The Stanley Parable: Alternate Endings

💐 The Story

This is continuation from
"💐 Conversationalist Ending"!

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Stanley awoke from the reset. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the fuzzy feeling he would feel whenever a reset happened. It always seemed to mess with his head.

He thought for a moment, before remembering what had happened in the last reset. He stood up from his office chair and turned around to face his door.

Strangely enough, his door was shut. Not only that but when he tried to open his door, the door handle shook a little but didn't budge. He was locked in? Stanley grew a bit worried from this.

He held his throat lightly and coughed before attempting to speak. "N-Narrator, are you there?" He still felt weird talking, it didn't feel right to him.

Silence followed after Stanley spoke. For a long time, minutes, hours maybe passed?

The sound of papers dropping somewhere startled Stanley, something finally out of the ordinary happening again. "Narrator?" The rustling of papers seemed to stop when Stanley spoke this.

"O-oh Stanley, yes, hello." The Narrator finally muttered out.

"Why did you leave?"

"I did no such thing."

"I haven't heard you in hours." Stanley shook the door handle again. "Would you let me out..?"

The Narrator sighed, "Yes, of course, Stanley." The door clicked unlocked and Stanley opened it. "I seemed to have lost track of time it appears. I was just pondering."

"Pondering what?" Stanley mumbled before walking out into the hallway once more.

"Well it's not everyday the person you narrate talks back. I was simply questioning what caused this or if I did something wrong with the script... Or perhaps something else broke the system, did you do something, Stanley?"

Stanley thought for a moment while he grabbed an empty cup and making coffee in a coffee maker. "No, I did nothing." He responded with a shrug.

"I'm just so confused what did I do? I followed the script! Well, mostly." He grumbled, "Maybe it was the story's decision, I don't get to make every decision after all, it is your story."

Stanley finished filling the coffee cup and shrugged, sitting down at a desk in the office.

"It is called "The Stanley Parable" it isn't about me at all really is it. Im just the Narrator who narrates Stanley. Maybe it was a necessity for the protagonist to speak eventually—"

"Does it bother you?" Stanley questioned, sipping his coffee.

"Does what bother me Stanley." He mumbled in slight annoyance from being interrupted.

"Me talking."

The Narrator thought for a little bit before responding, "No, of course not. It would be incompetent of me to finally have a different form of communication with you, and it end up bothering me. I think this form of talkimg with you is a positive change."

"What other "forms of talking" are there?"

"It is mainly body language when it comes to you. Since you aquired the inability to talk for so long, you've found ways to work around it. With interactions with your surroundings and objects. Even just emotional responses to certain things. It is also a skill of mine to be able to minorly feel which emotion you are currently feeling. Take the bucket for example! You carry that silly bucket around for ages, for what? Its a bucket! It doesn't need to be carried! But you're Stanley, Stanley finds comfort in things some people may not understand and that is ok. As long as it makes Stanley happy."

Stanley let out a light laugh, "You seem to pay close attention to detail."

"Well, I am the Narrator! A good narrator pays attention and knows what he is narrating. I know the story! To know a story, I need to understand the people in the story. It is highly important."

Stanley nodded in understanding, "I get that. But you choose to pay attention, not every narrator is a good narrator, and you choose to be one."

The Narrator thought about this, "I see. Well, yes, I guess I do choose to be a good narrator. I am quite proud of it."

Silence filled the room for a while, Stanley continued drinking his coffee.

"Are you human?"

"What?"

"Are you human?"

"Well- yes I am."

"You seem less human than me. How can you control when things restart? How do you control what doors close behind me and things that move unnaturally?"

"I control things, mainly using control panels." He muttered vaguely, "I don't have full control of what happens, because you can choose some of the story, in which sometimes I am unplanned in events that are not scripted. I dont run off of script all the time."

"Who writes your scripts?"

"Well you sure are full of questions now that you can talk, aren't you." The Narrator seemed to move some papers, "How about we get on with the story hm? The story isn't going to write itself, Stanley."

Stanley shrugged and got up from the chair he was sitting on and sat his empty coffee cup carefully on a coaster. Dispite the fact it would reset eventually, he still had his dignity for disliking cup stains.