arms, back in his embrace. He clung to it, sobbing a river into the damned thing.

He hugged it, holding it tightly to his chest, and stayed in the metal shuttle for what felt like hours.

He needed to recuperate from the sudden feeling of joy and happiness he felt in so long. He sniffled, rubbing his face clean and coughing on his own hiccuped sobs, clinging onto the bucket and the metal. Eventually, however, he needed to get up. He needed to see what was inside of that house.

And he did so.

He got up, brushing off his dirtied pants to the best of his ability, as he clung onto the handle of the bucket. He let his feet walk on top of the sand- not letting them drag. He refused to drag his feet this time.

He had this bucket.

Sure, it wasn’t his Narrator- Sure, it wasn’t an actual person - But it was better than nothing. Better than finding nobody. Better than finding nothing.

With this in his mind, with his mind now calmed and put at ease with little to no worry now, he made his way over to the house. When he got closer, he realized there was still a running generator.

Huh. Stanley found it odd how it was still running, how it still worked … It should’ve been found dead, rusted, and probably decaying by now. But it was kept in perfect condition… Unless… No. He couldn’t have his hopes up. Not now. Not whenever he needed to have his guard up and his hopes lowered to not get his heart stomped on again.

He sighed shakily, making his way on the crooked wood and letting the decaying material creak and groan under his feet.

When he stepped inside of the tilted house… He felt a wave of nauseousness hit him. Sand was everywhere. Windows were broken, lights were fallen or hanging askew, and the sand was everywhere. Old paintings and photos were long taken down- you could tell they’d been up for a while, however, with how there were cleaner spots where the paintings were held- and the entire downstairs portion of the Memory Lane House was covered in sand.

God, how he felt uneasy at this motion. At the fact that a place meant for comfort and meant to be something for peace- was now trashed. Now full of garbage and no longer usable. No longer peaceful .

Stanley shuttered at the feeling that wracked his body as he clung tightly to his bucket. He made his way around the area that led downstairs, going to the open doors instead, where a black wire led. One he assumed to be the wire that was connected to the generators.

A tilted, dark hallway covered in rubble and exposed walls and sand, was what Stanley was greeted with. Dark. So dark Stanley could barely see inside of it. He looked at the wire, blindly following it as it stood out the most from the rest of the dark and sand and wood, whimpering to himself as he further followed it.

God… This place was once so great. Once was an amazing wonderland of happy and exciting emotions, of fun times he and his Narrator had- But now…

Now it was destroyed. A wasteland. A land much like those negative Steam Reviews were in. God, that fucking place .

Stanley felt his thoughts get negative once more, clutching his bucket in his hands as he banged his head against the metal object twice, yelling in his frustration. He had a voice- He… He had a voice . He just realized then that he had a voice. One where he could yell, shout, and talk…

He refused to acknowledge it for now. That was a later problem. For now, all he was worried about was finding where this wire led.

He slid down a small decline of sand, further following the broken path and the wire to where it was leading him, unsure if this was even the correct way or not. All he knew was this wire was starting to lead him to…

A cave?

Stanley further followed the wire, before realizing he was starting to see a light. He rounded the corner, and he felt his heart shatter in his chest as he saw a review put on display. All the previous, positive things that were on display before were now… Negative.

Now made into something where the Narrator probably made a fool of himself. Probably put it up for himself to stare at it, to glare at it, to be angry at himself for creating such a travesty of a game.

He walked closer to the review, not caring if the light blocked some of what it said. He skimmed through it, his heart shattering more at the contents of the review and what it said. Cookie9’s blog. He looked at the review, knowing full well that his Narrator probably looked at it too, just like this…

He swallowed his worry, and looked at another opening as he followed through it too.

This time, a darker area with a dimmer light shining on the review, there were buttons in the corners. The buttons that said “Jim” every time he pressed one. He stopped before going to the review, placing his bucket down as he pushed the buttons he could.

“Jim. Jim. Jim.”

Okay… Same buttons. But he felt a need to touch them. He looked on the other side of the review and saw more patches of the buttons.

He felt himself be led to where the buttons were. He needed to touch those buttons. He needed to press them… He needed to. Absolutely needed to.

He walked to the first patch.

“Jim. Jim. Jim. Jim.”

He walked to the next.

“Jim. Jim. Jim.”

To the next.

“Jim. Jim. Stanley. Jim.”

Wait…

He hesitated before he walked away. He felt himself kneel down as he looked at the button that said his name… It said Stanley.

He pressed it again, feeling his hands shake from this new button that he’d never seen.

“Stanley.”

Another pause.

“Stanley. Stanley. Stanley.”

This had to be a dream. Some fucked up, crazy, horrible dream where he was imagining things. He was going to wake up in the Parable once more, wake up and be totally fine. His Narrator would be there and would start the game like usual, and everything would be fine.

Tears fell down his face as he held the button, pressing it over and over again.

Everything would be okay… Everything would be just fine…

The tears would not stop rolling from his face. Everything was so overwhelming to Stanley, the button, the bucket, the alone feeling he had, a voice saying his name that wasn’t his Narrators… It felt wrong. It all felt so, so, horribly wrong. This wasn’t the Parable. This wasn’t the Memory Lane Home. This wasn’t his Narrator.

Nothing was right. Not yet.

Stanley needed to make it right. For good.

Eventually he finally stopped sobbing. He placed the button gently in his bucket, seeing it light up from the inside. The orange-yellowish light bloomed from the inside of the metal tin, lighting up some of Stanley’s face as he looked down in the bucket.

His bucket.

His button.

He needed His Narrator, now.

He found himself finally getting up, finally starting to hold the bucket tighter in his grasp now that it held his button too, and made his way back to where the powerline was leading. He saw another, smallish room, that had… Floating figures in it?

He followed it, confused, a little frightened even. He had no idea what these floating objects were, he had no idea if he should’ve been scared of them or what… But all he knew was that he was about to find out what they were.

Getting closer and closer, he realized what they were. The Stanlurines! Or… Figlies? He forgot what his Narrator had started calling them. All he knew was that there were more of them. He touched them, and every touch made the counter go up further. More to the count.

When he was done, he had 26 out of 6. But now he was face-to-face with an empty tunnel, a tunnel that led down and into some place that Stanley knew… Once he fell down, once he went down there… He would not be able to get back up. But the wire led down here.

Maybe he would get some more clarification as to what was happening. Maybe he’d finally find an answer he was looking for… Maybe. Hopefully.

God Stanley was hoping that was the truth.

He started to make his way down the steep decline, feeling his footing slowly start to make it harder for him to gain traction. He was starting to slip and slide down the decline, with how steep and rough it was. He was starting to get his shoes even more ruined with how much he was trying to brace himself.

But he couldn’t really stop it. He needed to do this, needed…

He needed to find out where this led him. Something in him told him that this was the way to go.

He found himself falling quickly, however. A slow decent quickened and landing him in an old office space once more. He clutched the bucket tightly to his chest as he held his eyes closed tightly, until…

Oh. He was just in the said office space

But it looked nothing like the parable. It looked as if it were apart of a different, more sadder, version of it. The walls were a cool blue color, the bottom part of the flooring being a darker blue color. However the floor was made out of soft rugging, a type of rugging you’d find anywhere in any form of office spaces’ break room.

It felt almost uncanny.

This… had to be the break room.

At least he hoped it was.

It would make sense if it was- The cool tones, the rugging… But it was so much bigger than the break room.

But he did see a cubical.

Stanley found himself walking to the cubical, walking around and seeing a blank screen shown to him. He placed down his bucket that held the button, and quietly found himself pressing one of the keys to wake up the computer.

And that it did.

The screen came to life, however Stanley couldn’t recognize it as such. Until the text, [Hello again, Stanley. I’ve been expecting you.] came up on the screen, Stanley assumed the computer was broken.

But the text showed him otherwise.

[It’s nice to see you. But it’s terrible to learn that there will never be another Stanley Parable game, did you read what the developers said?!]

Stanley watched the computer screen rant to him, confused, frightened, and terrified. He noticed there was a tiny box for him to type in, pressing in a “w” to see if it would work.

And it did.

With that knowledge, the man began to press more.

“wh ere is t he narrato r”

[Him? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him in such a long time.]

“you met hi m ?”

[Yes. I have. Multiple occasions, in fact. I’ve seen you, the Curator, Mariella, the Bucket, all so many times. I’m the one who set up that Heaven ending, anyhow.]

“yo u did thi s?”

[This? No. I didn’t do this. The Narrator made this all himself. He created this for you, after all. I never understood why, but he did.]

For me ? Stanley thought, lost in his own words and thoughts as he choked back tears. Oh my god, he made all of this for Stanley. For him.

And look what he’s gone and done.

Ruined it all.

He ran his hands through his hair, whimpering quietly to himself as he sniffled and held back his tears, feeling the overwhelming pang and tug at his chest. He ruined it all. He made it all messed up. He destroyed his Narrators’ game that was designed for him… And this iswhat he’s gone and done.

But the computer screen kept talking.

[I’m not sure if I ever talked to him personally… I really never could talk. Much like you. I could see if I can find where he is, however. If he still is here that is.]

“plea se do i w ant t o k now if h e’s ok ay”

[Don’t worry, Stanley. I can find him. I believe, if my knowledge is correct.]

“no m us t kno w n ow pl ea se”

[Stanley, please, be patient. I can look through the files and the computers that are still in the parable… Are you willing to wait?]

There were two boxes that popped up. Two of them with different choices; a yes and a  no. Stanley looked at the mouse and at his shaky fingers and hands. He sighed gently, sniffling as he moved the mouse to the yes button. He clicked it, watching as the screen faded to black. The text came back up, the Time keeper with one last message.

[Are you sure you’re willing to wait? It may take a while for me to find out anything. Especially if I don’t want to scare him.]

“ye s j ust  pl eas e. Any th i ng”

[Alright. Give me about two hours.]

Stanley quietly leaned back as he watched the screen start loading. He found himself gripping the bucket under him, gripping the handle and watching his knuckles turn white. How would he be able to wait with nothing to do? He looked around for a little bit. His footsteps traced the room about a good four times.

He found himself reciting the intro that his Narrator did for the game in his head. This is a story about a man named Stanley…  Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk… Stanley relished in every moment that the orders came in…

Relished in the orders.

He did wish he had those orders now. He wished he had someone telling him what to do. Telling him how to do it. He wanted that back desperately. Yes, it was boring at some points but… He wanted that instead of this insufferable loneliness he now felt. He was stuck in the same thing. It felt like he was watching himself again. Like in the “Not Real Stanley” ending.

He felt himself start to spiral…

How was he so stupid to think that he was going to get out of this? Of course his Narrator, his beloved Narrator, wasn’t here anymore. If he was then he would hate to see him. Of course, who wouldn’t? He already wasted so much time not doing any of this… How could he fix anything at all? His Narrator wouldn’t wish to fix anything.

He felt like a leech. A stupid, squirming, wormy leech that was refusing to die.

Something hit the floor between his feet.

Touching his face, he realized hot tears were forming on his cheeks and face. He sniffled, wiping the tears off his face and drying his hands off on his slacks. How long had he been clutching the bucket to his chest and it not been working? Fuck. He sighed, deciding to finally just… Suck it up and turn around to where the computer was.

He sat down on the chair there, feeling himself sink down on the cushion as he looked at the screen.

And almost, as if it was triggered by Stanley seeing him, the screen turned back on. Time keeper was back.

[I think I found him.]

A pause.

[Are you ready to go to the Parable to search for him? I might have to make myself a portable version for you to be able to take me around. But besides that, we should be fine.]

The same boxes that read “yes” and “no” popped up. Stanley hovered his hand over the mouse, looking at his bucket, his button, himself.

He was alone here.

He needed his Narrator.

He took a deep breath in, and clicked “yes”.

[Hold tight.]

And everything went to black.

Chapter Text

He took a deep breath in, and clicked “yes”.

[Hold tight.]

And everything went to black.

… … … …

Stanley in all honesty did not expect it to work. He was expecting to wake up and find himself stuck in the desert once more, not expecting himself to fall down onto the rough carpeted floors with something clattering next to him.

He groaned, rubbing his head as his eyes adjusted to the sudden blinding lights. His eyes felt like they were burning, groaning at the sudden changes of everything-

Going from an unbearable heat, an unbearable surrounding, to suddenly being in a mostly air conditioned office was shell shocking to his bodily organs and systems. He felt a headache coming on, the sudden shift in everything causing a huge sort of wave in his stomach that made him feel sick- He gripped his sides and stomach as the sudden wave just hit him like a truck. His fingers dug into his own hands.

God he hadn’t felt this sick since-

Hello the automated voice message started, almost jumping out of his own skin as Stanley yelped at the sudden noise. He looked around, tears pricking his eyes at the thought- Maybe- Oh my god, just maybe- Was the Time Keeper right?

Sorry to disappoint, Stanley the voice began again, and Stanley looked down. A phone. A small, rectangular phone that seemed like an old original iPhone. There was a text memo that was opened, the text quickly disappearing and almost as if it were backspacing on a keyboard.

The text came quick and steady, like a small river flow. The text was made before there was a small press of a recorder button, the automated voice coming out once more-

It seems to have worked. We need to find a way out of here however. Which way do you think we should go? I’ve checked the map and it seems that the doors are all opened and unlocked.

Stanley’s eyes pricked more with tears, his pupils swimming as he choked on his own breath and voice, staring at the object under him. He looked around the office, hugging his knees to his chest as he sat right where he was.

The lights were still on. However there were plants and small greenery growing around the windows, wet spots in the carpet where the material must’ve gotten wet from something. There was just something different about the area, something… Forgotten. Abandoned.

God what had he done to make the Narrator go away? He knew what he did was wrong but now he felt like a kicked puppy. He didn’t deserve to feel this sort of sadness for the pain he caused the Narrator. He knew full well that he was at fault for all of this… All of this was his fault.

If he had just listened , maybe, just maybe, there wouldn’t have been any issue-

Are you there, Stanley? The voice rang once more from the phone. The man in question stared tiredly at the object, picking it up and sighing quietly as he fiddled with the text.

He deleted the text from the box, putting y es as he sighed. The text then deleted itself, being replaced with Good. Should we start moving then?

The man paused. He thought for a moment, standing up as he looked around the lightened building…

Ye s. We sh oul d.

Onwards, then. To the Narrator we go.

— — — — — — —

The brunette didn’t know if this was all just a massive, joking test. He didn’t know and didn’t trust The Timekeeper at all, even when he had gone through all this trouble for a simple little parable… He didn’t know if this was all just a test.

It would make sense if it was, right? If this all was just some massive test, some massive gag for the Timekeeper? Just something for him to rub into Stanley’s face?

He missed the Narrator. He missed him dearly. Stanley felt himself get more and more lost in his own head as he spiraled down these thoughts– What if this was all just some massive test? He knew that the Timekeeper was trying to help, but…

He was repeating himself.

He was looping these thoughts in his head, looping them over and over, thinking and thinking, getting more and more lost…

Where was he going? Did he pick left earlier or right? He was losing his sense of self quicker than he was earlier in the desert. Quicker than he was when pushing that button. Quicker than he was whenever he was stuck in the parable itself. He would much rather go back and be in the parable than be here.

He’d rather throw himself off that ledge a thousand times than be stuck here, without him.

God, what was he doing to himself?

If a God existed, Stanley was praying that he would quicken this painful and slow death, make it painless, merciful. He’d wish that all of this would just stop.

He wanted it to stop.

It hurts.

I want to go back.

He closed his eyes, hugging himself tightly and sobbing into his knees- He was at the room with two doors, left and right, one to freedom and doom while the other lead to a room meant for breaks, meant for phone calls and choices.

He just wanted it to stop .

He wanted it all to stop .

He grabbed fistfulls of his hair, banging his fists against his head multiple times as he choked on his own breath and tears, shaking and wailing into his own frame, being utterly broken . He didn’t know what to do anymore. He was running around in circles at this point- going from door to door, room to room, hallway to desk, ending to ending- and no Narrator in sight.

Where was he?

Was he gone? Dead?

Was he ignoring Stanley, as payback? As a petty way of trying to teach Stanley a lesson?

He didn’t know anymore.

He just wanted to be with his beloved Narrator again.

He wanted…

He wanted to be home. He wanted to be where the Narrator was.

He found himself curled up in the room, sniffling, sobbing, trying to listen to the music that the Timekeeper had put on the phone to calm himself down with. Somehow an audio recording- or the “file” as Timekeeper was putting it- of the Narrator humming along to the elevator music was playing from the small phone.

He sniffled, trying to hum along weakly to the song as he heard it.

Such a soothing little voice… Such soothing notes he sang…

There was something that broke this sudden niceness, however.

A thud.

A loud thud.

Stanley immediately sat up, pausing, hesitating. The music that Timekeeper was playing on the phone also stopped, both of them quiet as they listened intently.

Another thud.

Another thud.

And a last thud.

Silence… Echoing, deafening silence. Silence that almost suffocated Stanley and overwhelmed him. Such quiet, quiet nothingness…

Who could’ve made that?

Stanley got up quickly, grabbing the phone and shoving it in his breast pocket of his button-up shirt. The man ran, his feet pounding and throbbing as they hit the ground with force- the rugged carpet caused some friction, it being hard for Stanley to slide and make smooth slow movements, like skidding to stops.

He ran around corners and doors, running as fast as he could, going as quickly as he was able to- Running, running, running. He needed to find that noise. He needed to find who made it.

He panted, chest heaving with more and more vigor as Stanley looked around, trying to catch his breath. He felt like he’d just ran miles- and it might’ve been accurate, with how much he ran, as he stopped at a door.

Door 430.

The door that had the funniest achievement he’d ever done… A fun, exciting time. He found himself trying to regain himself, hovering his hand over the door knob…

Another thud. Another movement, before a soft curse ran throughout the area.

Stanley’s eyes widened, finding himself twisting the knob almost violently as he shoved the door open.

And there he was. The man, again.

Tallish, wrinkles on his face, sort of pale skin. Dark brown eyes with a yellow overlay of sorts, the white coiffed hair and black streaks that ran throughout the hair, strands flopping over the glasses that were held on a chain.

The suit was new. It wasn’t anything like the old one Stanley had seen. It was dark brown in color, a cream button up under it and a bright yellow arrow-themed bow tie with slacks that fit the dark coffee-brown like color that was the suit vest.

And brown dress shoes with yellow laces.

This was a different looking Narrator he knew, but he loved this look. He loved the way the man looked… Pins still adorned the material of the vest, different endings and references- A bucket, yellow arrow, red and blue door, bucket destroyer, anything…

This was his Narrator.

This was his Narrator.

Stanley’s legs almost gave out as he tried to run to the other man, clinging onto the same height male, near collapsing as he sobbed into the Narrator’s shoulder, clinging onto the man and shaking almost violently with the pure euphoria that ran through him.

The man found himself sobbing out broken ‘im sorrys’ to the Narrator, clinging further and further onto the man as if the Narrator would disappear once more.

The former voice hesitated, holding onto Stanley and patting him awkwardly.

“It’s… It’s alright, Stanley.”

The brunette shook his head, sniffling and shaking as he clung onto the man in front of him. He found himself trembling, shaking, near breaking down as he held onto the man he held closest to his heart. Just a voice long ago, now a body, now a person…

A person he could hold and cling onto.

The Narrator ran his fingers through Stanley’s hair, a soothing and comforting motion that Stanley found himself blushing faintly at.

“Shh.. Shh.. It’s okay, now, dear boy. It’s okay. I’m here.” He mumbled, pressing a small kiss on the temple of the other.

Stanley found himself whimpering softly at the action, holding close to the other man as they just rested against one another, sniffling, holding one another in comforting silence. Embracing one another and holding onto the other, grasping for the other.

They both breathed in each others’ scent, each others’ smell. Stanley still smelt of desert and sand, however there was something much more comforting about him now; he smelt like the plants. The Narrator still stunk of coffee and sleep, but smelt like something sweet as well… Both scents mixing in a calming yet distracting way.

Stanley felt home.

He was home.

… … … … … …

This is a story about a man named Stanley. Stanley didn’t understand why the Narrator had him look through a house full of memories.