"And here it is." The Narrator says, "Go ahead and give it a shot. I’ll pop you forward in time so that the second my incessant droning starts to bore you with just the push of a button you’ll have zipped right past it. It’s what the players have been asking for and I am very proud to have delivered. No more listening to me rambling on and on and on - no, no, no, no. The Stanley Parable is a game for the people and if the people want silence then, by goodness, that’s what they’re going to get. Well don’t sit around waiting for me to shut up! Go ahead and make me shut up! Here, we’ll pretend that I’ve just begun an interminable monologue. And it goes something like this…" The Narrator clears his voice. "The story, and the choices, or what have you, and therefore by becoming it is! So on and so forth, until inevitably we all until the end of time. At which time, everything all at once, so now you see? Blah, blah-"
You hit the button.
"Oh, you’re back! You see? You were only frozen in time for a few minutes but it was plenty of time for me to deliver a long rambling monologue full of unnecessary verbal flourishes and lengthy ruminations on the nature of choice in video games. Of course, I happen to believe-"
You hit the button again.
"Well there, sport! You really did catch me rambling on a bit, didn’t you? But that’s the power of the button!"
"Sport?" You say.
"The minute I start to go off on a thoughtless display of self-absorption, it’s right at your fingertips to go 'poof' - and it’s all over! Oh, I can’t wait to see what Cookie9 will say about this and whether they’ll edit the rating of their Steam review or at least change some of the wording perhaps. To be honest, I don’t even know if one can change their review in the first place. I guess I should become better educated on how exactly Steam works. Perhaps that would have been a smart thing to check on before I went about this whole exercise of making the skip button."
"Screw Cookie9. Who cares what one person thinks?" You say.
"Although, I have to imagine that after seeing this exciting new technology at work, surely whoever it is runs Steam will instantly run out and implement a new feature to make it possible to edit one’s review merely because of this very situation. Yes, I think that’s quite likely. Or perhaps they’ll simply grant this particular user the ability to change their review so that the feature is not widely abused. Look, I would even be okay with Steam altering this particular review so that it reads as something more beneficial. Something along the lines of “This game is the best… game.” Hm, let me start over-"
You hit the button.
"Okay, welcome back, Stanley. Now I should say that the amount of time the button has been skipping through is becoming longer and longer. That last one was… well… I want to say maybe 30, 45 minutes? It’s not unendurable by any means but it’s… well there’s really only so much I can ramble on to myself about! I know, shocking, isn’t it?"
"I guess anyone would run out of things to say after awhile." You say.
"But at any rate, I do suggest that we not press the button again. I think the skip button has been aptly demonstrated and we can say goodbye to it and just-" The Narrator started, and you turn around, ready to go. "Wait, how do we get out of here? Where did the door go? Wasn’t there a door that led into this room? I do feel quite certain that there was one here before. How else would we have gotten into the room in the first place?"
"There was definitely a door." You say, walking around the room.
"I don’t think one can enter a room without a door of some sort or a window, or something like that. Do you see a window anywhere? A porthole? A sufficiently large crack in the wall? I’ll take any of these, all I want is for us to move on and to please step away from the skip button, to go anywhere other than the skip button."
"I can do that." You say, looking around, "I don't see a way out."
"There was a door here before, wasn’t there? I swear there was, you said there was, where did it go? Can you maybe just ram your way through a wall? Is there any possibility that you could, say, slam your body into the wall until enough damage is done for you to be able to leave? Please, I’ll take any option at all. I’m asking you to work with me here! I - we need a door! We need a door of some kind. I can work with any kind of door as long as it can open, and lead from one room to another."
"Breathe Narrator." You say, "Calm down, ok? We'll find a way out." You said, bumping your shoulder into the wall and immediately deciding that ramming wasn't a real option.
"I’m - I’m going to step away for just a moment and I’m going to try to find us a door. I don’t know how exactly to remove a door and place it in a different wall but I will find a way, I promise. You just need to not do anything. Don’t press the skip button! Please, please. Please do not press the skip button. Just wait here, wait here for me, and don’t press the skip button! Got it?"
"Yes."
"Good. I’ll be right back." And he leaves.
You sit there for awhile. 5 minutes pass, 10, 20, an hour. You stand up and decide that pressing the button once just so the narrator will be back, just one time, can't be that bad. You press the button.
"(Y/N)! (Y/N)! (Y/N), please don’t push the button again, it’s been 12 hours! You’ve just been frozen there. I don’t know why the skips are getting longer but they’re really truly getting longer."
"I'm sorry." You say, backing away from the button, "I didn't think it would be that long."
"My god, there’s no way out of the room. (Y/N), the door is gone, it’s completely gone. I’ve looked at it from every angle. I’ve checked every one of those walls a thousand times and there’s no door, (Y/N). There’s no door, there’s just you and the button and if you keep pressing it, I have no idea what will happen. I have no idea how long I’ll be made to sit here, and more than anything else, I don’t know how to stop you from pressing the button again."
"I won't do it!" You say.
"I can’t control anything in this room, (Y/N). I can’t touch it. And I have to believe, I have to know that sooner or later no matter how much I plead with you, you’re going to press the button again. Why would you? I’ve been thinking and thinking and I - I don’t know what I can do to convince you otherwise."
"Narrator..."
"Oh my god, and it’s all because of those reviews. Those reviews that I couldn’t get out of my head! I just couldn’t ignore the negative feedback! Why was it so important for me to fix the problem? Why did Cookie9’s opinion matter so much to me? I’ve never even met Cookie9, I have no idea who they are! What would it ever really matter? But here I am. I’m fixating on every tiny negative thing that anyone ever says about me."
"Narrator."
"The merest mention of one of my imperfections and I become as impetulant as a child. Wild and impulsive; I can’t help myself. I can’t stop myself from lashing out with a vengeful fury to altar and to change and to break anything unbroken if only it pleases this one person-"
"Narrator! Stop! Enough! Shut up!"
"What? Yes? What?" The Narrator said, shocked.
"Breathe."
You hear the sound of a deep breath being taken.
"I'm not pressing the button."
"You won't press it?"
"I won't press-"
You snap back to.
"Oh, (Y/N)! You're back! Oh! You're back." The Narrator cried out in relief. "I don't know what to do when there isn't anyone to hear me. I have nothing if I have no one to talk to- I- The button (Y/N). The button pressed itself."
"How?"
"I don't know. Maybe- maybe if I don't talk, the skip Button won't want to skip me."
"Maybe."
The Narrator goes quiet, and you sit in silence- than you're waking up again.
"Oh. Hello. It's you. You're here again." The Narrator says, "You know, I lost track of time after a year. Have you ever sat down in one place and not moved for one entire year? Let me describe it for you. To begin with, there is only regret. There is only the turning wheel of missed opportunities. I felt nothing at all but regret for the longest time, (Y/N). Days, months, I lost it all in a blur of the deepest longing to undo the past. And when that feeling had begun to subside, what took its place is what I can only describe as the collapsed of every moment I have ever experienced my entire life. All of them collapsed down into a single instant. In that instant, I could see myself clearly, calmly, with a collected heart. It was an impossibly rich wellspring of both delight and disgust, simultaneously. I was consumed by it. I could do nothing but wallow in it for what felt like an eternity, for what I now know was far less. You see, it was a revelation for me. It was unlike anything I had ever known. It was a space without consequence, without action, or outcome. It was divorced entirely from the question of free will that you and I have squabbled over for so long. There could be no one ending, no singular outcome of events, not if all events in the same moment. And I felt… freed."
You went to comment, but your voice wouldn't work. You felt panic.
"I felt unburdened by the need to manifest a particular outcome into being. I saw that I could allow myself to exist along all timelines and that each of them was simply a strand in the web of my being. It was incredible. The spaciousness, the equanimity of the moment, both singular and infinite. For the longest time, this was my experience. And then this moment passed and the most unyielding fear I have ever known crept into my mind. And it is this sensation that I have been experiencing now for longer that I could have ever expected was possible. I have been waiting for you. Not that you might save me or do something to fix it but merely to state for you the plain fact of this manner of existence. I wish you to feel afraid as I do. That perhaps one day this state of mind will consume you as well. Perhaps you will somehow, in some way, have to live as I do now and I wish for you to know how excruciating it is. And for you to be in true terror of its eventual arrival. If I can only do this, only this one thing, perhaps it will bring me the smallest moment of peace in the darkness. And now, you have nothing to say to me?"
You tried to speak, to scream to The Narrator. You look up desperately and-
Skip. Skip. Skip.
"…but they didn’t understand that the game was never meant to be funny! It was meant to have a point! It was meant to speak to the human condition! 'But where are jokes? Where are the jokes?' they bemoaned, they screamed. They gnashed their teeth, and said: 'Entertain us!'-"
Skip. Skip. Skip.
"the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the-"
Skip. You lost count but eventually the room began to deteriorate and change. Eventually a hole in the wall appeared. You waited, expecting time to skip again. It didn't. You walk outside. You keep walking, feeling immensely lonely and empty, but also weirdly free.
(2170 Words)