Stanley stood outside the formerly abandoned barn he had long since started calling home. The snow was falling lightly, like dust from above. The former employee pulled his scarf a little tighter around his face, his nose red.

It had been only a few months since his escape from The Narrator. His thoughts drifted unwillingly towards the entity who had imprisoned him in that office. Some days he still wondered if it had really happened. Most of the time he tried to drive it from his head with some other thought or task.

He wouldn't come back to that office or that voice even if it meant salvation from the end of the world.
He had survived one hell, surely he could survive another. He chuckled to himself as he gathered some firewood.
Stanley couldn't help but occasionally wonder what The Narrator was doing now, without his prized protagonist.

When he had first walked into town, a free man, he was over joyed simply by the sight of other people. People who were real, who were alive. Who made their own decisions and actions. All without a voice in their head dictating what they could and couldn't do. Without being chastised for making the 'wrong' choice.

It was odd, he thought, that he was more pained, more concerned about the employees he'd rarely met than the one entity that he did.
When they had finally popped into his mind one day he had given in to his curiosity and checked out the missing persons reports in town.

There upon the screen, where hundreds of missing peoples reports. Most of which were from his former place of employment.
And that was only those who had someone who cared enough to check on them.
At first Stanley was shocked, a feeling of guilt came over him. That he-out of all 600+ employees had been spared whatever fate the others had had forced upon them.
It wasn't his fault that he had been singled out but Stanley couldn't help but feel sorry for them all.
His eyes grew bleary as the army of faces went by-he closed the window.

And got up. He couldn't bring them back-at least not without going back to that hell hole. He'd been lucky enough to escape once. He wasn't sure he could do it again.

For the most part he blamed The Narrator for this cruel act. For ripping so many people away from their lives and out of the lives of others. It wasn't fair nor right.

There had been times when Stanley would have considered The Narrator a sort of friend. There had also been times when Stanley hated The Narrator and did things just to spite him.
And there had been times when Stanley was mostly neutral towards him.
Mostly.

Stanley sighed, the chill of the air around him dragged him out of his thoughts. He picked up the firewood he had come for from his little storage shack and headed back inside for the night.

There was no use worrying about things out of his control.