Dreams are Hard to Follow (A Stanley Parable Story)

Chapter 5: Awake or Asleep, My Feelings Stay the Same

This is the story of a group of people.

This group had a mission: Save the Protagonist Stanley from the dangers of his dream and wake him up.

All they had to do was follow the instructions of the Narrator, and they would get through the Story.

At one moment, a thought came to one of the members of the group; a thought that voiced what could be a selfish desire. They couldn't help it, the thought bubbled to the surface before they could stop it and now it won't leave them alone! It wasn't about them, none of this was! A thought couldn't be helped, especially when one wanted to listen to it very badly.

'Do I really have to go back to what I was? A soundless voice that can only communicate with typed words, that will never get their life back? Why do I have to give it all up, just for him? I was a Protagonist once, I could be it again! I have both my body and voice back in here, but it'll just disappear when I'm out of Stanley's head. I don't want to be in his repeating dream just to have a body and voice again, and the Narrator said that this place was susceptible to suggestion . . . Maybe I can have this work in my favor,'

Tim's thoughts darkly churned, staring at the back of Stanley's head as the Protagonist and Narrator took to lead ahead. What could he suggest to Stanley that would turn this place around in his favor? A lightbulb turned on in his head, as he leaned over to Stanley's ear and whispers to him.

"Imagine the stairs to the Boss's office and the office itself turned into sand, like in the Skip Ending. How crazy would that be?"

Tim knew that with those carefully threaded words, it would cause the gears in Stanley's head to start spinning. He heard the hissing fall of sand, as the top of the stairs began to disintegrate into sand, consuming the steps in a domino effect.

"What—! Sand?! Stanley, why is there sand here?! Stop this at once!"

Narrator commanded Stanley, who looked just as panicked and confused as he did. The office worker frantically shook his head, his eyes darting back and forth between the coming sand and the group.

'I'm not doing this! I just thought about sand and it just happened!!'

His panicked thoughts projected to them to the group, the sand seemed to be falling faster, already up to their ankles, Tim looked at Stanley with wide eyes, not having taken into account the power Stanley's mind held over this realm. He knew that since it was technically Stanley's head that Stanley would have some sort of lucid omnipotent control over this world, but he never guessed how little control Stanley would have when the thoughts in his head began to spiral.

"Then stop thinking!" Mariella snapped, loathing the feeling of the invading sand in her heels.

'Like that's such an easy thing to do! It's like telling someone not to think of a pink elephant, it just doesn't work!'

Stanley glared at Mariella, using his hands and facial expressions to accentuate his point. Narrator looked at the panicked faces in the room, with his turning into one of determination and purpose, he pushed through the sand that was already rising up below his knee and made his way over to Stanley and placed a firm grip on his shoulders.

"Stanley, listen to me! I know that as your Narrator you get tired of listening to me, that is why you deviate from the main story as much as you can. You always look for new ways to change the story, you let your curiosity and thirst for new exciting answers take flight! Stanley, you always find another way to change the story, find it! Find it now! I know you can!"

Stanley blinked, and with a new vigor he nodded and looked around for another solution. The sand slowed down, or perhaps it was due to Stanley's want for more time that stalled the falling sand so that even as it continued to fall, it would not rise anymore. He approached the rush of falling sand, held onto it like a rope and began to climb it. It took everyone else a moment to process before following the protagonist's lead. They climbed all the way to the Boss's door, to which Stanley swung himself back and forth, until he let go and flew towards the doors that automatically opened for him.

He frantically waved for the others to join him. Tim was the first of them to jump and join Stanley, landing almost right beside him— he stumbled as his feet landed on the ground, only saved from an unfortunate faceplant into the unforgiving hard ground by Stanley quickly taking hold of him and stabilizing him. Mariella was next, showing off her gymnastic skills by flipping off the rope and landing in front of Stanley with a proud gymnast pose. Stanley was going to question why she did that, but remembered an ending where she backflipped all the way to work, it made sense to him after that.

They were all waiting for the Narrator, who looked anxiously at his sand rope and everyone else that crossed the threshold. How he longed to be in the safety of his office void, just an office recording booth where nothing could hurt him or require him to do ridiculous stunts like this!

"I can't do this, I simply cannot! There must be another way, one that requires less danger!"

Narrator whined, clutching the sandrope tighter, afraid that at any moment the safety of the rope would snap and vanish.

"Hurry up already! You were the one that wanted to save Stanley so bad, and now you're the one that's holding all of that up!"

Tim groaned out, annoyed at the Narrator. Looking at his watch, which in this world was useless, as dreams made it difficult to see the time.

"I-I am not! I am just— I am merely just concerned that I won't have as much momentum as the rest of you and miss the landing!"

"Then just swing more!"

The two started to argue again, Mariella groaned and massaged her temples to combat the headache forming in her skull. Stanley ignored the bickering, and held out his hand to the Narrator, who then stopped in the middle of his sentence to look at the offered hand.

'You won't fall. Trust me.'

Trust Stanley? Any other time the Narrator would have scoffed at the idea, and stubbornly held on until they had a solution that worked more with his idea. Now? He felt his chest blossom with something, assurance perhaps. Or it blossomed with the trust he had within Stanley. Exhaling a shaking breath, he swung himself back and forth a few times, bracing himself to let go and jump.

Time seemed to slow, heartbeats loud in everyone's ears as the Narrator let go of the rope and came flying towards towards entrance. Stanley reached out both of his hands, and was hit with the full weight of the Narrator, hitting the ground harshly on the back, having the wind knocked out of him.

"You did it Stanley! I can't believe it, you actually caught me—!" He paused as he looked at Stanley from his lack of enthusiastic response, "Stanley? Oh dear. I guess I did land on you rather harshly. But we did it Stanley! We're at the Bosses Office!"

He pulled Stanley to his feet, giving him a thankful smile. Quickly realizing what he was doing, The Narrator shook his head and got back on track. Hopefully no more delays shall pester him! The sooner he woke up Stanley, the better he'd feel. This squirming in his stomach, the heat on his face and the odd beating of his heart would all go away, most likely effects of someone like him in the Dreamworld.

It then got him the feeling of a heavy sense of dread in his stomach, with the thought of Stanley never waking up. He could replace him, sure, that was easy enough. However, why waste time doing that? Stanley would be just fine, he would wake up, he would! Narrator would not have any need for any sort of replacement because Stanley would be fine damnit!

. . .

Oh dear. Where were these thoughts of his going?

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