𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚕𝚎𝚢 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 [𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝚡 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚕𝚎𝚢]

11-Narrator

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THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END

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Hours passed.

The Narrator spent much of the time surveying the room it was kept in; pondering a way out. A way to get back to his Stanley.

The only ideas it'd had thus far were dangerous and stupid.

Ideas Stanley would love.

It missed Stanley already.

Doctors and nurses came in a few times to check in on it. It answered their questions as honestly as it could; they seemed overly concerned when it said it was confused by the questions. It felt perfectly fine! These questions are just ones it had no use for in the parable!

It wasn't "American", whatever that meant, nor was it "British". It just was.

Its vest, which presumably held its pocket watch, was sitting on the counter across from it, tauntingly.

Its injured leg seemed to taunt it just as much.

Its shoes were neatly placed on the ground by the bed.

The more they taunted the more it wanted to enact those dreadfully idiotic ideas.

At one point or another, the nurses brought a set of crutches and rested them on the wall by the bed.

It needed to get out of here. It noted that the usually constant stream of doctors and nurses had stopped.

They'd likely return soon enough.

It shuffled itself to the side of the bed, gingerly setting its uninjured foot on the ground. Feeling little to no pain, its plastered foot followed.

Now that one hurt quite a bit more. It hissed quietly in pain. The grey cast was large and clunky and felt weird on its skin and it wanted it off.

It didn't have the proper tools to deal with that now.

Shifting all of its weight to its right leg, it hobbled over to the counter where its vest sat.

It felt around the pockets and- Bingo! In the front pocket, there it was; a little banged up but still in its golden beauty. Okay, it wasn't real gold; but it looked shiny and it helped keep track of the time. There had been a flush of relief upon opening the watch and being able to check the time.

But wait- was this clock even attuned to the current timezone? How was it supposed to know? It was hardly even moving; just stuttering between two ticks on the clock around 12 o'clock.

It grumbled under its breath as it slipped the vest over its shoulders and buttoned it up in the front. Its yellow tie and black belt sat on the counter where the vest had been.

It pulled the belt through the loops of its pants and buckled it with some amount of difficulty; the notches were a lot smaller than the ones for the vest and truth be told The Narrator had no memory of ever putting on a belt before; it sort of just... spawned in with one on.

It didn't have the energy to figure out how to properly tie a tie at the moment, so it just rolled it up neatly and placed it in the pockets of its dark grey slacks.

Once again unsteadily walking on its feet, it headed over to a window.

Another wrench in its plans.

It was at least on the second, if not third, floor of the building.

It supposed it should explain the stupid plan it had, shouldn't it?

To put it plainly, it had fully planned on throwing something out the window and escaping that way.

Again; a plan worthy of Stanley.

It had no plan on what to do after that if it was honest.

Peering down at the rows and rows of cars, it had to figure something else out.

It couldn't just sit around and wait to get better. It needed Stanley.

But no ideas appeared in its brain.

Anxiety rose in its mind.

This was a new realm to it. It had no way to navigate even if it did get out.

How was Stanley holding up? The two had been together for such a long time that it was highly likely that Stanley had no clue how to function here either! It got hit by a car the first night back, what if Stanley got into an even worse situation?

In a fit of frustration and fear, it felt its fist ram into the glass pane of the window.

It didn't break the glass or anything at all. The Narrator probably did more damage to itself than the window. It doubled over in pain.

Lord, it was as stupid as Stanley had been now that it was out of the parable. Hell, Stanley had probably done the exact same thing during one of the endings!

Inspecting its hand after the pain dulled turned out to be disappointing. Its hand was intact; save for a small amount of bruising and redness, but perfectly fine.

Really, the only thing that changed was a small amount of stress being relieved from exerting it into the window pane.

Shaking off some of the pain, it reached for its pocket watch again. Pressing the button to release the latch that holds the watch closed, The Narrator looked at the time. the clock's hands now pointed somewhere around- Wait, it hadn't been that long. Why were the hands pointing at 3:15?

It did a 180, the hands staying still while the rest of the clock turned; the time now read 6:45.

Now that was... strange. It seemed to be acting more like a compass than a clock. What was it pointing to?

(It decided to rule out the possibility that it was just pointing north. It was fully possible, but this had been a clock before, not a compass with magnets.)

Outside the door, the stream of doctors and nurses began to pick up its pace again. Odds were that the ones who had been checking in on it would be back soon.

It was just as confused as it was excited. No matter where the end destination was, the clock certainly led to one place: To a new adventure.

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THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END

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[Sorry for the false alarm.. My partner just started writing again. They take long breaks. Again sorry for the scare 😅]