Chapter Text
The parable had been rather peaceful as of late, monotonic in fact. Stanley and the narrator had gone through their runs, with their usual disagreements, and other silly, unremarkable jabs at each other. Things have been surprisingly bordering the uncomfortably stale state. The narrator had perfected his game, made it into a masterpiece. It was a work of art about the meaning of choices, a beautiful piece that made the players truly think, it had meaning; it had a point!
Yet incredibly frustratingly, it was getting incredibly repetitive. Stanley was far worse off than the narrator, he had already lost his patience a long time ago with the parable. For the Narrator, the sheer familiarity was getting very tasteless. Even the Zending didn’t produce the same kind of rush of emotions, the happiness and satisfaction that the narrator had relished like an addict before. Those damn stairs right by the place were boarded up as well, that was something the narrator didn’t plan inventing into the game, and sure as hell never wanted to go back there after the one time Stanley did find them.
For a while now, Stanley had been acting strangely. Well, less strange but rather more frustrating to the narrator. He could feel their complicated relationship already strain because of the monotony, Stanley had explored each scripted line of the narrator and it was incredibly tough to wring out anything off from script. The narrator had began slowly getting more comfortable with Stanley, and even began talking to him directly. The repeat of his lines, each one pronounced perfectly and always the same… It was his ‘job’ after all, he was ‘The narrator’. But not everyone can forever love their job, can they?
Yet even the narrator was slowly growing bored. He had even entertained the idea to make himself a physical room and a body- all of course without Stanley knowing. Why would he expose himself? Besides, he was sure the man would pester him about it so long, until he caved in and would let Stanley come up there. God, that would be so wrong. The narrator found himself already disliking the idea of Stanley even seeing him, since he knew the man would be insufferable about some human bullshit such as ‘loneliness’. The narrator wouldn’t let his human vessel fall into something as tedious as that. And besides, the narrator had however grown to love his office and his body (he could modify everything to his liking, after all). The fact that he existed in the same dimension as Stanley, yet still so out of reach satisfied the narrator. He did however have to give up his basically omniscient gaze over the parable.
He found a way to accommodate this problem though. When setting up his own office, he set up multiple monitors to have a watch everywhere in the parable. But most importantly, one monitor right in the front was always following Stanley right over his shoulder like a ghost. It was interesting to see the parable from that perspective, despite it being through a monitor. Of course, Stanley didn’t see a damn thing, the ‘camera’ was invincible after all.
The narrator still had to admit, even after this exciting change on his own part, it did very little to actually cure the real problem at hand; They both were so overwhelmed with boredom.
It’s safe to say it was time to try something new.
The narrator had research internet up and down, metaphorically absolutely milking it for its content. The place never ran out of material, new content to get inspiration from. It was like an infinite hole of ideas, varying from mild, cute, and sweet little moments and ideas to downright disturbing hellhole of an abyss. Today the narrator felt merciful enough to give Stanley a piece of empty paper and a pen. He figured his protagonist could write down thoughts or even scribble while the narrator did his intense research. The narrator had found multiple articles, fan works of his game and such. He was gathering lots of inspiration, and he felt the creative cogs in his mind turn and tick, creating the same kind of buzz he felt when he began building his masterwork.
While the narrator was fumbling on about in the internet, leaving an occasional grumble when something didn’t satisfy his creative needs, and an occasional small curse when he stumbled onto something he didn’t want to see in the first place. However, ideas flooded the narrator’s brain. Ours passed by as the narrator had written down each possible idea. His note room was getting quite full, he would have to expand the room in the game’s 3D model files at some point.
Stanley requested more paper; He was granted an entire sketchbook. The man flapped his hands in excitement as he quickly signed a thanks to the ceiling, where he always looked up to when communicating with the narrator. The narrator merely wanted the man to not pester him for a while, he didn’t want to have an interruption to his master ideas.
Scrolling through his fan sites, he came across a rather strange idea. Someone had posted a link to a google site filled with different ‘AU’ ideas. From the ‘thumbnail’ of the link he could already see words like ‘parafell’, ‘horror AU’, ‘Lovebug AU’ and so on so forth. He was quite interested to see what the fans of The Stanley Parable came up with, so he followed the link to the unknown website. Before he could even remember that following links to sites which he wasn’t sure about, something happened.
A pink coloured glitch in his peripheral sight, he turned around to meet a sudden jump-
His consciousness was plunged into a black abyss.
Stuck inside a limbo.
Is that where he is?
Where exactly is he?
The narrator was scared.
Could he even feel scared?
Time seemed to pass so slowly. It felt so long.
But in an instant, it was like he was plunged back.
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Suddenly, the narrator woke up back in his office, his body laying against one of his cabinets full of text documents and story drafts. His head felt incredibly light. He was breathing hard as he fixed his glasses (which he technically didn’t even need, but he figured his human form looked nicer with this invention), and something was wrong. A sense of dread washed over the narrator. Thoughts like ‘What had just jumped at me? What happened?’ drilled the narrator from any other coherent thoughts.
The narrator looked around his… messy office? It was significantly more different than it was just a mere moment ago. First of all, things were much cleaner before, the office looked nothing like his anymore. It honestly looked like a human sized hurricane washed over everywhere. He had opened some kind of link on the website, was it malware he accidentally downloaded? The narrator felt very stupid, and mentally kicked himself for falling for such an easy trap.
Everything however looked considerably normal. Despite the completely new state of his office, the parable which Stanley and his bucket companion were at stood the same as before the sudden attack. At least Stanley shouldn’t be hurt, that was what the narrator was incredibly glad about. The narrator did have a sort of attachment to Stanley after all, ‘the attachment is going to be a problem later’, the narrator had at one point thought. But he figured since he is spending the rest of his never-ending existence with Stanley, this would be his problem to deal with later (The narrator refused to think further than this, the thought of being immortal, forever stuck in an office he himself created once, never being able to escape- yeah, no. He would much preferably remain blissfully ignorant).
In this place, it was just conditioned it to happen. His internal filter however slowed down this process significantly. He knew that things would get incredibly complicated if he let his emotions run free- thus he locked them away for good, somewhere safe to never be recovered from. This would be the best for them two- ‘No, just me. Just the Narrator, yes’. The narrator interrupted his nearly unconscious thought process. Stanley would be fine, right? The man seemed to enjoy annoying the narrator, so he must be fine.
The narrator gathered himself from the floor. He noticed an attire change, his brown coat was nowhere to be seen, instead he was just wearing a simple cream coloured turtleneck with comfortable pants. The narrator frowned at this. He couldn’t be getting so old he doesn’t remember what he put on, right? (Not like his actual body was even that old- sure, he made it look like a 40-year-old human, but the narrator mainly meant his existence in general). Maybe this was just some strange phenomena- or it had whatever digitally assaulted him just now. The narrator felt himself grow a bit bitter again. ‘No way I actually fell for that’, the narrator thought and hit himself in his mind again.
The narrator shook his head in disappointment towards himself and got up from the floor. He spawned himself a cup of some nice warm coffee, and sat back down on his desk. Stanley wasn’t on the table he last remembered him being at. Confused, the narrator looked around the monitors. Panic almost engulfed him, his worst fear that this malware had taken Stan-There! He thought, when the narrator spotted Stanley in the broom closet with his bucket. Why was he there? The narrator thought that maybe he was out for a while because of the assault. He decided to ask Stanley about this.
“My deepest apologies Stanley, something just came up to me. You see, since the parable has fallen victim to the world’s greatest enemy of all time- Boredom you see, I was browsing the internet for more ideas. Yes, exactly like I said I would- I know, how shocking.” The narrator spoke a bit sarcastically, more towards himself. He didn’t notice Stanley looking up, as he was busy rambling and explaining his situation to the man.
“And as you know, my greatest creation of all time, ‘the Stanley Parable’ has a fandom! Think about it, a fanbase who just loves my masterpiece! I figured, going there would be my best bet at finding inspiration, these people are fans who consumed material created by me, perhaps they could think about ideas that fit this game, that I could’ve never come up on my own! Do you see my point, Stanley? Yes, of course you do, I know you’re not that stupid.”
The narrator kept rambling more, not noticing the office worker wiping his face with his sleeves.
“But I made a mistake, Stanley. An amateur mistake. Something which I honestly cannot stop kicking myself in the leg for. You see, I was in one of those fan sites and I saw this post about some ‘AU’ stuff. It looked interesting, so I completely naively followed a link to gods knows where! It was real idiotic of me, Stanley. I admit it, I was a moron.” The narrator sighed, then continued his explanation.
“So of course, because the internet is the goddamn internet, I was attacked by some sort of malware. I have absolutely no idea what it was, and what it did. And most importantly, it seems like it knocked me out for a while. I noticed a change in my attire, and suddenly you were here, in the broom closet instead of your office! Can you believe how scared I was? I was completely convinced this thing not only assaulted me, but also did something to you. So, I just came to ask before I do a system cleaning… what happened? How long was I out for?”
The narrator FINALLY looked up to where Stanley was after his 2-minute ramble. He was incredibly shocked to find Stanley clutching the reassurance bucket, tears drying on his face as he was recovering from some intense kind of panic attack. Stanley’s eyes were completely red. The narrators heart sank, he was speechless for a moment. He was surprised to find himself actually feeling bad, this hurt and worried for his protagonist. But he pushed it aside, Stanley looked like he needed help.
“Oh Stanley… What... What in the world happened? I wasn’t gone for long, was I…?” The narrators voice wavered, he felt awful. There have been a couple occasions where he left Stanley alone for a moment too long, which drove the man into a fit of panic and animalistic destruction. He knew he wasn’t really at fault in that sense. But he still felt bad for Stanley. Stanley let out a sniffle and opened up his voice to the narrator. Something he did rarely, but right now was a moment for it. Stanley wondered if he should lie. He could never explain what exactly had happened. And there’s a chance the narrator would tell him he is delusional, or out of his mind. The pain would be too much. No, Stanley couldn’t make himself do it. He simply shook his head.
“No… I was scared you left.”
Simple words, many meanings. The narrator couldn’t know how much time had passed, and that answer did almost nothing to enlighten him. But it did imply that he wasn’t gone for long. The narrator sighed out of relief, he looked around the parable once again. He noticed the bucket apartment was now constantly active, and for some reason placed right before the employee lounge, it’s entrance through one of the doors. Nothing else seemed out of place, and despite Stanley’s recent crying, he looked on the outside fine. Well, his hair had grown a bit, and there was a very subtle beard on his face now.
“Okay… at least that much. I am terribly sorry I scared you, Stanley. Can you handle being alone for a couple of minutes? I promise to be very careful to not open new malware and such, I will simply run an antivirus program through my game, and set up a stronger firewall. I will be back in a moment, just stay in the broom closet!” The narrator yelled from the distance when he went to look for some firewalls and antivirus programs.
Stanley could deal with being alone for a moment. He actually quite preferred that at the moment. The grief hit him hard, he felt himself sinking down.
Meanwhile, the narrator ran the program. The program took about 3 minutes to completely check the game inside out. It detected no malware, and reported that the system was in a healthy condition. The narrator furrowed his brows again. Maybe it was a one hit attack? He didn’t see the point in that kind of virus, but this stuff was good at checking through things. So, the narrator let it be for now. Maybe the attack messed up some random things for no reason at all, and the narrator had gotten the main hit. He felt relieved his game was safe, though.
The narrator then took another couple of minutes to set a much stronger firewall. The old one was getting outdated anyways, the narrator felt himself incredibly lucky the virus, or whatever it was, was this mild. The narrator felt himself be satisfied with his work, so he returned to his office. Stanley was still in the broom closet. His eyes no longer red, Stanley looked solemn, but a lot more composed than before.
“Alright, I’m back now Stanley. Shall we get a move on? Perhaps since you’re already here at the broom closet, we could do the insanity ending? Oh, or if you feel like indulging me, the Freedom ending? It is my greatest feat, my masterwork! I would much prefer if you avoided the press conference ending though, it’s awfully lengthy.” The narrator rambled on, as Stanley got out of the broom closet with his beloved bucket. He walked up stairs to the boss’s office with the bucket in his hold tightly, however, Stanley went through the other doors to the elevator. He pressed a button, and sat on the floor. The calming elevator music came on the speakers, and narrator couldn’t help but hum along. It seemed like it calmed Stanley down in a way, anyway.
They stayed like that for 10 entire minutes. The narrator was surprised by his own patience, but he was too busy humming along and watching Stanley smile whenever he said something. Things like narrator saying Stanleys name along the song, silly little words like ‘shake those maracas’ and counting to three. The narrator felt oddly content, and Stanley looked to be even happier than he was. At some point however, the narrator got enough, and with a gentle tone he spoke to the man sitting on the elevator floor.
“Stanley...? Stanley? It is lovely to watch you just… sit down with me and calm down. Yes, truly relaxing. It doesn’t beat The Zen room though, but I suppose this is almost as nice, since you seem to be on board for once too.” The narrator let out a chuckle and spoke some more.
“But, the story must go on! So, pick up your beloved bucket, and let’s go back on the journey!” The narrator spoke with a happy tone to his voice, he seemed to be in a good mood. Stanley a bit reluctantly got up, and continued his way into the bosses office. He entered the correct number on the keypad after the narrator had finished his line of narration. They got all the way back down into the mind control facility, but Stanley stopped.
"Hm? What is it, Stanley? Did something catch your eye?" the narrator questioned Stanley as the man peered at the monitors. Without warning, Stanley rushed towards the rails and leaped into the abyss. The narrator stumbled over his words, taken aback by the suddenness of this action, but he quickly composed himself. It was fine; this was part of the game.
The narrator said his lines for the ‘Bottom of the mind control facility’ ending. He then played the song that accompanied it. Stanley danced along the tune with the bucket, until reset came along. What would be next now, the narrator thought to himself.
Stanley woke up back in his office, now in a good mood. Moments like these were precious for the both of them. A moment of solace in content feelings, a break from the eternal reminder of their never-ending hell. The narrator was partly a reason this place existed, but truth be told, even he is a little confused and unaware of the entire meaning of their existence, and how they came to be. All the narrator knew, was that he had an internal goal to make stories, something he just… appeared into existence with.
Since Stanley was in a good mood, he figured he would humour the narrator as well. Simple things, really. Stanley still regardless of this was deep in his thoughts. For a moment, he just zoned out at his desk, not moving for a whole minute. This concerned the narrator a little.
“Hm, Stanley?”
The narrator called out. He was not prepared to ‘hear’ what Stanley thought next.
‘Yes, dear?’.
A moment of silence.
Stanley seemed to catch onto his mistake, but instead of looking just embarrassed, he also looked grieving, for some reason. The narrator would have teased Stanley about missing his wife that much that he mistakenly called the narrator that, but something was up with his protagonist. Stanley was… unusually upset. That kind of emotion doesn’t come from just randomly calling someone else the wrong name, what was going on. What cou-
‘Never mind that, my mistake. Just get on with your narration.’
And now THAT was concerning. Very rarely Stanley ever told him that. So far, the narrator had learned that this often meant Stanley was sad. And honestly, seeing Stanley sad kind of impacted the narrator as well. Maybe it was his human body, that naturally went into empathetic mode seeing another person so upset. But he couldn’t be sure. Regardless of his human body, the narrator had always had a sort of care for his protagonist. Attachment, maybe. And again, he promised himself he would deal with that later.
“No- no. Stanley, it greatly troubles me seeing you this upset, what’s going on? Do you need to spend time with your wife? Well, she still is just a mannequin, but I don’t know, I could print you a picture of you two on a picnic. Really Stanley, I can see something upsets you. Let me listen to your thoughts, please-“
‘No. Leave me with my thoughts alone. You wouldn’t understand it, and don’t bother arguing with me, please. I am really not in the mood right now.’
…. please? Stanley asked him nicely. If that wasn’t out of character, nothing else could be. But the narrator understood the seriousness of Stanleys words. The narrator would grant him this wish, even though this left him feeling bugged.
Maybe it had something to do with the malware attack? The narrator figured it could be completely possible. But since Stanley was so… awfully distant, the narrator didn’t press on. Stanley stepped out of his office, and headed for the 2 doors. His first ‘real’ choice.
“When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left.”
Familiar dialogue, familiar story. Honestly, the narrator still wanted to make more updates to his game, but he was still a little too frightened by the recent events. The story can wait for update a little more, he would for now just try and appreciate these moments with Stanley.
Stanley walked through the left door. A satisfied smile appeared on the narrators’ face. He had the random urge to praise Stanley, but he kept his mouth shut. No reason to go off script for now, after all. Stanley walked through the meeting room, right past the broom closet, up stairs to the bosses office. After letting the narrator finish his dialogue, Stanley entered the code 2-8-4-5, and went to the lift taking him down to the mind control facility. For now, Stanley was following the narrator perfectly. This honestly had the narrator in a rather good mood.
The narrator recited his lines as the story kept going. Stanley seemed to slowly get in a better mood as well. The dramatic narration over Stanleys thoughts, the idea to never let anyone else be controlled by the evil machine. The narrators very carefully crafted story, which despite the previous massive boredom, he was still so fond of. Stanley finally got to the two buttons after the operation room, the On and Off buttons.
Tension raised in the narrator’s air. Would Stanley follow his story nicely, and obediently, or throw it off track the last chance he had?
Off button was pressed
The narrator had a big grin on his face. He felt a sort of relief seeing Stanley so willingly follow along. Maybe the man wanted to please the narrator, make sure he wouldn’t leave again. The narrator was still completely unaware of how long he was gone for when the malware attacked, so he did fear his guess was correct. But Stanley seemed happy again. Stanley’s face seemed to go soft and relaxed, as the giant door to the outside was slowly opening.
And eventually, it went down completely. Letting Stanley walk on the grass, breathe in the fresh air, and listen to the birds. It was all fake, but it was still a nice little break from the constant fluorescent lights abusing Stanleys eyes, and the dusty office air assaulting his nostrils.
Stanley laid himself down on the grass, just enjoying the moment. The narrator felt an odd warmth spread through his body, a sense of fondness taking over. Since he was in such a good mood, he figured he would let Stanley lay down just a few moments longer. And it seemed like Stanley noticed, as he tilted his head a little with a grateful look. A rare look on his face. It made the narrator want to entertain him more and more. But alas, everything must come to an end eventually.
“Stanley? You ready to go back?”
It was rare for the narrator to ask, but he did anyway.
And Stanley nodded in agreement.
They were back at Stanleys office now, fresh as new- wait, no. Something is wrong, again. Stanley didn’t load in properly yet, and for some reason everything was so slow. Like, incredibly slow. The narrator exhaled out of frustration, he would have to either make more memory space or erase past files. He decided to do both, just so he wouldn’t have to bother with this again in a while.
Stanley finally loaded in, and the narrator quickly informed him of his plans, and Stanley with a little grumble agreed. Not like he would have a say in it anyway. Stanley was given access to solitaire and mahjong. The narrator made a swift exit, and hopped into the games files, the endless web that he has created all by himself. Even a place like this, where no player should be able to access or see, the narrator had mastered it as well and made it a piece of mechanical art. It was all for himself, of course. He was proud of it, just as he was proud of the surface of the entire game. He had shaped and modified it to his liking, and he couldn’t help but feel like it was the best thing in the world. A little biased, but who cares?
The narrator arrived to his destination. The things he sees in here are indescribable for a human being, maybe would make more sense for a programmer. So, let’s just call this place a library of sorts, files, and boxes everywhere with labels, lines of code working like factory machine to keep the place stable. It was like an automated machinery in itself, so the narrator would have to be careful to not mess with his own work. You could think of an industrial factory, everything working automated and perfectly synchronized. This place honestly hardly needed a visit, unless the narrator was adding more content. However, something must have happened for the parable to get so slow all of the sudden.
The narrator wandered around in the seemingly endless library of his game. He first went ahead and made sure everything was working normally in the code. Nothing was touched, he had it almost memorized by now so he moved onto the next possible issue. The narrator opened the huge model folder, and hundreds of files were laid across the hypothetical room of digital workspace. Checking through each carefully, nothing was taking more space than it should. Splendid, next possible issue; memory and cache. When he opened it up, he found a file of something he definitely didn’t make himself. He opened it to see… a recording program, alongside with a camera model, and multiple heavy video files. The narrator felt incredibly perplexed. Why was something like this in his game, and for what? These had to be the reason the game was being a bit laggy, they took an incredible amount of space just for some few files. Nothing seemed like malware though, so the narrator with a careful ‘finger’ opened up the files bare.
The first video played in front of him, like a hologram screen in the middle of the air.