𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚕𝚎𝚢 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 [𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝚡 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚕𝚎𝚢]

13-Stanley

The hand remained on Stanley's shoulder far longer than he'd have liked. He was determined to wait it out; sit there unmoving, holding his breath, until these people left.

And as his dear Narrator knew, when he set his mind to something odds are the other person would cave first.

Stanley hadn't even realized he'd passed out until he woke up.

He opened his eyes; the ceiling light of the living room was directly above him. He felt the couch beneath him, and he saw the people had not left his apartment. They sat nearby, anxiously conversating.

He was too tired and hungry for this.

He just wanted to study ASL and then go find The Narrator.

The Tall One was the first to notice Stanley stirring.

Rowen tried to get up to approach Stanley, but The Third One grabbed her arm.

"Ro, he needs some space." A woman's voice said.

Stanley slowly sat up, taking a look at The Third One.

He sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth.

It was a familiar face. It was someone from the parable.

Mariella, the woman from that one ending where Stanley went insane and collapsed on the sidewalk.

He hoped that she didn't know about that.

Stanley put his face in his hands. The rough stubble on his chin scratched the palms of his hands. He'd need to shave soon enough.

"Stanley, is everything alright?" The one that looked like Mariella asked. Her voice was sweet, there was a slight edge of a British accent. Considering the accents of the other two, he was likely in the US, which made the accent stick out like a sore thumb.

Stanley shakily lowered his hands, picking up the ASL book.

He pointed at Mariella(?) and finger-spelled one word.

P-A-R-A-B-L-E

Her eyes lit up with recognition and shock.

"Parable? Mariella, what does he mean by Parable?" The Tall One asked her.

"I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out." Dear god it was Mariella and she knew about the parable.

Her face was twisted in contemplation. He could only wonder what she was thinking.

Stanley flipped through the pages of the sign language book, searching for the right words to say.

He pointed at himself, pointed at Mariella, held his hand to his chin with four fingers extended, the pointer finger making contact with his chin, and then moved his hand down and made a circular motion with his pointer finger extended.

"Why do you need to talk to her alone?" Rowen asked with a tone of aggravation in her voice.

Flipping through the pages again, Stanley held a bent hand to the side of his forehead and then pointed at Mariella.

"You... know her? Why don't you know us then?" Tall One asked.

Stanley made the same gesture as before but turned his hand away from himself after pointing at his forehead.

"What do you mean you don't know? Rowen continued to interrogate.

"Rowen. Calm down. I'm going to talk to him. He's clearly stressed by this whole situation, maybe it's for the best if only one of us talks to him." Mariella told them, placing a hand on their arm.

Mariella seemed to be the calmest and most rational person in this group. He supposed it made sense considering her personality in the few moments he'd gotten to see her during the time in The Parable.

Stanley stood up, Mariella following suit. Stanley walked toward his bedroom; it being the only place in the apartment that felt suitable and had a door to separate it from the others.

Closing the door behind them, Stanley turned to face Mariella.

"So... you were in the parable? Like, the one with the office building and the voice?" Mariella began once the door was shut.

Stanley nodded.

"And I appeared in your parable?"

Stanley nodded again.

"How did you get out?"

'P-O-D', Stanley spelled out.

"But that just reset the story again for me."

Stanley nodded again. He walked over to the bedside table, remembering the pad of sticky notes that had rested inside the drawer.

Picking up the yellow papers and a nearby pen, he wrote down what happened as best he could.

Mariella sat on the edge of the bed, reading through the messy words written on the small yellow papers.

He watched as her eyes moved from one side of the paper to the other. He could tell she read it more than once; he'd only written a couple of lines of words, yet her eyes moved back and forth over 20 times (He stopped counting around there).

Her eyebrows were furrowed. Stanley was unsure what emotion was being portrayed on her face. After a few long moments, she set the paper down with a sigh and looked back at Stanley.

"I... I have no clue what to say. What you've written here is incredibly different from what I experienced. And I kept all my memories before, during, and after The Parable." She told Stanley.

She knew Stanley before. She knew of Stanley while she was there. She remembered who he was now.

"Regardless," She continued, "I wasn't gone for two and a half weeks. I got back in time for work. I never even met The Curator physically until three days later, the day we started to get worried about you when she appeared as one of the higher-ups at work!" She rambled with exasperation, brushing her fingers anxiously through her blond hair.

Stanley thought for a while. There wasn't much he could say. Well, he couldn't speak, so there was never much he could say, but in this specific instance no thoughts or words could properly form enough in his mind to give to another person. He gave Mariella a tired look.

She seemed to get the gist. She sighed, before continuing with "Fine. Fine, I'll see if I can get them to leave. But we're worried about you, Stan. I'll come back tomorrow. Let me know if that Narrator of yours shows up." She exasperatedly, walking over to the door.

He watched as Mariella left the room. He didn't care what happened in the living room. He was tired. He sat down on the bed, mentally screaming. He heard talking, voices raising and lowering, and some time later, he heard the front door open and the shuffling of feet leaving his apartment.

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THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END

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