Roses-||Stannarator||

Part Two-Thorns

Stanley nodded his head and they started the story again. This time though Stnaley was actually listening to him though. He took the door on his left, walked up to his boss's office, went to the mind control facility, and got the ending that he was supposed to.

This shocked the narrator a bit, especially after the last few runs. Stanley listening was quite unexpected after all of that, but he smiled up at the camera while he waited for the door to come down. It wasn't his typical guilty smile though. The smile seemed almost genuine.

The Narrator felt his throat closing up again and started coughing, not taking his eyes off the monitor. The other man's smile had such a hold on him it was crazy. He could feel how warm and inviting it was through the screen. His throat started closing up more. This caused him to start tearing up and he quickly looked away from the screen.

The coughs had only been getting worse. And this time wasn't any different. When he left almost all he could do was cough. The petals kept falling until multiple of them would come out. He had also looked up and did some research on the issue he was having and he found a disease that seemed to match his symptoms almost perfectly.
It was called Hanahaki Disease. This would cause the victim's lungs and throat to fill up with flowers slowly over time. They would sometimes cough and or throw up petals and even flowers depending on how bad it gets. It's caused by a one-sided love. The only ways to get rid of the disease is to either get it surgically removed or the person who you have the feelings for has to genuinely tell you that they feel the same.

He knew that Stanley would never feel the same way about him so there was no way he would get a genuine confession from him. The other way wasn't possible either. They didn't have a doctor or any kind of medical equipment in the parable, so The Narrator had to accept his fate. He was going to die.

The website wasn't clear on how long it would take for the flowers to fill up his throat, but the estimated time was from a few weeks to a few months. He had saw what the stages of it were and it looked like he would be on the shorter side of the time frame.

First was having a "cold", second was having trouble breathing or shortness of breath, third was when the first petal came, fourth was having multiple starting to come out, fifth was when there was more and more coming, sixth was when he started throwing them up, seventh was when it became a mixture of the two, eighth was when full flowers would come out, ninth was when more than just the flower part came out such as with the stem or in his case it would be thorns and vines, and the tenth and final part was death.

Once you got to the eighth step there was no going back with surgery. He had read it over what felt like a million times, memorized every single part of it. It just kept playing over and over again in his mind. As he coughed harder more and more petals came out. It had been about a minute of coughing and one of his hands slipped to the reset button.

Stanley was back in the office. He had thought the narrator had forgotten about him or maybe even left again, but he waited patiently anyway. The younger man started to try getting back on google again before The Narrator came back. Finally the voice came back.

"What are we doing here, Stanley!? We were just at an ending! this can't be right!" The Narrator pushed the petals off of his main desk area in a panic.

Stanley let out a sigh. "You reset again." He seemed to have an upset tone in his voice. "And we were so damn close to that ending, I listened to you. I did as you said." With every word he sounded more and more angry. And every word made the flowers seem to grow more.

It was almost like he could feel the thorns from the roses piercing his lungs. They weren't fully doing it but he could feel them pressing against him, sharp and rough. He let out a small yelp of pain and made sure Stanley didn't hear it.

"Yes, yes, I'm ever so sorry. Please forgive me. How about we run it again? I could give you a prize at the end! Oh yes wouldn't that be lovely, a little box with a bow on top just for you. Does that sound good, Stanley? Could it make it up to you?" Stanley thought for a minute before agreeing to The Narrator's request.

The two then went back on the same journey that they were on before. Stanley kept listening to what the main upstairs was telling him to do and it was as if nothing had happened. When he got to the mind control facility he started looking around at all of the different monitors, spinning around to look at them all.

He found his own and pointed at it excitedly. The man started jumping up and down excitedly like a little kid. "Look Narrator! It's my room! It's the desk, computer, the chair, it's all there!"

This was the first time that Stanley had looked around all of the different screens. It brought a wide smile to The Narrator's face, seeing the man he loves happy like this. It made him remember that one day this will all be gone. One day he would have to leave Stanley here in this place, all alone.

He started tearing up at the thought of having to tell him. Sometime he would have to tell Stanley that he was on his deathbed. There might not even be a month left for him. He couldn't handle the thoughts and pushed his emotions aside, focusing on Stanley again. The love of his life, the man of his dreams, but he knew that he would never have a chance with him. For this man, this lovely man, was going to be the death of him as well.