Stanley was honestly getting sick and tired of all this bad luck coming his way. Honestly, he'd just been minding his own business. He hadn't been hurting anyone. He really didn't deserve to be hanging upside down.

His vision swayed back and forth with him, though it was hard to see very clearly when he was thrashing around midair and spitting curses like one would spit sunflower seeds.

Below him, there were shapes gathering. He blinked the sweat from his eyes and looked angrily at the shapes.

Gnomes. Five of them. They'd gathered beneath him and were looking up curiously.

Stan groaned. "You guys again…"

Suddenly, he heard slow clapping start from behind the small crowd. The gnomes parted, and the bearded gnome from the kitchen that morning walked up to him, a triumphant smirk on his face.

"Well, well, well! Look what the cat dragged in! Or, uh, the rope trap dragged up. Like, into the air."

"What the hell is your problem, pipsqueak? Why do you have a trap set up?"

"Well, normally they're set up so we can find our new gnome queens."

"…"

"…it's less creepy than it sounds."

"Is it? I don't think it is."

"Hey, look, we don't judge your mating rituals."

"I don't have any-!" He sighed angrily. "Will you just let me down?"

"Ha! Not a chance, Stanford! Not after what you did!"

"WILL SOMEONE ENLIGHTEN ME AS TO WHAT I SUPPOSEDLY DID?!"

"Are you still pretending-?! Ugh. Fine. Let's pretend for the moment that you don't remember what you did." He looked to his companions. "Should we remind him of his forest crimes?" The gnomes hooted and hollered their support. "You, Stanford, captured our kind and kept them in that nightmare shack of yours!"

"Ooh, shack. I think I like that better than hut."

"Don't mock me!"

"I was being serious!"

"Yeah, sure you were. Anyway. Not only did you kidnap gnomes and hold them against their will, but you did it to all sorts of creatures! Phoenixes, fairies…some other creature that starts with a "f" sound!"

"Woah. Yeah, that's pretty messed up."

"So, you deny that—wait, what?"

"I said that's messed up. Ford shouldn't've done that."

"You…you're agreeing with me?"

"Yeah."

"You're not supposed to do that!"

"What?!"

"You're supposed to deny the heinousness of your crimes so we can interrogate you further!"

"Oh, so if I disagree with you you get mad, but if I agree you get mad anyway?"

"Yes!"

"Jesus, you're like my dad." Stan brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Shut up! I, Jeff Sr., decree that—"

"'Decree'?"

"—THAT FOR YOUR CRIMES YOU WILL BE GIVEN AS A SACRIFICE TO THE GNOME QUEEN!"

Stanley paled.

"Woah, h-hey, sacrifice? I-I don't really think—"

"Our queen gets tired of nothing but snack food, Stanford, and we have to keep her happy."

"She's gonna eat me?! The hell kinda queen do you have?!"

"A beautiful one. How would you like it if I insulted your lady?"

There was a rustle in the bushes, and Carla tumbled out.

"I would be pretty pissed off!"

She pointed her thumb at her chest proudly, before coughing. A leaf tumbled out of her mouth. "Oh, gross."

"Carla! Were you…were you waiting in the bushes for a good opening?"

"…I wanted to be cool for my damsel in distress."

Stanley's face flushed, and he looked away, murmuring "…not a damsel in distress…"

Jeff Sr. staggered backwards. "It's the crazy chair lady!"

"That's right baby, I'm back and crazier than ever. Let my damsel in distress go, or you're gonna get worse than a chair."

Stanley blushed an even deeper shade of red, but this time he smiled.

Jeff Sr. narrowed his eyes at her.

"You're going to regret this…"

Carla let out a "pfft" and pulled a small bottle out of her pocket.

"See this, little guy? It's pepper spray. This stuff'll hurt like hell, not to mention blind you. I've used it before and I'll use it again."

She raised an eyebrow at him with an expression that read "try me", and Jeff Sr.'s eyes widened.

"Back to base, guys! Go!" He scampered away with the other five gnomes. Carla nodded in triumph with a "hmph!" before running over to Stanley, who was still hanging upside down.

"You okay, baby? They rough you up any?"

Stanley's heart skipped a beat. She's calling me pet names again.

"Pfft, you think I'd let someone that small rough me up?"

"I dunno, you remember that tiny guy in the ring?"

Stanley frowned, the wound in his pride still fresh to him.

"Hey, that guy was scrappy."

"I'll say. Took you down with one blow."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Can you just get me down, please?"

Carla looked a little nervous at this.

"I…okay, look, I'm going to try to do this as gently as possible. I can't promise a super smooth landing, but—"

"Just get it over with."

"I don't wanna break your neck…"

"Hey, I trust you!"

"Mm, maybe not the best idea."

She began to work on the rope. She pulled at the knot around his ankle, loosening it. It was already obvious his ankle would, best case scenario, be darkly bruised. "Try to shake your ankle out of the knot, I'll try to support you."

He began to wiggle his foot out of the rope, and she looped her arms beneath his. He fell from the rope with a thud, and Carla hit the ground with him.

"Sorry! Crap, Carla, sorry!"

"No, you're good!" She hoisted herself up, and held out a hand for him to take. He rose unsteadily with her help, and she smiled sympathetically at him. "How's your ankle?"

"Eh, sore. Nothin' I can't handle."

Carla let out a sigh of relief, and her small smile spread into a grin.

"Good. I'm glad."

"Me too. Thanks. Thanks for saving me." He grinned back at her.

Swiftly, Carla brushed Stan's hair away from his forehead and jumped up to lay a quick kiss on it. Stanley's heart skipped a beat again.

"Sorry, Stanley, was that okay for me to do?"

"Y-Yeah! That was fine!"

"I-I was just really worried when I heard you scream...I mean, anything could've happened to you!"

"Well, luckily for us, it was just a couple of annoying twerps!" Stanley declared happily with a chuckle. Carla laughed, too.

"Can we talk about his face when I pulled out the pepper spray?"

"Oh God, I was trying not to bust a gut laughing! He looked like he was about to wet himself!"

Carla began to laugh harder, bending over to rest her hands on her knees. Stanley joined in, both of them sounding nearly hysterical.

Carla wiped tears of mirth from her eyes and sighed.

"Okay, let's go back to the—"

THUMP.

The smile slid off her face.

THUMP.

Stanley looked at her, wide-eyed.

THUMP.

The sound of not so distant trees crashing down filled the air.

Stanley grabbed Carla's hand.

"Run."

The two began to run like hell, just as a large red monster crashed through the tree line.

Carla cast a terrified look behind her at the towering gnome made of hundreds of little gnomes.

"GIGANTIC MAN! HUGE GIGANTIC MAN!"

"I SEE IT!"

"HAVE THEY DONE THIS BEFORE?!"

"I WOULDN'T HAVE MADE FUN OF THEM SO MUCH IF THEY HAD!"

Branches smacked at them as they ran. The house was so close, they just had to get out of the woods and they'd be fine—

Stanley was on the ground. Then he just…wasn't.

The tower of gnomes had snatched him up in one hand. It quickly became one of the worst experiences of Stan's life.

It wasn't as if he was in an actual hand. He was in a swarm of angry gnomes, with scratchy nails and sharp teeth.

The scratching and biting was nearly unbearable. He could barely breathe. Faintly, all the way from the ground at least fifty feet below, he heard Carla scream his name.

"I swear to God, if any of you punks lay a hand on her I'll tear your freakin' beards off!" He yelled with as much rage as he could muster. He was drowning in gnomes, though, so it wasn't very intelligible.

He could barely see, but he could feel that they'd turned around. From the sounds of it, they were in hot pursuit of Carla.

Oh God, please don't catch her, please don't catch her, please don't—

The sunlight became brighter, and Stan knew they had entered a clearing.

Great, we're at the house. That's just what I need, aggravated gnome vandalism of my brother's property.

He heard a loud splash.

…or maybe we're not at the house.

Collective shrieks began to rise up. Above the din, Jeff Sr.'s voice piped up angrily.

"No, you idiots! Walk out of the water! The gnomes forming the feet are going to drown!"

There was great confusion throughout the structure. It began to wobble and move uncoordinatedly, throwing Stanley around.

Then the whole thing began to fall apart.

Stanley was falling before he was entirely sure what was happening. He was grasping at something, anything to hold onto, but found nothing. There was no longer anything holding him up. As he fell, numb in panic, he found himself wondering where Carla was, if she was okay.

Then he hit the ground, and everything went dark.