Chapter Text
Clearly Stanley wanted to be alone, the Narrator had concluded. After he had destroyed his world, that much was obvious to him. He had always known his protagonist to be quite the brat. Perhaps it was just to get back at the Narrator for yapping at him so much. So the Narrator decided to give him exactly what he so obviously desired. And anyway, the Narrator could use some me time.
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Stanley's eyes opened onto a familiar scene, his office. He sat at his desk waiting for the Narrator to begin the story but nothing ever came. *Strange…* Stanley thought. *Perhaps it truly was all a dream*, that was what Stanley had hoped for his entire time in the parable, *perhaps I my desk and had a strange dream.* Deciding this to be the case, he got back to work on his computer, waiting for orders.
Nothing… no orders ever came. He had waited for nearly 10 minutes, yet his screen remained blank. *Fuck. Not a dream.* Stanley started from his seat and made his way out of his office to investigate, but he found no coworkers. None of the idle chit chat that he used to love. Feeling panicked, he ran from the room, down the hallway towards the meeting room. He had been unintentionally following the path the Narrator had usually laid out for him, if the Narrator had been paying attention, he would have been pleased. When Stanley arrived at the meeting room and found it deserted as well he began to break down. Tears streamed from his eyes as he knew in his heart that he was not dreaming, and that everything he had experienced in the parable had been real. However, he did not want to believe it.
He backtracked and returned to the room with the two doors, this time taking the one that leads to the employee lounge, hoping to find someone there. To his dismay, he found no one. He sat on the couch as the sinking feeling that had been settling in his stomach suddenly felt like lead.
He had hated the Narrator for trapping him in this horrible reality, but his absence meant losing the only person who he had. It meant losing the only thing that kept him grounded. Without the Narrator's input on his actions, he almost didn't feel real. He was truly and completely alone now. He didn't know why the narrator had left him, but he could only assume that he had gotten bored with him and went on to create another twisted reality for someone else. Stanley pitied the person who would now be the subject to the Narrator's torture, but he strangely envied them as well. As preposterous as it seemed to Stanley to want the Narrator around, he had to admit that he was feeling lonely without his constant pestering. He wiped tears from his eyes. He hadn't realized he had been crying, he also hadn't realized he had been feeling nauseous. He held back his vomit and laid down. He had always had issues with panic attacks and nausea, and he did not want to throw up all over the employee lounge.
Stanley blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up. He had fallen asleep. For how long? He wondered. Perhaps now that it had been a while the Narrator would return to check on him. When he heard no voice he sighed, knowing that his Narrator had truly abandoned him. He pulled himself to his feet and made his way out of the employee lounge to the warehouse.
He found himself staring over the railings at the drop. It was a long way down. He had jumped down before to try to take control away from the Narrator, but the Narrator always brought him back. Stanley had wondered before how it worked. Was he truly being brought back to life or had a clone of him been created and implanted with his memories? While he couldn't be completely sure, he knew that it wasn't a clone, because why would the Narrator want to implant his memories? The Narrator wasn't THAT sadistic to want him to remember all his past lives and deaths… right? His mind wandered back to the drop in front of him. Maybe this time it would work. Maybe since the Narrator was gone… he could just stay dead?
He stepped out onto the cargo lift and gulped as he looked down at the drop below. He had never felt sick when he had ended it previously, but maybe now since the Narrator wasn't speaking to him he actually had time to be alone with his thoughts. He had started to feel dizzy and hot and he found himself vomiting off the side of the cargo lift. He couldn't seem to calm his mind but no one thought stuck in his mind long enough to describe. Eventually, he took a step off of the edge.
He felt like he was flying, but he knew he was not. In those short moments before he hit the ground, he felt more euphoria than he had in his entire life up to this point. And then he felt the most pain he had ever felt in his entire life. He had never really had time to process the pain before, the Narrator had always reset him before he had a chance. He thought he would have died on impact, but by some miracle, or rather some horrible curse, he was still alive. He was dying and he could not move but he was still alive. In that moment he thought of his mother, or he tried to. His memories before the parable are fuzzy, at best. But it was nice to think of someone who may have, at one point, truly loved him. He felt himself slipping, and he knew that at last he would get his freedom.