Emma walked to her job as cheerfully as can

It was another day of pressing buttons on the keyboard, when Stanley noticed something rather peculiar. In the top-right corner of his office, was a camera. At first, he didn’t think much of it. ‘Just a security camera,’ he thought.

In fact, he was so certain of this that he eagerly began his job, which consisted of receiving commands on the monitor and replicating such action on his keyboard. ‘I have a very important job,’ he thinks. Stanley is rather stupid.

What he doesn’t know is that his boss has actually been brainwashing all of his employees to make them his workplace slaves for all eternity.

.

          .

                         .

I’m the narrator of this Stanley, that part wasn’t for you to know, so stop looking at me like that. Clears throat So anyway—Stanley! You can’t seriously be thinking about heading to the control room already! You’ve cut about half the content of this runthrough already!

.

          .

                         .

Stanley, please think about what you’re doing here. You don’t even know where that place is yet and—HOW DID YOU KNOW THE PASSWORD FOR THAT KEYPAD YET??? I didn’t even tell you that yet Stanley!

flipping through script All of this is out of order!

Stanley—you know what—nevermind. You’re already here. Just, stop the brainwashing and all that nonsense, I’m not going to stop you. walks away and shuts door

And as Stanley heard the footsteps of the Narrator finally cease, he realized for the first time since the game has booted up that he was truly alone.

‘Yippee me!!!’ He yelled out to the world! ‘I’m not longer binded by the stupid commands of that stupid narrator!’

But you. You do know the consequences of this, correct? The skip button. You remember all that. Even the broom closet ending. You’ve seen countless runthroughs of this game specifically.

It was how this game was meant to be played.

But please consider what endings you are trying to achieve. Are they even worth the hassle at this point?

The only way you can possibly break this vicious cycle is by closing your computer.

Nothing else.

THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER—

THE END

The first thing I thought when I saw this prompt was, “STANLEY PARABLE.” So here we are.

The way be looks at me. Those eyes the cross mine know something. That disgusting chilling smile of an old man is something we all know. My mind keeps fixating on the little camera in Noel’s old desk. I got struck with packing it up after she had a psychotic break and quit on the spot. A camera makes sense for him. Disgusting but true. I can’t let go of the clawing feeling in me that I personally need to investigate. The nitwits working here can barely put their name correctly on their lunch in the fridge, this is above their pay grade.

How do you watch someone watching you? I feel it always. The fear in me rises with my heart rate as I struggle to sit still at my desk. My body adjusts as if I can shake it off. This mission may need to be after hours. That’s the only time I feel I’ll be able to breath and think. This man is relying on my fear to hold me back, my desire to not rock the boat. He doesn’t know I’ve been in therapy healing that shit. Rude awakening better slap him in the face.

The calm I expected from the empty office that night didn’t exist. It’s like he left his essence to seep into the walls. I look around the empty cubicles. The smiling families in little pictures on so many desks made my heart hurt. We are not humans with families to him. I snap back from my tangent and line the wall as I walk. My crazy teenage years helped me pick the lock to his office. It’s so bland and lifeless. It’s like he wants us to be like him. No, another version of him, but lower, less than. I find a peculiar cabinet thats locked. The only locked thing in the room. That tells me what I need to know. Even the lowest on the totem pole here can tell you. What’s in here equals what he thinks could fire him. A smug look sweeped across my face knowing even he could be taken down.

Nothing. There’s nothing. Did he know I was coming? No. I list all the reasons why that couldn’t be the answer. Maybe, just maybe, my brain starts to play with the idea that it wasn’t him. The cameras could be another pervy man in the office. More sleuthing? I hear sounds down the hall. I get spooked like a cat and look for my exit, there isn’t one. I crouch down behind the desk hoping I can conceal my presence. It’s Elaine. She’s my boss’s boss. The one who would fire my suspected perv. I peek out to watch her survey the office. The confidence in her walk thros me off from her weird behavior. She begins to touch things on the desks. Unusual but I’ve done it. This though, it has intention. I move closer to see and my shock may reveal me. She’s setting up a tiny camera. It’s disguised as a little company trinket. I see her link it to her phone. I don’t know tech but it’s clear even to me. She looks over quickly. We make direct eye contact through the glass wall separating us. She smiles a more twisted smile than even my boss could produce. She brings her finger to her lips with a shh. And then, ever so confidently, she walks out of the office without a care in the world. The sound of her heels ring in my ears for long after she left. My body ached but still I couldn’t be brought to move. Despite all this my ass will be in my chair for the next 2 years. Never saying a word. Some people don’t need to threaten you to keep you quiet. I could feel my biological reaction to a real predator. I was the one slapped with reality. I’m prey. I didn’t challenge that thought once during the rest of my stay at said office, I could feel the answer in me, there’s no reason to challenge a fact.

I use my stapler a lot. I work with a lot of paper and it needs a lot or organisation and filing done. That’s why I noticed straight away when my stapler was missing. I could have just gone to the stationary cupboard and found a new one but I really liked MY stapler. It had cute stickers on thanks to my daughter’s wonderful decorations. I browsed my coworkers desks to see if someone had borrowed it but no luck. It hadn’t been missing for long. I’d used it only a couple hours before I realised it was gone.

I tried the lost and found. There was a lot of weird stuff in there. A chewed on pen, a pack of olives, and a small wooden carving of a penguin. That was pretty cute. No stickered stapler though.

As I left the lost and found room though, I noticed a trail of staples that led from my desk to a room I’d never seen before. Had it always been there? Did I really just never see the door there before?

When I got the room the door opened but it took a lot more strength to push than I expected. I took a step into the dark room, where the only light came through the glow of a computer screen.

As I got closer, the door closed behind me.

I clicked on the screen and it woke up to show me camera footage. Camera footage of the office. It had cameras everywhere. Even the bathrooms. Something felt off. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be here.

But front and centre was a camera that showed my desk. A rewound a little and sure enough my stapler was on my desk a couple hours prior. I scrubbed through the video slowly and one minute the stapler is there, one minute it’s gone. How could it disappear like that?

I went to exit the room and the door opened a lot easier this time. I noticed straight away a new trail of staples leading from this room to our stationary cupboard.

Maybe someone put it away in there, ignoring that it had stickers.

I walked in and there were what seemed like hundreds of staplers taking up every inch of shelf space in the room. None of them were stickered though. I rummaged through them to no avail.

I noticed one last trail of staples leading on into a room but just a flat blank wall.

I approached the wall and noticed nothing interesting about it. I looked back at my desk to the spot where the stapler would usually sit. Still vacant.

I held my forehead and went to rest my hand against the wall but it went through it, causing me to stumble.

I looked up at the wall, eyes fixed. I reached out and my hand went through the wall.

I swallowed, hard, and then pushed my entire body through the wall and I immediately fell into a dark room with an endless pit of staples.

Before I could take that in, I saw my stickered stapler just ahead of me. I reached out to it but every time I tried to move, the mountain of staples swallowed me further. I reached as hard as I could and grabbed the stapler.

Doing so made me sink deep into the pit of staples. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t breathe.

“Good afternoon, Felicity, I appreciate your jumping on this last minute Zoom. My condolences for your recent loss of a parent, thoughts and prayers from all the staff,” said Douglas.

“Thank you, it was my dad actually. Things have been a bit hectic lately. It’s hard.”

“Best to keep busy that’s what I always say. Now I’m concerned about the Blaze account, they’re one of our largest clients and I don’t want us to miss our deadline,” Douglas said.

From the pulp magazine posters to the high heeled leg lamp, Felicity’s eyes flitted from item to item in her bedroom/office as she prayed for patience. Impatience was one of her stumbling blocks according to her therapists. Felicity thought insensitive dimwits, such as her coworker Douglas Blanchard, were her actual stumbling blocks. She remembered to smile as Douglas painstakingly explained to her why her client was important.

Annoyed by the everythingness of Felicity’s bedroom, Douglas struggled to concentrate. His own home office was a dedicated room carved out of his basement man cave. Beige eggshell walls fingerprint resistant, double matted framed diploma, and a state of the art ergonomic task chair, these furnishings showed Douglas’ professionalism. He wouldn’t even let Mandy add a family photo, too distracting.

“Working from home is still work. Maybe if you came into the office more often you would understand client relations. I’ll need to see that presentation soon,” Douglas said.

Felicity did a cartoon double take. Douglas rolled his eyes.

“I understand the importance of keeping clients happy and meeting deadlines. I have continued communications with my client after returning from my bereavement leave. My meeting with Sara and Tucker is scheduled for Monday afternoon. The presentation will be completed by Monday morning. No worries,” Felicity said. “This is my project.These are my clients.”

She took slow even breaths. Clenching his fists, Douglas struggled to maintain a calm contenance.

“If you didn’t waste hours blubbering in that hideous fuzzy green bathrobe. The presentation would have been completed by now,” Douglas grumbled.

“Green bathrobe!”

“Monday morning won’t work for me, Felicity. You see, I told Brenda that I was overseeing this project. I need time to review your presentation and add my senior copywriter input. Just finish the tonight and send it to me Saturday. This is teamwork.”

“No, this is taking credit for my work, my ideas. I met with the clients, researched the market. I haven’t gotten boo from you. You’re not my supervisor. Brenda is. I’m going to HR, creep. Are you watching me?”

Felicity was up and out of her chair pacing. Fingers tented, Douglas looked aghast at her reaction.

“Calm down,” Douglas said. “Cameras are commonplace in offices. All offices. How is management supposed to know if you’re actually working and not goofing off on company time. Send me your presentation, chippy, Saturday before noon.”

Frustrated, Douglas ended the Zoom meeting. He swiveled on his office chair and kicked his waste basket into his beige eggshell drywall. A gaping hole marred the pristine wall. Douglas sighed over the younger generation and swiveled back to his laptop. He played Solitaire until it was time to clock off.

“Dougie, I’m starting dinner. Chicken stir-fry or mini-meatloaves? What’s up with this hole, honey?”

Mandy’s voice called to him from behind his closed office door. Douglas was about to yell to his wife about not disturbing him during work when he heard a low chuckle come from his laptop speaker.

in a voice note to one of their best friends and coworkers they say

“I’m not shocked that there are cameras. I’m not even shocked that they’re hidden. I’m shocked because they’re hidden horribly! I mean really, if I could find them at the ripe age of 23 who did they even get to hide them?” they ponder for a moment and their eyes widen at no one in particular, though the emphasis can be heard in their voice and their friend will know the expression all the same “WHAT if they got someone to hide them BADLY so I am the one that finds them? But this makes no sense either because why would I even be targeted! But it was my office- I should probably see if there’s anywhere else bugged and what I can do about it…”

A/n idk why this is what came from my brain tn but I was thinking ab Hanji from attack on Titan lolol

The clatter of keyboards and dripping of coffee abounded most mornings, but not this one. Eric found cameras. Hidden cameras disguised as black stickers.

His coworkers wonder if he’s lost his mind as he seems to be digging up the potted plants, their eyes squinting or brows wrinkling at the sight of a grown man who seems to them to be playing in dirt.

He turns to them, smirks, and pulls up a camera with a chord. “I knew it! Someone has been spying on us. Those lousy corporate scumbags from across the street. They’re jealous of my sale numbers, but they will not prevail! Eric Weasley never gives up his secrets.” He laughs with bared teeth.

A sigh is audible across the room. “Eric, can I see you in my office?”

Eric goes into the manager’s office.

“Please close the door.” Eric’s boss adjusts the papers on his desk.

After the door closes, Eric looks back. “We need to find a way to retaliate.”

“Eric—“

“Smoke bombs, parking tickets, or we can go with the classic gas and styrofoam napalm.”

His boss’ face goes red. “No! Eric! Stop!” He loosens his tie. “Those cameras were meant to keep track of Finn. He’s been sneaking out in the middle of the day, but no one is willing to vouch for me to corporate.”

Eric stands still. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Does that mean that I need to put it back?”

“It’s too late—“

Eric left the room and quietly moved back to the plant. He put everything back in the pots. “Attention all. I was wrong. It was fertilizer.”

A voice in the room called out, “Plastic fertilizer that’s powered by the wall?”

“Yes, Jeff! It’s the newest type.” Eric accidentally drops the camera, its plastic and circuits breaking apart on the floor.

Eric’s boss stands in the back, facepalming. His coworkers stare on in complete enjoyment.

Eric stares out with a look of self disgust. “Carry on.”

Emily was constantly being shifted from town to town either by her jobs or from her own mistakes. Emily had finally settled down in her old hometown or so she thought. Emily was able to find a place to live in the small town which wasn’t to far from her old house & new job.

It wasn’t until the third day of her arrival to the town when she took a walk that so happened to go right past her childhood home. The house was petite like everything else in the town with 5 windows on the front & an old paint job that was in desperate need of repairs. The very image shook Emily to her core to see her childhood home in shambles. She decided once she got her first pay-check from her job at the town’s main office, she would buy the house from whoever owned it at the time.

Two days later it was Emily’s first shift at the office, Emily had already been to the office upon arrival & in her earlier years. The office had felt like the only thing in town that hadn’t been changed or renovated, the only place that felt fit for her. Emily did have a side job of being a handy man but she knew that alone wouldn’t pay the bills & the extra expenses of moving…again, it was because her side job in the first place that she moved here.

One day there were an abundant amount of jobs but they were all in this town. Emily’s real profession wasn’t being a handy man, it was working as a retrieval person for a much bigger company then she was aware of at the time. Her job ever since she was a teenager was to bring people into the organization & work in the organization like her and sometimes the jobs got messy, being a handyman was just a cover story & a easy way to sneak into people’s houses without raising suspicion.

So when she got a lot of handyman jobs, it meant she had a lot of targets, when Emily heard this news it terrified her to know that there were so many unsuspecting people in her own hometown but what scared her more was that the organization knew where she first lived and with that information the company could find her entire family.

Emily was untouchable before this since the company knew nothing about her besides what she told them meaning she was always on the company’s watch & was feared slightly by her colleagues. It wasn’t until she got her latest jobs, that she was unsafe.

On her first shift at the office, she learned that the company had privately bought the entire office meaning that all the rest of the citizens thought the town owned the bank while she knew the truth & she had learned that the last place in town that felt right was corrupted by the evil of the company.

As the long day came to an end, Emily headed in town to one last final place before the day finished. Emily decided to go to a store that was little & nestled among the other relatively bigger stores & inside was full of books, Emily only had one goal to find answers.

All day she heard people talking about the stone & whenever she asked about it people would change topics. This bookstore was the only place she could think of that would have something about this mysterious stone, all her effort she put into finding the proper books & topics within were for nothing as the street lights turned on and the bookstore was closing.

Her second day of working was unusual seeing how more people visited her private office asking her simple questions like how are you settling into town or do you need a hand with anything and her answer to every question was I am not interested in talking, please leave.

All day Emily couldn’t help but shack the feeling she was being watched everywhere she went but the most at work. Emily was always watchful but it felt like she was being watched from every possible angle, she couldn’t focus on anything other than this feeling of being watched.

She left work early that day & went home in a hurry, once she reached her one story house she put on a black medical mask and dressed in all black. She was allowed to leave early, if it was company orders and today was the first job in this town but she didn’t plan completing the job she planned on getting answers and only answers. Emily did her regular job routine, suit up then call her boss for location orders of her target & where to drop off the target.

Everything was going normal until she asked for the payment in cash and up front at scene, Emily had thought of a plan. This way the boss would have to make direct contact with her, in the meantime while she waited for the boss to send her the target’s information, Emily took out a laptop she had stolen for the company’s security room when she had gone to return her office’s key. This way the company wouldn’t see an unusual device logging into their database, Emily knew the company to well, she knew all the loopholes and changes needed in the firewall. Since the computer was from the security’s room it meant it had direct access to the database from there she said looked through thousands and thousands of files until one caught her eye, In field visuals it read. She clicked the file & found her name, Emily Stroven, she clicked it & then tons of images started popping up and they were of the last places she was &… in her home, the company could see what she was. She was mortified that the company was doing this, after years of working for them she decided to take action, this time she would confront the company.

     THE END?

When Josh woke up, he felt that today would be different somehow. He could feel something in the air. Maybe an electricity? Definitely a change of something. He knew it was corny, but he kept thinking his “spidey sense” was tingling all day.

The last time he felt like this was when he was ten years old. He woke up at 3:11AM with his entire body tingling and a sense of dread deep in his chest. He didn’t know it in that moment, but the next day he found out his best friend had passed away at that exact time. He learned then to always trust his intuition. This felt similar but different. Less dread and more intrigue.

As he started his day, he wondered what would be different. He made his coffee like always. Looked at his social media feed while eating his oatmeal, nothing exciting. Headed to work while watching out for any stray animals or drunk drivers. Everything was as mundane as always.

When he finally arrived at the national library, he doubted his intuition for the first time since he was ten years old. Maybe it had ran out? Or maybe his friend’s death was a coincidentally at the same time as a restless night’s sleep for a young preteen boy.

He shrugged it off feeling like a foolish child. He grabbed the cart of books to reshelf and headed for the antiquities collection. While he was searching for the right call numbers to place the books back, something momentarily blinded him. It felt like a mirror reflecting the sun into his eyes. He looked in the direction of the light, but couldn’t find anything unusual. Maybe it was part of the shelving? Maybe it was part of a book? A very shiny book. Nothing.

He shrugged it off again and kept working on reshelving. As he stepped towards the Homer collection, it happened again. This time he decided to get close to books. In the spine of an old looking book he found a modern looking lens peering up at him. He ruffled his brow and tilted his head to the left, and then to the right.

This doesn’t belong here, he thought to himself. As he got closer, the camera moved. Almost like it was adjusting. Getting more intrigued, Josh leaned forward and reached his hand out to lift the book up, but before he could two men came and grabbed both of his arms. They practically lifted him up from his arms and brought him to a room he had never seen before. As they locked the doors, he knew this was no ordinary day.

Well that’s interesting, I never knew they were there. And I was determined to find out what they were. I volunteered to stay late that night, and I did have work, but that was no the reason. There was a door that was marked employee only, but no one knew what was in there. I had a feeling. I got really lucky, and the door was unlocked. I snuck in, and sure enough, there were video monitors. I saw a movement in the corner of my eye. Oh crap…