Major finale spoilers ahead, yo

I’m coping with my finale feels the only way I know how: Writing fanfics. And all I could think of was this goddamn quote after the scene where Stan gets everything he’s ever wanted but at a price… So enjoy amnesiac!Stan’s perspective :’)

Senses returned to him slowly, drowsily, as if he’d been asleep and woken from a very, very long dream.

His eyes, unfocused, adjusted and became aware of the world around him. He knelt on forest green grass, bathed in the brilliant sunlight spilling through the treetops.

But none of the landscape around him looked familiar. Nothing was familiar. The world felt raw and unreal, and this was his first impression of it all, a newborn caught in a sea of the unknown. And like a child filled with wonder and apprehension, there was not much else could do except glance around in utter bewilderment.

Speaking of children, it appeared that he was not alone in this strange place. A girl wearing a sweater bounded over to him, mouth moving a mile a minute, unable to keep pace with her unbridled glee and relief.

He smiled at her, more out of instinct than affection, and offered a kind but uncertain, “Oh, uh… Hey there, kiddo. What’s your name?”

The girl reacted like she’d been struck. He frowned dumbly at her incomprehension, feeling a twinge of empathy, despite not knowing who she was.

Was she lost, just like him?

And who was he, anyway?

There was a man, and also a boy, both of them equally unknown to him. He noticed them only after the girl’s outburst, and even then, it was difficult to pay attention with his thoughts as hazy as they were.

The man spoke gently to the girl, and the boy went to her side, but she could not be consoled. She sounded so betrayed, so distraught, yet there seemed to be a wall between him and her emotions, muffling the passion of her cries.

He looked around the clearing, still quite dazed, barely even registering the deeper, adult voice of the man as he kept talking.

“He saved the world. He saved me…”

The man dropped to his knees before him; and the man’s sullen face was both an apology and a loss wrapped up in one. He could not imagine what the man could have to be sorry for, though.

After all, they had only just met.

“You’re our hero, Stanley,” the man choked out, wrapping strong arms around his shoulders and hugging him like he was as young and vulnerable as the kids, hugged him like he could never remember being hugged before (not that he had much, or any, memory to really go off).

Something within his chest seemed to spark at those words, at the warmth of the embrace, an ember within his ashen memories casting a faint glow.

However, the tiny spark was not enough to illuminate the dark spaces of his hollowed mind, and so he remained silent as the man continued to hold him, muttering mournful whispers under his breath. All the while, the girl’s sobs echoed through the clearing. The boy’s grief was quieter, but no less potent.

He stared forward, eyes dry, feeling drained and distant from everything. One thing he knew: Whoever this Stanley was, it must be nice to mean so very much that you’re so dearly missed…

Must be nice to be someone’s hero.

Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy - F. Scott Fitzgerald

