Archive of Our Own ^beta

 Lights swirled above Stanley’s head, separated from him by a large glass dome. A low, calming hum filled the air. The lights drifted slowly up the outer sides of the dome, congealing into a clump and slowly fading away. Then they started to come up again from the bottom, now a different colour. Stanley was sat in the middle of the floor under the dome, looking up. The lights had gone through their cycle at least a thousand times, and he was bored of it. But the Narrator, being a dick, had locked the door behind Stanley. Stanley flopped on his back, sighed, looked around, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. Another door. He jumped to his feet and inspected the door curiously. He jiggled the handle, and it came open. Stanley stepped through the doorway, and inspected this new room. 

 It was then at this very moment that the Narrator decided to be a dick again and ask Stanley what in the world he thought he was doing. Stanley decided to be a dick right back and ignore him. Instead, he went further into the room, enabling him to see the staircase that climbed up the far wall. It was a dark, olive green, with the paint chipped off in places. He went for the staircase, curious as to where it could lead. This got the Narrator going again.

  “Stanley, there’s nothing up there for you. Just- just go back down, and enjoy the Zen room! Doesn’t that sound fun, Stanley?” 

 This did not sound fun to Stanley, who was thoroughly bored of the damned Zen room, and just wanted the Narrator to shut up for once. He climbed further up the staircase, trailing his hand along the railing. 

 “Stanley.”

 He sounded sterner now, with a hint of confusion creeping into his tone. 

 “What could possibly be so fascinating about these boring old stairs? They’re dark and creepy, Stanley, it’s simply not possible for this to be more interesting than the Zen room!” 

 Stanley actually found this far more interesting than the Zen room, thank you very much. He scaled the rest of the stairs and found himself on a small platform, reaching out to the middle of the room. He sat down on the end, swinging his legs over the edge. The Narrator was becoming increasingly frustrated with Stanley, but Stanley kept ignoring him in favour of looking down over the edge to see if he could see the floor. He could in fact see the floor, and that it was quite a ways down. He could also see that the door was now gone. This didn’t make any sense to Stanley; didn’t the Narrator want him to leave? How could he leave with the door gone? The Narrator noticed this as well, and became further confused.

 “Where- where’s the door gone? There’s supposed to be a door there, Stanley, why isn’t there a door there? I certainly didn't move it, so you must have- No, no, that doesn’t make any sense, you couldn’t have moved the door, I would have seen it-” 

Stanley could hear papers rustling as the Narrator prattled on about nothing, and crossed his arms in annoyance. He thought about how nice it would be if he was able to sleep, if he could just drift off for a while and not have to listen to the Narrator’s stupid voice anymore. But that was just wishful thinking; the Narrator never let Stanley sleep. Or eat. Or drink. Or do much of anything of his own free will, which grated on his nerves quite roughly. 

 “Is it a glitch in the code? But I would have noticed a glitch as soon as it happened! I made this code, this shouldn't be possible!”

 Stanley now really wanted to make the Narrator shut up. Or at the very least talk about something that wasn’t his damned precious code. He hated that code. The code was what prevented him from leaving this hell, keeping him here for the Narrator to puppet about as he pleased. It was infuriating, and hearing the Narrator fuss over the code like it was his firstborn son that had gotten a cold riled him up even further. He needed a distraction. 

So he did the only thing he could think of, and launched himself off the platform.

His feet hit the ground first, with a nasty crunch. The rest of him collapsed to the floor with a thud. 

In retrospect, he really should have thought about this more, seeing as his leg really fucking hurt now. But then again, the Narrator was now silent in shock, which was an even better outcome than what he had hoped for. He kept lying on the ground, ignoring the pain as best he could and relishing the silence.

The Narrator’s voice shook as he finally spoke. It sounded like he might be holding back tears.

“Stanley-? Are-are you ok? That must have been rather painful, wasn’t it? There’s no need to hurt yourself, Stanley, that won't achieve anything.”

Stanley was not happy with this rude interruption of the silence. He noticed the tremor in the Narrator’s voice, and decided that he rather liked it. He wanted to scare the Narrator even more, wanted him to feel even the tiniest bit of what Stanley felt. So he stumbled to his feet, and began to hobble up the stairs once more.

“Stanley! Please- get off the stairs, Stanley, why are you doing this to yourself? Please, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself!”

Stanley thought that that was rather the point. He reached the top of the stairs again, and again, and again. The Narrator was quiet at this point, with faint sobs breaking through the silence. Stanley knew he was bluffing, though. He just wanted to guilt trip Stanley into stopping so his little puppet wouldn’t get damaged. There was no way that he actually cared about Stanley, was there? There couldn’t be. 

The floor rushed up to greet Stanley, who landed on his back this time. And this time, he found he couldn’t get up. Any movement he tried to make sent knives into his every joint. He dimly registered blood pooling around his head, seeping into the cracks in the stone. His vision went fuzzy, and his breathing was laboured. The sound of the Narrator’s quiet crying slowly faded away into static, which faded away into nothing.

Everything went dark. Everything went silent.The pain left. Stanley knew this wouldn't last long, that soon he'd be pulled back to the land of the living. But right then he found he didn't mind that too much. 

And Stanley was happy.