Chapter Text
What was the bucket?
This was a question that Stanley knew the Narrator would mock him for, likely referring him to the stupid bucket-themed game show he'd made, but Stanley was genuinely curious.
At times, it seemed that the bucket might've almost been alive, possessed by some otherworldly demonic entity. Of course, it couldn't be alive, right? It was a bucket. It was overwhelmingly likely that this was just the Narrator's idea of a prank, and Stanley was the unlucky victim.
The one thing that explanation didn't excuse, though, was the blood.
Stanley had gotten hurt in the Parable more times than he thought was reasonable, and every time he did, he bled, red seeping from his arm; his hand; even his head if he had really messed up. And it happened every single time. Stanley bled because he was human. That was his explanation.
Why did the bucket bleed, though? Sure, it might have blood hidden inside its sides, but that seemed a little too obvious. It was real blood, too. Call Stanley crazy, and maybe he was, but he had tasted it to check. If the Narrator had any traits of a good storyteller, it was that nothing in this Parable abided by the law of Occam's Razor.
And yet, Stanley could hurt the bucket. Stanley could kill the bucket if he stabbed it enough times.
For some reason, though, the Narrator denied all of this, and after realizing that the Narrator's memory may not be up to scratch, Stanley figured that this might be something that the Narrator simply didn't know about.
He had to test his theory. That was what scientists did, right? They tested, and tested, and tested, and if one instance of testing breaks their rule, they refine their hypothesis until it doesn't.
"Stanley picked up the bucket."
Stanley rolled his eyes at the simple narration. Though he knew the Narrator could be good with words, utilizing them to create hairline fractures in Stanley's psyche over and over again, he certainly didn't use those writing skills much over the course of the main Parable.
Stanley took the bucket in his hands and observed every part of it. It didn't seem to move, and it appeared to be entirely metal. Maybe it was like the Line, sentient in its own right, but not technically living? That could make sense, but it still didn't explain why it had blood.
He tapped the side, and nothing happened. It just sounded like a metal bucket.
He punched it, but it didn't even leave a mark.
Stanley set the bucket on the floor and stomped on it with his shoe, creating a crack in its side as it dented.
There. Blood. And he wasn't even in one of the endings that implied the bucket to be living. It was there the whole time.
"Stanley, that bucket took me a lot of work to make, you know," the Narrator said, but Stanley didn't particularly care for his mind games right now. He was going to figure this out.
He picked up the wounded bucket and set it on one of the nearby desks, sitting down at the chair. What was this thing? Why did it bleed? Was it alive?
Stanley examined the damage. The metal was damaged, but it didn't seem to be split all the way through. There wasn't much blood, either, which matched what he thought he knew. Maybe the Parable could be logical, if he looked at it right.
"Stanley was so obsessed with his bucket that he was just staring at it. How absurd." Stanley internally told him to shut up. He made this thing, so if he didn't explain it, Stanley was forced to draw his own conclusions.
He pulled open a drawer on a filing cabinet and took out a set of papers he knew were blank, just for the paperclip holding them together. He needed this to try something.
Stanley pulled open the paperclip, facing a sharp point outwards. A true weapon in the hands of an office worker.
He took the paperclip against the bucket, and bracing himself for the horrible screeching noise, he scraped the paperclip along it.
No noise came. Stanley waited for a moment to see if the sound had just lagged, but it was completely quiet. Interesting. He added it to his mental notes.
The bucket still looked like it had been scratched. No blood leaked out, though. It was just a regular scratch into the metal.
New plan, actually. If Stanley could drop the bucket at the lift and then get down to the ground with the glitch he had found-
The glitch. Which required him to hold the bucket. Stanley planted his face into the desk.
"Having trouble, Stanley?" the Narrator said, a sneer in his voice. "I would be thankful if I were you. You have a friend who actually cares about you. So what if it bleeds? Don't you?"
That wasn't the point, and the Narrator knew it very well. Though… Stanley looked up at the ceiling, where he pictured the Narrator to be. Maybe he knew it too well. Wasn't all the narration scripted? Why was this in the script? Unless the Narrator wanted him to go down this dark rabbit hole, and this was a way of tempting him into it. So it was a part of the story. Well, in that case…
Stanley dropped the bleeding bucket onto the floor. Oh, well. Maybe next time the Narrator would do a better job at getting him to look deeper than the surface level of things, but he'd had enough of this plot for now.
"Wh- Stanley, I-" Stanley heard the Narrator shuffle through papers, and he rolled his eyes. Of course he was staying on script. "Stanley, please, pick up the bucket. You made your bed, and now you have to lay in it. Or, well, you've stomped on your bucket, and now… you… hm, this isn't a very fitting metaphor for a bucket, is it, Stanley? Do you know of any that might fit better? Feedback is always appreciated."
Yeah, and Stanley was going to sprout wings and fly out of this dumb Parable. Was that a good enough metaphor for the Narrator? It meant 'not a chance'.
"Ugh, Stanley, you're no help." Good. He didn't want to be. "Hm… how about this: You wanted a hurt bucket, and now you've got a hurt bucket." That one wasn't even a metaphor. Trying to take out some of his frustration, he kicked the- "Oh! Stanley, that's right! Kicking the bucket is a metaphor involving buckets! Hm, but you aren't dead, so that doesn't work…"
Stanley couldn't suppress a small smile. That joke was pretty funny now that he thought about it. Technically, he had kicked a bucket.
He looked down at the bucket. Hm. He felt almost bad about it now. It was a bucket, sure, but it was still maybe sentient. Besides, it was only healthy to express sympathy toward something that was wounded and bleeding, even if it was just a bucket.
Stanley snapped at the muttering Narrator, getting his attention. "Yes, Stanley? What is it?" Stanley made a counterclockwise motion with his hand, signaling a reset. He wanted to get this bucket back to full health, ASAP.
The Narrator let out a deep sigh. "Oh, alright, just this once, Stanley. From the top."
…D IS NEVER THE END IS LOADING…