Chapter Text
The Narrator was used to Stanley’s stubbornness by now. He had to be. He’d watched Stanley hole himself up in a broom closet for an unreasonable amount of time for seemingly no reason at all. He’d watched him go up and down elevators, savoring the journey much more than he did the destination. He’d even been patient enough to put up with Stanley’s occasional rebellious streaks where he insisted on doing the opposite of whatever the Narrator told him, even when it landed him in trouble that was otherwise entirely avoidable if only Stanley had just listened! The Narrator sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He insisted he could tolerate these annoying habits of Stanley’s on the basis that at the very least he was still making choices. But this new development in Stanley’s behavior was agonizing. That was to say, as it were, that there was no development in Stanley’s behavior what so ever. Ever since the last reset he’d just been sitting there at his desk, staring dead at his computer screen like an immobilized zombie. He appeared to have no interest in getting up or doing anything. He wouldn’t even do the Narrator the courtesy of closing the door! At least then there was something to be done. It would permit the Narrator to go on some spiel describing Stanley’s cowardice. It would say something. Anything.
“Stanley continued to just sit at his desk, further proving the point that he was just as much of a good-for-nothing employee as he ever was. No wonder all his coworkers disappeared. They probably thought to themselves how unlucky they were to be working with such a boring guy, and decided to all quit unanimously, including Stanley’s boss.”
Stanley continued to stare into the computer screen, unmoving, unwavering. The Narrator groaned. He couldn’t even provoke Stanley into action.
“Would it take threatening your life to get you to do something? I just don’t understand what the problem is! I wouldn’t consider myself to have been particularly unfair as of late. I’ve permitted you mounds of agency. Or is it that you want more? Of course. It’s always more with you. I should’ve known. You greedy, rapacious—”
Stanley swiveled slightly to the right, and the Narrator stopped himself as a better angle of Stanley’s face came into view. His lips parted in shock. Stanley’s face was entirely drained of any expression. He almost looked sad, but even an emotion as potent as that might’ve appeared on his face. No, he was worse than sad, and a sensation of shame swept over the Narrator for ever letting it get this far.
“Stanley, you can’t mean to tell me… that you’re bored?”
Stanley glanced up, as if to look at the Narrator directly, then shifted his gaze down with eyebrows raised and a shrug. Of course, he wasn’t actually anywhere close to looking in the direction of the Narrator, but no matter. The Narrator was just elated to finally get a response from Stanley. He was sure not to make a sound, but his hands moved with sweeping and excited movements. Then disappointment as Stanley’s response finally registered with him.
“Bored? How can you be bored? I— well I— I thought I’d added plenty of new content for you in the last few resets. I polished up a bit behind the blue door, didn’t I? And… let’s see…” There had to be more than that, surely. He sifted through the pile of papers sitting next to his microphone mapping out all his routing and rerouting of the Parable, but he couldn’t seem to find any evidence of substantial progress that he’d made. Could it perhaps have been that the Narrator was having such an encapsulating time simply watching Stanley repeatedly reach a variety of the already pre-existing endings, that he’d gotten distracted? Surely not.
The Narrator cleared his throat. “Well anyways, you should be grateful for the options I’ve already given you, frankly. I’m not sure whether or not you know, Stanley, but it’s not exactly easy panning out the map as I try to expand upon the story. And there’s already so many delicious endings! Why not try the Freedom Ending again? It’s my favorite, and a breath of fresh air is sure to do you some good.”
Stanley didn’t budge, save for that he was now crossing his arms. Aha, so he was being stubborn.
“Now, now, Stanley. You can’t just pout and expect for new content to pop out of thin air. Why, you’d be no better than that hive of Steam accounts with their litany of complaints griping for more in-depth gameplay after nine years. Incessant complaining! That’s the problem with your generation, Stanley. It’s the entitlement. You have no concept of patience.”
Stanley looked up again, and an unconvinced smirk on his face.
The Narrator stammered, “You— you think you’re so smart, drawing that comparison. Well, you can abandon the thought, Stanley, for you’ve completely misunderstood me. I would be perfectly happy to spend an eternity waiting for you to get up and make a decision. That is, if there were any point to waiting at all, but there isn’t! That’s the problem. There’s no suspense, and you’re completely missing tension. No, no, no. This is all wrong. I simply must insist you stop with this sullenness now and get on with yourself. If novelty means so much to you, I’m sure there’s something you and the bucket could do. That’s what it’s for, after all.”
Stanley sighed and leaned his head back over the back of his chair, eyes closed.
The Narrator pursed his lips. He had to keep himself from coming off as aggravated over the mic. It was already clear as day on his face. “You’re really starting to drive me up the wall here. I don’t know what it is I can do to please you, Stanley. I mean, must I—” He paused. An idea struck him. He hummed thoughtfully as he considered.
“You know what? I’ve just thought of it. It seemed Stanley’s silent temper tantrum had won over the Narrator, for he suddenly heard every door in the office unlock at once.”
Stanley lifted his head from the chair and leaned forward, unsure whether or not he’d understood correctly.
“That’s right, Stanley. Every door in the office is at your cherry picking disposal. Total, unadulterated agency. Maybe I’ve been going about this all wrong. Maybe the true stories are the ones we write ourselves, hm? I’d like to see what story you come up with, Stanley. Surprise me. Just this once I’ll allow it.”
Stanley slowly got up from his seat and left his office. Suddenly the same doors he’d seen countless times were new and invigorating to him. His first choice of door was the one immediately to the left of his office, which he already knew led to the escape pod. He gingerly took the doorknob and turned it, surprised at the ease in which the door opened for him to reveal a black abyss. He slammed the door shut again, still clinging onto the handle. He stared at the door for a moment, his heart pounding. He never supposed something as simple as opening a door could’ve been so exhilarating, but as the saying goes, one open door leads to another. He opened it one more time, soaking in the black that stared back at him. He could walk through right now, but he wasn’t entirely confident he’d be able to come back, so he closed the door and wandered to the next.
The door behind him, door 430, had a window next to it that allowed Stanley to see exactly what the room looked like from the inside. No matter. It wasn’t the exploration that mattered as much as the freedom. Stanley opened the door anyway, and examined the room for himself. It was small, almost claustrophobic for an office space, lit with flickering, cold fluorescent like the rest of the office, one of the filing cabinet drawers was open but empty, and Stanley was experiencing all of this from the inside. Lovely, perfect office. He wanted to see what other doors he could open.
The Narrator was honed into the footage of Stanley’s change from glum to pure enthusiasm, like a switch not even the Narrator could reach had been flipped. He tried not to get too invested. Hands off the reins, regardless, he still had a job to do.
“Stanley rushed from door to door, bursting through every door frame previously kept unavailable to him. He was like a child in a candy store. He would soon come to find that most of the rooms were identical. Just office spaces from an era before all his coworkers mysteriously disappeared. Even so, this seemed to only enthrall Stanley further as he traveled from room to room.
“That was, until room 425. Room 425 was distinctly different from all the other rooms. This was because room 425 had two entrances, one from which Stanley was about to pass through, and one from the other side. Even before entering the room, Stanley could already see through the windows that behind room 425 was a painted, cinder block corridor he’d never been in until now. Passing through the office into the corridor, he found that the corridor too was lined with its own series of doors, this time with letters on them. 2A5, 2B5, et cetera. This was truly uncharted territory for Stanley. A number of possibilities could be awaiting him in this corridor. Potentially even dangerous…”
Stanley rolled his eyes and looked up.
“What? Of course I’m not trying to deter you! I’m merely saying you have no idea where this corridor could take you, Stanley, and this wouldn’t be the first to lead you to a grim demise. All I ask is that you proceed with an air of caution.”
Stanley stood for a moment, examining his options. Then, in a deliberate act of defiance, he sprinted down the hallway passing door after door, all labeled alphabetically.
A soft sound of shock escaped the Narrator. “Well fine. Have it your way. By all means, it’s your story. Stanley kept a brisk pace as he continued down the corridor, paying no mind to all the different rooms he could explore, if nothing else, to spite the Narrator. This was the basis from which a brand new story would emerge. One built on doing whatever Stanley supposed was the opposite of what the Narrator wanted. How original Stanley. All the freedom in the world, and you still choose to let me influence you. Simply bursting at the seams with unique, creative thought.”
The hallway stretched endlessly, or at least with less end than that supposed ‘bottomless hole’ he once fell down. The length of the hallway became more absurd the longer Stanley ran. He would’ve expected the hallway to end with the alphabet as he approached rooms labeled ‘4W5’ and '4X5’, but upon reaching the letter ‘Z’, the rooms just changed from 5 to 6, thus the 26 number sequence with letters repeated. Judging from the couple of times Stanley fell out of the office window, he didn’t think there was a true exterior to the office building he called home, nor did he guess it was bound to any law of physics. Good. He couldn’t imagine how a hallway of this caliber could ever exist otherwise. Not to mention how ugly it would look.
“Ugly? I’ll have you know that while I may take many shortcuts in the construction of this map, I always pay mind to the aesthetics. I guarantee it is at least one of the top twenty-three things I consider when working on new storylines. That’s rather high, Stanley. If I were to make an exterior, the mathematical pain that would be aside, there would be no other office that would even begin to compare!”
Because they don’t exist.
“Because they don’t ex— Right. Well, aren't you a genius.”
Stanley saw it just a few yards ahead. Finally, an ending. A door, white like all the others, but as he drew nearer he saw that it didn’t follow the alphabetical sequence the others did. This door was labeled ‘Server Room’. Stanley slowed his pace as he got closer to the door, eventually walking to open it. The door led to an aisle. Many aisles, in fact. Each made between two towering beige computers that extended towards the back of the room. The room was loud with whirring air conditioners trying to keep piping hot stacks of data from catching on fire. Great strands of red wires and cables emerged from the computers and merged together like blood vessels. Bound by zip ties, they ran along the sides of the towers towards the floor and through it. There was something medical about it.
Admittedly, the Narrator didn’t remember there being a server room. He’d spent so much time coming up with new things and running Stanley through the old, he hardly spent any time reminding himself of what he already had. Or was there a reason he never let Stanley back here?
“This is quite the place you’ve found, Stanley. I see now why you rejected all the other rooms. None of them could compare to this one.” Stanley had strayed so far down the beaten path that the Narrator could hardly keep up with Stanley’s actions aside from a few snide remarks, of which he was never short on. This was about the first time the Narrator had ever truly been put in a position of anticipation where he couldn’t see what was coming next. He loathed the feeling. His chest tightened at the lack of control. This wasn’t the position of a narrator at all, but rather that of an audience member, and Stanley was the main act. The star. Only the sight of Stanley once again making brand new choices and learning more about his environment, quite like when he first ran through the Parable, was enough to keep the Narrator from resetting everything.
“Stanley meandered through the aisles with child-like wonder. Was this a data centre, he thought. Was this The Stanley Parable in its true form? Just a number of metal boxes in a line? Surely not. Surely the world he lived in had more substance than that.
At the end of the aisle, however, Stanley encountered a button. Red and round, it resembled a great majority of all the other buttons Stanley had ever pressed. Stanley stared at the button for a moment, wondering if it was wise to press it. He had a very tumultuous history with buttons. Eventually, he decided, the story wasn’t going to progress in any meaningful way unless he took some sort of action, so he pressed the button.”
Behind him, Stanley heard a door open. It was in the exact same place as where he just came from, but this door was outlined in yellow and led to a room instead of the hallway. Stanley turned back and walked towards the yellow door. The room was closet sized, bearing nothing more than a single lever upon the wall.
The pit in the Narrator’s stomach grew. He’d only ever seen the map act on its own a few times, and usually it was not a good sign. Something was happening beyond the control of either Stanley or himself.
“Perhaps you ought to turn back, Stanley. This lever… it’s giving me a strange feeling. I swear I’ve never seen it before, but something tells me it does something terrible.” The Narrator shook his head. “Now Stanley, listen, I know the idea of me not wanting something must really entice you, but I’m begging you to actually consider my words here. This is bad, Stanley. Really bad.” It was no use. The Narrator knew this was the sort of thing to only egg Stanley on, but reverse psychology might have been equally as encouraging. He stared intently as Stanley reached for the lever and pulled it down.
Like bugs under a vacuum, both of them felt the overwhelming force of something sweeping them away into some vortex or swirling toilet bowl or event horizon of which there was no return. Each clung desperately to their surroundings, but nothing could save them from what Stanley had just done. The Narrator cried out for Stanley to save them both, but Stanley could only listen helplessly as both of them were suddenly torn from the ground into that swirling space that loomed over them.
Then a fade to black.