#but the reason stanley died is bc the mist that was possessing him at the time left his body & in doing so caused all-

[the-haunted-office]

Memories of Sorrow ((for Doom!))

Send “Memories of Sorrow” to see a painful and tragic memory of My Muse..

The universe is full of strange and curious happenstances, inexplicable events that occur for no particular reason other than that they simply must occur, leaving all parties to wonder, what in the ever-loving hell was that all about? and what purpose did that serve? or even should we collectively pretend this never happened?

This incident is one such occurrence.

Doom is sitting on the couch with Jonas in his apartment one fine day, sharing a bowl of junk food, when an accidental bumping of hands joins them together in a... very unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how one wants to look at it) circumstance.

Doomsday is unaware of it, at first. She won't become aware of it until it's nearly over. To her, the whole experience feels like a sort of tickling in her brain, a niggling in her mind, like someone is poking around in here, moving around. For a few panicked seconds she thinks she might have brain worms. But those few panicked seconds pass rather quickly both on account of them being only a few seconds and the fact that if she were to have brain worms, she could just die and respawn and the brain worms would be gone. Boom. Done. Problem solved. Easy as that.

For Jonas, on the other hand, the experience is rather different. For him, he experiences the sensation of being teleported inside of Doomsday's head, which, to her credit, she's made an effort of tidying up lately, although it's still littered with a bunch of trauma. It's lying about like piles of mixed clean and dirty laundry, but she can't help it. The sorting's been rough and it's difficult to tell what's clean and what's dirty until she picks it up and gives it a good strong whiff, but she's getting there.

Still, where Jonas ends up being dropped is into a memory that looks an awful lot like the control booth of the Office, and that's because it is. He is seeing things through Doomsday's eyes, although he might not yet be aware of it, and what he is seeing through her eyes is an old desk of dark brown wooden material, an old computer monitor that looks like it is from the 90s sitting atop it, along with a microphone, and paper, lots and lots of stacks of papers, everywhere. Sitting in front of that set-up, in a ratty old computer chair, is an older gentleman who appears to be in his early 50s, with lightish brown hair streaked with gray.

The lights are bright. The room smells old and musty and like an old library. And he, Jonas, seems to be perched over the back of the chair in which the older man sits.

Both of their attentions are focused on the computer monitor, on which there is a man, a simple, average-looking man perhaps in his mid-30s, short black hair with long bunches in the front (a rather odd cut, but it does seem to suit him), wearing your typical office worker's attire of a white button-up shirt, black slacks, and black shoes along with a black tie. He is walking through a doorway and into what appears to be a lounge area of some kind, as there are a few plushy couches present and a vending machine.

The older man sitting in the chair is grousing about something. Most of his words are coming through mumbled and unclear, but there is something about, "Now, Stanley, you know what you're supposed to do next. Walk through the employee lounge, don't dawdle-"

The man on the monitor - Stanley, apparently - sort of mocks what the older man in the booth with Jonas just said by shaking his head and using his hand to make a yapping motion, although Stanley doesn't actually speak any words.

Jonas starts laughing, but it isn't his laughter that comes out, it's Doomsday's, and it sounds much lighter, less mischievous and sinister, and more genuine, more friendly, happier, more like Thursday's if Jonas had known her well enough.

The old man becomes very angry at this display and snaps back at Stanley, "Oh, you! You stop that, Stanley! And you, Thursday! Get out of my ear with that cackling of yours! And stop hitting my chair like that!"

On the monitor, Stanley continues into the lounge while in the control booth, Cyrus continues grumbling and Jonas/Thursday/Doomsday continues giggling.

Suddenly, Stanley seems to catch his shoe on the carpet of the lounge and stumbles first to one knee, and then falls forward onto both hands and knees.

Jonas/Thursday/Doomsday continues to laugh. "Ahahahahaha, Stanley! You're so silly!"

The old man, on the other hand, doesn't find any of this to be funny. "Oh, now you're pretending to be clumsy, is that it, Stanley? Well, that's fine. Who am I to argue with you if you want to crawl all the way to the meeting room?"

In the employee lounge, something seems to be going on with Stanley, though. The old man and Jonas/Thursday/Doomsday don't notice it at first - although perhaps Jonas might - but Stanley is having trouble breathing. His gasps for air don't become loud enough until he starts crawling over to the corner by the vending machine, and by then he is grasping at the collar of his shirt and trying to pull it open with shaking hands that aren't quite strong enough or coordinated enough to do so.

He manages to get a couple of the buttons in the middle undone, but it doesn't do anything. The man known as Stanley lays his head against the wall, and closes his eyes, like he's going to sleep, and becomes quiet. Very quiet. And still. So still, even his chest and stomach and diaphragm stop moving. All of him stops moving.

It all happens so suddenly and so sharply, both the old man and Jonas/Thursday/Doomsday can't even tell that anything has happened at all. All they can see is that Stanley fell down, crawled into a corner, and fell asleep. They both think Stanley is still fooling around for laughs, as he always does, so much so that the old man is still complaining about it and Jonas/Thursday/Doomsday is still laughing.

Things begin to get fuzzy from there. Wonky. Everything fades out, bleeds out, as Jonas is knocked back into the area of Doom's mind where all the piles of trauma laundry sit and there's an overwhelming feeling of STANLEY'S DEAD AND I WATCHED HIM DIE AND I WAS LAUGHING AND I DID NOTHING TO SAVE HIM AND IT'S MY FAULT.

And then, almost as if none of that was anything, Jonas is plopped right back into himself, on the couch right next to where Doom is sitting, with the bowl of junk food sitting in between them.

Doom pauses. Looks over at Jonas, her brow crumpled up in confusion. Blinks at him. And says, "This might sound a bit insane, Jonas... but were you... just inside my head a moment ago?"