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Statement of Stanley about the Parable. Statement given May 8, 2003. Statement recorded by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. Statement begins.
This is the story of Stanley. I used to work for some big company as Employee 427. My job was simple, to sit in my desk in my room 427 and push the buttons that the monitor told me to. I never got bored or tired of it. I just sat at that chair and pushed buttons.
I don’t know if I had a life before that. I don’t even know if that life was mine. I don’t remember existing before that office. I could have been created exactly for that role and neither of us would know the wiser. If it wasn't mine before the Parable, it became it sometime during the countless runs.
The story always starts the same. There are no orders on the computer, I get up and leave Room 427, empty of any coworkers. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve awoken at that chair. I could draw you the entire room from memory if you asked me to. The story is different from there. But always, the Narrator has told it. No matter how many times I’ve gone off script or died or antagonized him or escaped. He’s always been there. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let’s start at what is probably the beginning.
The first few times I became aware in my office, I followed the Narrator’s instructions. Get up, leave Room 427, walk through the employee desk area, go through the door on the left, through the empty meeting room, up the stairs to the boss’s floor, enter the boss office, press 2845 on the keypad, take the elevator down to the basement, go through the Mind Control Facility, turn off the controls, and leave through the large open door. Every time, I would wake up, for lack of a better term, back at the desk in Room 427. I repeated this until I thought to question the Narrator’s actions. I don't know if I followed it for so long because of any training I received, the mind control, or my innate personality.
My first act of rebellion was going down the 'Escape' hallway. There was a small offshoot to the left of the entrance to the Mind Control Facility that had ‘ESCAPE’ written on it with an arrow. The Narrator said that it would lead me to my death but I didn’t go back. How could I when I knew that it would only lead me back to my office. At the time, I had no idea just how trapped I was in the place. That no matter what I did, my actions were meaningless and I would always wake up back at that desk.
The hallway was long. It gave me plenty of time to change my mind and walk away. But I didn’t change course. At the end of the hallway, there was a hole that was bathed with red light. I dropped down it, having few choices available. It led to a gated platform on a track that went through two large metal plates that smashed against each other. The Narrator made snide remarks when I landed. About how I couldn’t see the bigger narrative, how my death would be of no consequence. But I was still brought forward to my death. When it was my turn, the Narrator bid me goodbye.
The metal jaws were stopped before they hit me.
Then the other narrator picked up. She never talked anywhere else. Only after this point in the endings I’ve explored. I don’t know what her purpose is, she’s certainly not a replacement for the Narrator. If she was, then she should have appeared after everything went wrong at the Skip Button. I’ll get to that later, the Narrative wouldn’t be complete without it after all. The other narrator seemed dismissive of the Narrator, snarking about how we were doomed to repeat this endless cycle, never getting respite. At the time, I didn’t understand. I couldn’t, not with my few measly runs. Something she said has stayed with me, even after all this time. “When every path you can walk has been created for you long in advance, death becomes meaningless, making life much the same.” I reflected on those words often, marked with confusion, then dread, then humorless amusement. I wonder how much meaning my life has now. Despite her cutting remarks, I hope she met a better fate than my Narrator.
After she stopped the jaws, she dropped the platform out from behind me. However, due to the sheer terror and relief that I had just felt, I wasn’t able to keep my footing and collapsed on the ground. The catwalk I landed on led me to a museum. The museum had many thing about the office. About how limited the floor plan was. About how some of the doors didn’t open because there was no room behind them for them to lead to, no matter what the windows beside them said. About how my world and myself and everything around it is fake, created for amusement of others. When I first went there, I thought it was the delusions of a mad man. Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t know nor care what that means for the world I find myself in. I lived and died enough times to know that that pondering that won’t bring me any satisfaction and that if there is an answer, I won’t find it. I wandered through that museum and when I reached the end, there was a lever. I pulled it and was back in that fenced platform on the conveyor belt leading to my death. My Narrator didn’t resume speaking however, it was the other narrator who did. She pleaded for me to Reset, to save myself from my death. At the time, I didn’t realize what she was saying as I hadn’t experienced enough Resets. It was also the first time I had heard the term. It certainly helped me process everything faster. I didn’t know how to Reset, never did, so I was crushed by the metal.
I was terrified naturally. I had thought that I had escaped death only to be thrust back into it with no way out. It was also the first time I had died. It was a quick death, yes. But it was still my first. I watched the jaws launch themselves at me and there was a brief half second of agonizing pain and then I was back at the desk adrenaline flooding through my veins. I stayed there, eyes wide and heart in my throat, with a phantom ache all over my entire body. I needed to come to terms with what had happened and what that meant.
I waited too long. The Narrator took my lack of movement as evidence that I would never move. So the door closed and the Narrator talked. I naturally panicked some more and launched myself at the door, slamming into it in my haste. But no matter how much I pulled, it wouldn’t open, leaving me in that tiny office. The Narrator was talking over it of course, reading from his script that dealt with the situation of me never leaving the desk. He went on about how I was "paralyzed with indecision" because I was “trained” never to disobey. I don’t remember going through training of any sort so this could be true or false. But all I could to was try and open the door while he carried on with his script, fear and despair warring inside. Eventually I stopped, but I was too numb to really focus on what he was saying.
When the reset happened, I wasted no time in getting out of the office. I didn’t want to be trapped in there again. The Narrator sounded amused as he read from his script. He probably was, given that we had no idea that the other remembered the resets. He likely thought it was ironic that I wasted no time in leaving the office when before I had ‘chosen’ to stay inside for all eternity the instance before.
That run, I specifically chose to do the opposite of what he told me to. I stayed for an absurdly long time in the Employee Lounge, relaxing after everything that happened. The biggest reason I moved on from there was because I didn’t want to get stuck in the lounge like I did in my office. Instead of staying on the lift, I jumped off into the catwalk below. I probably should have been hurt from that fall now that I think about it. But I wasn’t. In the end, I was left alone is some off-textured facsimile of the office layout. And then it reset.
And so it went on and on like that. Sometimes we would be petty and antagonize the other, other times it was a more…. palatable run. Sometimes those petty runs would end with my death, which got easier to compartmentalize the more it happened. It wasn’t pleasant. It couldn’t be with the uselessness of actions and the inherent prison that the office came to represent. But there was an uneasy truce. Neither of us knew that the other knew about the previous runs. I remember the run that shattered that illusion mostly because of how… weird everything became.
There was this one ending that ended in a phone room. The Narrator wanted me to answer the phone. And I did for the first couple of times. But then I noticed that there was a wire connecting the phone. Following it showed that the phone was plugged into an outlet. I was inherently bored and curious so I unplugged it. The Narrator was baffled by this, apparently it was the only “incorrect” choice. I don’t understand why or how, but it was. The Narrator then claimed that I wasn’t Stanley but a “real-person,” like the being I was wasn't real in some fundamental way. This reminded me of the museum that the other narrator led me to and how... existential it was. He played an “instructional video” so that I could learn “how to make decisions properly.” The video didn’t really make sense nor did it really help me understand how to “correctly” make decisions. When I focused on the room around me after the video, things didn’t make sense. The room still existed but there were suddenly forklifts in the room and the walls were colored wrongly. But outside of the room, everything seemed normal so I could ignore the wrongness of the room before. I could deny what my actions had caused. We went back to the two doors room and he instructed me to go through the door on the left. I was scared. Nothing was making sense and I didn’t understand why he needed me to go through the door on the left. The instructional video contained NOTHING about this. I was also angry because why was THIS what caused reality to collapse. I had made plenty of other choices opposite to what the Narrator wanted but nothing resulted in this. So I went through the right door. The Narrator panicked and told me to go back and enter the left door. I listened this time because where there should have been more hallway, there was a blockage. But the blockage was made out of items that couldn’t possible exist like a wonky filing cabinet, a door that WASN’T there just before, an open filing cabinet that was halfway in the wall and so forth. It was then that I realized just what I had done. Dread filled me as I ran back and went through the door on the left. But I was stopped as the meeting room was impassable. The chairs were partially in the floor there was another table cattycorner and IN the other table. The slideshow was bouncing off a corner that shouldn’t have existed. Nothing was right and I couldn’t go forward. I couldn't fix my mistake. The door that was now red was on the other side of the mess. The Narrator lamented his story before attempting to push a Restart.
But it didn’t work.
That was the most terrifying thing of all. Never had a Restart NOT worked. Not before and not after that ending. Yes, sometimes it was forced by something other than the Narrator. But the Restart always worked. The Narrator came back to the ruined meeting room and was angry. He barraged me and I didn’t blame him. If there had been a Reset right then and there, the next runs would have been ones where I followed the Narrator’s instructions exactly, even though I knew the end result. The Narrator’s rant was cut off as I was all of a sudden in front of the two doors room. It wasn’t a Reset, that would have required that I had been in my office. It was also after the disastrous phone room. The only reason I know that was because the boss’s office that I walked in was NOT the one that I was used to. The layout was all wrong and the entrance to the underground facility was now activated by a voice control rather than the keypad that it should have had. It was only when I tried to speak the voice command that the Narrator provided that I realized that I couldn’t speak. I don’t know if I was always mute or if it had been so long since I had had to speak that I’d just forgotten. The Narrator was confused at my lack of speaking then angry. He assumed that I had done it just to make fun of him and his story. I don’t blame him. The events leading up to this had been pretty distressing for both of us and it would have been easy to miss my confusion or misconstrue it as contempt. He demanded that I explain myself. But I couldn’t.
And then there was that same half reset. Except this time, I was above my body looking down from the ceiling. The Narrator couldn’t see where my consciousness was and I couldn’t control my body. I was forced to watch as the Narrator begged for me to make a decision, helpless. Part of me broke that day. To see the Narrator that genuinely distraught made me realize that he was just as trapped as I was, just in a different way.
The next Reset I marched to the meeting room. It was the best place for me to have a conversation given my recently discovered muteness. It was then that we discovered that the other remembered the Resets. We talked about things that desperately needed to be talked about. The conversation had its ups and downs but by the end of it, we understood the other much better and our relationship, as strange as it was, ended up getting better. We explored the confines of the world and when we needed to, we took a break or had a heart to heart. Again, by no means was this perfect. We still had arguments that happened more often than not. But they were tamer then before, less explosive, and less likely to carry on to the next iteration. We were less likely to make biting comments or to do self-destructive actions just out of anger toward the other.
Now while I said that the Narrator remembered the resets, that doesn’t mean that he remembered all of them. There were a handful that he didn’t remember. I probably don’t remember all of the resets either, as painful as that is to admit. They tend to blend together after a while and I’ve probably lived through years of the same few hours. It’s concerning to think that I might not remember everything. When your memory is the only thing you have, then it becomes precious to you. Especially when those memories contain someone precious that you lost.
At some point, the Narrator began to read my thoughts. I’m still not quite sure whether it was because he knew me so well that he could accurately guess my thoughts or if my time in the office changed me in a way that allowed the Narrator to read them. While on one hand I was grateful NOT to need to use the whiteboard every time I wanted to communicate to him, it was strange to have to learn how to direct my thoughts. But I learned and we made it work. We had all the time in the world after all. It was another long stretch of time afterwards that the next big change happened.
There was a door that was labeled “New Content.” The Narrator was surprised so it became apparent that he wasn’t the one to do it. So we went through it. The path we took to get to the new content mentioned that the world I was living in wasn’t real. But by then, the Narrator and I was already gone down that existential rabbit hole a few times so it wasn’t quite so earth-shattering. In fact, there was some part of me that was glad that others had enjoyed my story, in a depressing way. It meant that the Narrator had succeeded in making a story that others would enjoy as was his goal. Unfortunately, the “New Content” was lacking to say the least. It was only a Jump circle and a whiteboard saying “Thank you for enjoying the new content.” We were both disgruntled, Narrator more than me.
The next Reset, when I passed the door, the was a new neon arrow pointing to it saying “New New Content” and I entered it with a smile. I had assumed that it was the Narrator providing his own content given the fact that he was disappointed in what was provided. He always took a hands on reaction to what he saw as problems. I was right. It was kind of adorable to see how the Narrator was excitedly describing the new features he had planned. While he didn’t know how he would implement them, it was still nice to hear Narrator explain what the features did.
The Bucket provided quite a few new endings. The Bucket was a comfort item that literally made me feel more secure in the world. I don’t know if the Narrator created the Bucket to give more content or to give me a sense of stability, but both were greatly appreciated. Given that we spent even MORE time in the office after that, I don’t know how well I would have dealt with it without having something different. It was nice to go through everything with the Bucket, even as I anthropomorphized it to help deal with the lack of things to interact with.
The Narrator also created some figurines of me. I’ll leave one with you guys. It’s one of the few things I have left of the Narrator. Originally there were six but I managed to get my hands on twenty four. It was rather fun going on the scavenger hunt for all of them. After I collected all of them, the Narrator wanted to relive the experience so he invited me into the Memory Zone. From what I know, I’m fairly certain that the Memory Zone might have been a more physical form of the Narrator’s mind. If that's the case, it touches me that he trusted me with something so sacred. I hope that he never regretted bringing me in there.
That trip to the Memory Zone was rather fun. God I wish that that was the only time we entered it. The Narrator wanted to relive the experience of collecting the figurines and so we went through them. The fourth one was replaced by a pink room. I know that there wasn’t a pink room. I have gone through everywhere in that office so many times that I can do it blindfolded. We actually tested that one. But there was a figurine in a light pink room that was reminiscent to the museum in style. The Narrator didn’t remember the room either but he trusted the Memory Zone more than his own recollections and shrugged it off. Perhaps that could have been a warning for what was to come. Or maybe I’m just overthinking it. Either way, after we collected them, there was the start of a Reset. But the Narrator interrupted it and we collected the figurines in reverse. But we didn’t stop there. We kept going back in time, revisiting major points. But we stopped after we reached my office. I never remembered anything that came before and the Narrator didn’t enlighten me. But he did claim that he created me as a vessel for him to do decisions for him. This very well might be true. It certainly explains some things. But I don’t know if his recollection is honest or if it’s a fabrication created from blurred recollections of a past so far back. The pink room showed that his memory was prone to the same blendings that happen to humans. But this is what he believed so he said that we would do one more run before he would “retire me for good.”
I wasn’t entirely sure this would happen though. The Confusion Ending, as it named itself, led us to a room where it would claim that I would die after a certain number of Resets. But that never came. So I truly don’t know if he would “retire” me after that or if he even could. I never asked if he remembered what happened after that. Granted, I didn’t get many chances.
It was then that the Reset happened. I decided to treat this as a final take and decided to try the Escape Pod again with the Bucket. I’m fairly certain that the Narrator knew something was up but he decided not to ask. For some reason, when the time came, I decided not to go into the escape pod. Instead, I put the Bucket into the pod and closed it. Maybe I was chancing on the Narrator wanting to keep spending time with me. Maybe I just didn't want to feel like I was abandoning him.
There was a Reset after that. If I was "retired" the Narrator came back and I never remembered the time in between. He certainly didn't seem any different from before. Unbeknownst to both of us, this would be the final Reset. The Narrator opened up a vent on the way through the office and asked me to go through it. I did. I trusted that he wouldn't intentionally hurt me. He led me to the Memory Zone. He said that he wanted to reminisce over the good times. It might have been his version of a pick-me-up. And it worked to some extent.
But it was undercoated with fear. I was afraid that he remembered what happened here before and this was his version of a last goodbye. In a way it was. How I wish things didn’t play out the way they did. I would have willingly thrown myself off the stairs a hundred times hearing how broken it made the Narrator over what happened afterwards. At least then we could have talked. At least then we could have gone forward.
We went over some reviews of how people enjoyed the Narrator’s story. They were glowing and positive. It made me happy. Then we went through the “maintenance zone.” There, sequestered away, were the negative reviews. The Narrator was crushed by them. He was a perfectionist, wanting everyone to enjoy his game. We only went through three, but they effectively broke him. The straw that broke the camel’s back was one written by Cookie9 that called the Narrator “preachy” and wished that there was a skip button so that one could effectively skip the Narrator’s rambles. Of course I had thought the same thing a few times. But still, no matter how long the rambles were, if one cared to listen, they could be pretty insightful or funny. And if one didn’t want to listen to it then they could just tune him out like I had done.
So the Narrator created the Skip Button. That damnable yellow button. It was housed in a plain concrete box of a place that the Narrator brought out of a river. I walked in because how else would the Narrator test the button? I constantly wish that I never went there. I wish that I never went into the Maintenance Tunnel. That the Skip Button was never created. That I tried harder to carve my way out despite the lack of tools.
That damned button was on a pedestal. The Narrator encouraged me to press it, even going so far as to start one of his infamous rambles. I listened for a bit before deciding to press it. That first time I was motivated by curiosity, indulgence, and boredom. It worked fine the first time. Only a few minutes passed and he was cheery. I listened to him ramble for a while. At some point I realized that he was repeating himself so I pressed the button again. After all, there was no harm in it, right? Oh how naïve I was.
When I came back, the Narrator was concerned. Apparently the time that passed between skip was longer and I had been zoned for about half an hour. I would have left but someone or thing had removed the only door. There wasn’t a window that I could break to leave either. It was only concrete walls. The Narrator left to get a door and I gathered the meagre assortment of items in the room and tried to use them to carve a way out. None of them were sharp. There was a clock I couldn’t reach, a ladder, a potted plant, and the metal fence. I couldn’t get a metal pole out from the fence. I tried for who knows how long scraping and scraping but nothing happened. I should have tried longer. I should have worked harder. Maybe then he’d still be here.
Eventually I got tired of doing the same thing without any result. Ironic I know given my original job. But I had gotten used to the unique monotony of the adventures I had with the Narrator. So I got up and pushed the button. When I came to, the Narrator was pleading with me not to press the button. It had been 12 hours. I felt guilty then. I explained my reasoning, as flimsy as it was, and agreed to not push the button again. I remembered how broken the Narrator sounded when I broke reality way back when. I tried to continue to scrape at the small section of wall from earlier. Again no progress was made but I had to sit through the Narrator go through a negative spiral. No matter how loudly I mentally shouted, nothing would break him out of it. I tried to keep scraping, to ignore the spiral, but it was painful. For so long, the Narrator had been my only companion. The bucket was non-sentient and the other narrator didn’t appear often enough to really matter. Our fights had become teasing and we had become close. It probably wasn't healthy, but it was part of the reason we stayed so sane over the years. To have no way to break the Narrator out of his self-deprecating spiral hurt. I got to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore and I pressed the button.
A week passed. I was glad to see the Narrator out of his spiral. I wonder how long it took him to realize that I pressed it. How long he rambled on to no one. We talked for a bit. About nothing and everything. I spent more time at the wall scraping away at it. The plant had started to wilt. I didn’t want to kill it just for something else to try and scrape at the walls. It was also dark since most of the lights had burnt out. I don’t know how long we spent there. Eventually we decided to try the button again. We were hoping that it would be a couple months.
We were wrong. It was a year. All of the lights were out so it was only the light of that damned button giving any sort of illumination. But it was enough for my eyes to make vague shapes out of everything. The plant had wilted so I broke the pot it was in and started using that to scrape at the walls. I had spent a relatively short amount of time when I noticed that the pot shards left marks on the wall. So I decided to decorate the prison that we were stuck in. I was hoping that it might help the Narrator remember how much I cared if I needed to press the button again. It didn’t work.
It’s funny. Despite us agreeing to use the button for hope of leaving the place, he harbored some resentment. He wished for me to join the same hellish state of mind that he had been stuck in. I was scared for him then. But it turns out that I would get to experience it later. Along with crushing guilt over the events of this room. The slow progress of tunneling out of the room was disheartening. There might have been a dent where I was scraping but it was too shallow for me to know if it was just my mind playing tricks on me.
I pressed the button. It was the only action I had left that felt like it had any impact. The Narrator was silent when I came to.
He didn’t speak again no matter how long I waited there begging for him to speak. I don’t know if he was mad, disappointed, or not there. I lasted a lot shorter then without the knowledge that the Narrator was there. He didn’t come back the next time. But I was greeted with the ear-splitting shriek of the fire alarm going off. I couldn’t reach the fire alarm with the ladder and I couldn't think with it blaring so I pressed the button again.
The Narrator was back. But he didn’t notice me. I was so relieved that I just sat there and listened to his looping rant. About how he was trying to make a statement, about the story bring critical, about the inconsistencies in the reviews. I noticed that the clock was on the floor, so I picked it up along with the glass shards of the clock face and brought it to the section where I piled everything else. I tried to remove a pole again and failed. I cut myself a few times scraping away at the wall but I was ok. The Narrator was there and maybe, just maybe, if I stayed long enough he would notice that I was back.
He didn’t.
By the time I gave up, there was a noticeable dent in the wall. Nothing more than an inch or two at most but it was something. He wasn't there when I came back from the button the next time. Though there was the drip of water damage. My tunneling attempt wasn’t close to it though who’s to say whether or not that was a good thing. There’s the very real possibility that I could have drowned had the room filled with water while I was catatonic from the Skip Button.
The next time I came to after pressing the button, the Narrator was back. The last time I ever heard him spoke and it was just him repeating “the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never” in a fast, monotone mutter that had fallen into a rhythm. I pressed the button again soon after, the borderline chant terrifying me for what it implied. Maybe I would have stayed longer if I knew that this was the last time I would ever hear from him.
I got into a strange pattern after that. I would look around, carve at the wall for a bit waiting for the Narrator before giving up and pressing the button. The water damage broke a hole in the room that I attempted to climb out of. But even when there were plants hanging from it, I couldn’t reach. The hole didn’t stay open for long. It got covered up by something that protected me from the outside but let me hear the otherworldly moaning and shrieking of the wind. By the time that the elements broke me free, I was able to make a small cubby for my tools.
When I came too from the last time I had to press the button, the room was tilted. That cubby protected my tools and prevented them from scattering all over the place, but everything that was around it was broken and shifted. The pedestal the button was on was crooked and the dull yellow light that had served as my only source of illumination for so long was gone, showing that it was broken. I took some small vindictive pleasure in that.
Light streamed from behind me and after so long in near complete darkness, it was blinding. I ran out the broken entrance in hope after my eyes adjusted. I don’t know what I was expecting to find, but it wasn’t what lay on the other side. Where before, it was a vibrant ecosystem of buildings, plants, and animals, now, it was a desert wasteland with no physical features in sight. I don’t know how long I stood there in shock, staring at the world like it betrayed me. It was long enough that the sun set.
The darkness is what prompted me to go inside the room and break down. I spent a long time just laying in that room, denying the reality outside, crying, and sleeping. I eventually fashioned a strange bag from my shirt and grabbed the items that were in the cubby. I didn’t really have a plan for them but I think I needed something to occupy myself. I then picked a direction and walked.
And walked.
And walked.
Very little changed over the wasteland. The dunes shifted, the sun rose and fell, and there was nothing for me to see. Occasionally, I would sit down and tinker with the items I stashed in my makeshift sack. I made a brooch out of the clock parts, decorated the potshards, sharpened and carved the stick from the meager plant. I used the rising and setting of the sun to make sure I washing in circles.
Eventually there were office chairs, half-buried in the sand. I tore the fabric off the seats. When I had gathered enough I used some thread and a spring from the clock and made a sack. It wasn’t good by any means. I bled over it often with the holes in my hands. But it was something to do that would allow me to ignore the emptiness and loneliness around me. It took a few tried and many shredded seats before I was able to make it sturdy enough to hold my collection of rubbish. After that, I made a cloak to keep the sand away and help with the sun. I had already weathered a handful of sandstorms at this point and it was as good a next step as any.
I hallucinated on these treks. Occasionally, I would see various aspects of the office. Sometimes it was inconsequential things like doors, other times it was whole sections of the place. Sometimes, they would include the voice of the Narrator. Those were always the worse. I would stop, heart rising, hoping beyond hope. But it never lasted. Something always broke the illusion, whether it was the shifting sand, the falling of night, or the impossibility of some feature in the hallucination. And it crushed me. Knowing that the only thing that I could call a friend was nowhere near me, whether by choice or circumstance. And that I was at fault for that. I fell into despair, landscape marked only by the number of chairs and the sun. I’ve wondered if that was how the Narrator felt. Being unable to do anything but watch. If the despair he felt was in any way as terrible or mild as mine. I’ll never know. And it haunts me. I think it always will.
I must have spent years out there, wandering with nothing to do. I made a few new articles of clothing and fixed the articles I did have. The sack slowly became a backpack. So on and so forth.
It was after those probable years that I found the remains of the Memory Hut. The place where it all started. I noticed the Escape Pod off to the side and when I opened it, the Bucket was sitting there, untarnished, like it had only been a day since I had sent it off. The effects still worked too. I immediately felt better when I picked it up, despite suddenly being brought to tears.
There was a generator outside the Hut that led inside. I dared to hope that I would find the Narrator. I hoped that he still existed after all this time. He wasn’t there. The only thing that was there was more of those thrice damned reviews that started this damned thing. There was one from Cookie9 that really made me mad. They said that they enjoyed the original game that they had complained about. And then they had the nerve to disparage the additions that the Narrator worked so hard on! The absolute rage that filled me couldn’t be kept away, even with help of the Bucket. I broke and shattered that review. I cut my hands up pretty badly doing it but I wouldn’t have survived the loops if I hadn’t picked up some sort of pain tolerance. I’m leaving the shard that escaped with me here. I have no need of it now and it'll only serve as yet another reminder of what I left behind and what could have been.
There was another review that stated that there would be no more installments to the story, my story, because the creators were so disheartened by the negative welcome the fans had given the additions. I walked and there were a couple other reviews. I didn’t bother to read them. The first two had made it abundantly clear of what people thought of the Narrator’s hard work. But there were some buttons on the ground next to them. I paused in terror when I first saw that yellow glow. I thought that it was the Skip Button coming back to haunt me. But no. It was only the Jim Button. I pressed the button and sure enough, it said Jim. I went around pressing all of the buttons. I think I was glad to see something else that the Narrator worked so hard on. I’m glad I did. Because one of the buttons was not a Jim button.
It was a Stanley Button.
It was in a group of Jim buttons that I would have missed if I hadn’t been pressing buttons for the hell of it. I didn’t believe my ears so I pressed it again. It still said Stanley. The Narrator had managed to make a Stanley Button before he disappeared. I dug up the ground around it and took it with me. I still have it, along with the shells of many Jim buttons that I cannibalized to keep the Stanley button operational. The Logo has long since faded, but the grime from constant use has made it unique in its own way. I was then led to an area where I grabbed the last set of six figurines. The room afterwards led to a bare and decrepit office room. There was one computer there, on employee 432’s desk. It barraged the narrator, saying that he cared too much and that he should just let people say what they want and keep recycling old content without a care to the legacy. The computer then asked if I wanted to help it do that. I couldn’t. I was still mourning the loss of the Narrator who never made an appearance throughout my exploration. I couldn’t just agree to the very thing that the Narrator would have hated to happen. It was disappointed, but it respected my decision, stating that it would always be there if I ever changed my mind. I never did. I wonder if it’s still waiting there, thinking about my choice.
There was nothing else to do in the Hut. I explored every nook and cranny of it. I think I was there for about a week before I somehow escaped that place. Time had long since become meaningless to me, especially since I had no way to track it. I explored the surrounding areas but there was no sign of the Narrator. I always kept the Memory Hut in sight when I wandered, afraid that I would never find it again if I let it out of my sight.
I don’t recall the exact thing that led me to escape from there. One day I was in the desert, the next I was on some grassy hill with a city in sight. I might have gone to sleep in the escape pod but I don’t know. I was terrified, I thought that this was some hallucination. Or a lucid dream. The continued lack of the Narrator is what’s mostly denying that option. After everything that we’ve gone through, I would never want to be without him. I'm still not convinced that this is all in my head. That I won't wake up in the office or in the desert.
Somehow, I’ve been able to not completely fail at blending in. I’ve realized that I don’t really know how normal people go about their days so I’ve just been people watching. To be frank, I don’t even know how human I am anymore. It was only after some time had passed here and I felt hungry that I realized that at no point in my adventures in the office loop or desert had I felt hungry, thirsty, or tired. In fact, sleep in the wastelands was more so a way to pass time and to give a change to the monotony more so than an actual need. Thankfully, my skills at mending have come in handy. I’ve been able to trade favors for an ID. It unfortunately doesn’t say Stanley but I think I’ll be ok with it. There’s something else I’m concerned about that leads me to believe I’m not human, or not entirely. I’m starting to get hungry for something else. It’s different than normal hunger but in a subtle way that can’t be described by words. I might have missed it entirely if hunger wasn’t such a novel concept to me. I don’t know what I’m hungry for but I hope that I’ll be able to find out before it gets too bad. Starving to death is not a way I want to go. I don’t know what I’m going to do but I know one thing, I’m not getting an office job ever again.
End Statement.
Supplemental
[Shakey breath] That was… that was a lot. By all accounts and purposes, Mr. Stanley’s statement seems to be yet another case of mad ramblings. The damage to the file makes it difficult to pin down exactly when the statement was given. It is one of our more recent statements if the lack of aging on the paper is to go by. That makes it even more frustrating that it has gotten damaged because of Gertrude’s lack of organization. Asking around, no one remembers anyone who could be our statement giver so we have very little leads to use for follow up. I had Sasha look around and there were no instances of anyone named Stanley escaping a mental institution. This does not rule out the statement being the result of a recent mental breakdown. Martin did say that the name of the statement did remind him of a new shop that opened up in 2013 called “The Parable.” By coincidence, it’s also owned by someone by the name of Stanley but I doubt that it’s a lead worth following.
I contacted Artifact Storage to see if they still had the items that Mr. Stanley left. Fortunately they did. Any future persons looking for information about them can request the relevant files from Artifact Storage. Sonya did agree to let me take a look at them and I have to say that they are unremarkable. The strangest thing about them is that the material that the artifacts are made of has been unidentified and any attempts at rectifying that have ended in failure. The fragment of what Mr. Stanley claims to be Cookie9’s blog post has sharp edges that were spotted with blood, particularly along the corner. Analysis of the blood reveals that it seems closest to human blood, but seems to be missing many vital components. Despite it being many years since Mr. Stanley gave his statement and said artifacts, the blood has yet to decay.
End Supplemental.