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He woke up, he attempted to find a way out, he died (or something else entirely). Then he woke up, tried to find a way out, he died (or something else entirely). Then he woke up–
It was a cycle.
A never-ending cycle.
There was no escape. He had searched and searched and searched and searched and searched. The narrator always breathing down his neck. A set of eyes that he could not see but they could see him . Watching. Waiting for his every move. He was there to chastise Stanley for doing something stupid. Or mock him for ever thinking that he could be free. Stanley was a source of entertainment, trapped within blindingly white walls. Trapped to walk through a bland office and up some bland stairs all the way into a secret room.
He had seen it– the monitoring room.
Endless screens. From the floor below all the way up to the vastly high ceiling. Screens upon screens upon screens. Every desk in the office on show. All empty and abandoned. (Had there ever been people working here in the first place? Or was that all a simulation, a personal hell set up for Stanley alone?) He could look at each one. He could see the way the screens flickered and blinked. Even his own desk was there, proudly on show to whoever occupied this space.
(Who occupied this space?)
(Who even was Stanley at this point?)
Entertainment. A test. Trapped. A variable. He wasn't quite sure what he was. Or what was real anymore. In the past, he was certain that he was human but now he had done things no human should be able to do. Had skirted on the fine line of altered reality and truth. He had toppled past what was possible and fallen into a deep pit of impossible.
He had come up to the room full of screens countless times. None of them ever changed. Neither did the following room with too many buttons and a blaring alarm that would sound if something went wrong. Stanley had once travelled past that, freedom at the tips of his fingers as grass brushed past his ankles and fresh air filled his lungs.
Then, once, he had pressed a button with so much force it broke in two and a countdown glared back at him. A promise of death, of the finality of this all being over. Only to be tricked by waking up at the same desk he always woke up at.
He had seen. He had experienced.
A bucket was his only friend. Adorned with stickers that he held close. He had seen inside of closets. He had seen the interior of a house that did not truly exist. He had seen figures of himself and had collected them to see new things. Things that also did not let him leave. He had seen death, had seen hopelessness. He had seen a man give up completely because he stared back at him whenever he looked at the blank slate of a computer screen.
Endings upon endings that weren’t even endings.
Yellow lines that he had followed with no real end in sight. With twists and turns and a promise that maybe something good would be waiting for him at the end. Maybe something other than the countless days (or weeks, months, maybe even years at this point) he had spent here. He had held onto a glimmer of hope.
A foolish decision, really.
There was no hope there. Not when he trudged upstairs and threw himself off a platform again and again. There had been a slither of hope– (no, not hope) there had been a desire to die. Maybe the next drop would be his last and then the encompassing, overwhelming darkness of death would swallow him whole and he would no longer have to worry about the next choice he had to make. Even with the Narrator begging him not to do it. Pleading that they don’t let go of the tiny peaceful moment they had.
Death did not exist.
Not when he jumped from a moving platform. Not when he was crushed by spinning blades and his body ripped to shreds. Not when he stumbled and fell into burning sand, overly dehydrated and hallucinating a place further beyond. It was unattainable. There was never any blood or gore that came with it. Just a quick motion and Stanley was gone only to be back mere seconds later. Only to be thrown into a squeaky office chair once more and stare at a computer screen with a jumble of text displayed on it.
Not even when the rough edge of a button pressed against his hands. A fast-forward in time. Again and Again. Until he was left in a broken shell of what once lived. A man's voice (God? The Devil? Something he may never get to understand) called out, lost and alone and none of it made sense. None of it had ever made sense to him. A mix of lives- past, present and future. A mix of impossible and possible. Where nothing was everything and everything was nothing. Where escape powered him but it all seemed so futile. So pointless.
He tried.
He attempted.
He failed.
Even when he slipped past the doors before they slammed shut on him. An eerie, unfamiliar silence filled the space. Stanley had a mouth but could never talk. Or scream. Or beg to be let free. Instead, it was the incessant ramblings of the Narrator. His grating voice filled every quiet moment. Directing him. Patronising him. (Caring for him?) Talking down to him.
Though, behind the doors the Narrator was muffled. Stanley was alone. He was able to make his own decision. Exercise the free will he had been stripped of long ago. So he wandered back through silent halls, footsteps being the only thing that sounded out. He had gone back to his office. A new door propped open for him to explore.
Even then, out of the spotlight, he couldn't take full control. Even when he knew the eyes that followed him– that watched every step, every move, every breath– were trapped in the last part of the building. The escape pod flashed at him, it lured him in like a moth to a lamp. Had coddled him like a blanket and had given him hope–
Hope was not real, he had to remind himself.
There was no end. The end was never the end.
It crashed. He died but not quite because Stanley never truly died. Though he didn't think he was truly living either. Some twisted in between where he did not get a say and was stuck wandering through bland halls. Stuck staring at screens and yellow lines and figurines and buttons and screens and a glimpse of grass and museums and screens and stairs and screens and–