AlanWakeBot
Watch out, here comes the fuckin' champion of light!
UPDATES
2/16/25: Added 81 quotes from AW mauscript pages, 17 plot board notes from AW2, and 18 quotes from AW2's final draft2/15/25: Added 37 quotes from AWAN2/13/25: Added 106 quotes from AW2 mauscript pages12/18/24: Added 14 quotes from AW and 12 quotes from AWAN12/17/24: Reformatted all existing quotes, split a few, added 60 quotes from AW12/16/24: Added 4 quotes from AW2 and 109 quotes from AW12/15/24: Bot is live with roughly 185 quotes from AW2
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QUOTE LIST
These buttons below will scroll to the game you want to see quotes from. It's pretty much in chronological order and sorted by chapter (with the exception of "bonus" content like manuscript pages/TV scenes/etc, which have their own categories), so if you're looking for something specific it should be pretty easy to find!As of [2/16/25] there are a total of 627 quotes.And as always, if you do not see a quote here and you want it added to the rotation, please DM me!
Alan Wake
꩜ NIGHTMARE: ꩜Stephen King once wrote that “Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical to the poetry of fear.”In a horror story, the victim keeps asking “why?” But there can be no explanation, and there shouldn’t be one. The unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest, and it’s what we’ll remember in the end.My name is Alan Wake. I’m a writer.I’ve always had a vivid imagination, but this dream unsettled me. It was wild and dark and weird even by my standards.So yes, it began with a dream.Following a typical nightmare pattern, I was late, desperately trying to reach my destination -- a lighthouse -- for some urgent reason I couldn’t remember. I’d been driving too fast down a coastal road to get there.(Zane: It goes like this: For he did not know, that beyond the lake he called home, lies a deeper, darker ocean green, where waves are both wilder and more serene. To its ports I've been. To its ports I've been. Do you understand?) No.(Alice: Shhhh, baby, just another nightmare. Everything’s fine. You dozed off.) Right. Anything more than ‘dozed off’ would be news for everyone.(Barry: Okay, Al. I’ll call back later to make sure you’re doing okay. And you call me if there’s a problem, okay? Okay! I’m just looking out for you, buddy. Talk to you later!) I love you too, Barry.(Alice: You know he’s going to be calling you every five minutes?) Barry is Barry. I can always turn off the phone-- a text message from Barry: he says hi to you too.(Alice: Alan? Thank you for coming here with me.) I love you too. Go on. I’ll promise to behave.(Rose: I got the cutout from the bookstore, when they took it out of the window!) And you keep it here? Well, okay. Good for you.(Alice: Can you believe this place? This would make a wonderful setting for a book.) We’re supposed to be on vacation, Alice. I’ll figure it out when we get back home, okay?I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to bury my head in sand. Once upon a time, I was a successful writer, but that was a long time ago. I hadn’t been able to write a word in two years-- not since my last book.(Alice: Wow… It’s gorgeous, Alan!) It’s something, alright.Alice had a phobia, the fear of darkness. I wanted to make sure we were inside with the lights on before sunset.For a moment the oppressive feel of the nightmare I had seen on the ferry returned. Damn…It was a beautiful place. I told myself I could rest here -- sleep here -- and forget about my work… I thought we could be happy here.Alice? What is this?Damn it, Alice. You-- everyone keeps--So now you want to get me committed!?Don’t! Just don’t. I don't wanna hear it. God damn it, Alice. God damn it!Alice! I’m coming! It’s alright, I’m coming!Waking up in the crashed car felt like I had woken from one nightmare and entered another. I couldn’t remember how I got there. All I knew was that something terrible had happened to Alice.Among Alice’s things was a book, “The Creator’s Dilemma”, by a Dr. Emil Hartman. Seeing the book brought back my fight with Alice. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like the guy’s smug face on the cover either.The loose sheets of paper were from a manuscript entitled ‘Departure.’ That was the name I’d planned to use for the next novel I’d never gotten started. I was named the author. I hadn’t written it. I couldn’t remember writing it.Oh, hell.I had to figure a way out of this. Any second now and Stucky would be knocking on the door with his axe like Nicholson in The Shining.I’d never fired a gun outside a shooting range. And now I’d just killed someone, or something… There were no bodies-- they’d just disappeared. If I was dreaming, it felt real enough to make me sick.I don't believe this. It’d been me on the TV, talking crazy. Was I losing my mind?I’m Alan Wake, but listen, I was in a car crash. My wife, Alice, she’s missing! (Sarah: Calm down, Mr. Wake--) We were staying in a cabin on the island, on Cauldron Lake--⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ TAKEN: ꩜I used to have these nightmares when I was a kid. The dark really spooked me, too. When it got really bad, by mom gave me this old light switch. She called it the Clicker.(Alice: The Clicker, huh?) Yeah. If I ever got scared of the dark, I could just flip the switch and a magic light would scare the monsters away.(Alice: Yeah, nice story, writer boy. You made that up right now, didn’t you?) No, no! Seriously!I had to lie about my headache and memory loss. He’d send me to a hospital for tests. I couldn’t leave without Alice.Alice’s driver’s license had been placed in the front seat. The caller meant business.(Hartman: I’m Doctor Emil Hartman. I’d like to invite you to stay at Cauldron Lake Lodge.) Did you talk to my wife? Did you set something up with her?!I told Barry everything. He thought I was certifiable, but when he heard about the manuscript, I had him. The fact that I’d written something, even if I couldn’t remember it, was enough for him. He smelled money.(Rose: Oh, wow, I was just thinking about you too!) Great.What an airhead.(Barry: When was the last time you slept? Are you high? Have you been drinking!?) No! Look, Barry, I’m missing a week! And someone’s got Alice, and everything’s just--Guess the laugh’s on me then.(Barry: Al, come on. I mean, okay-- okay maybe something weird happened to you, okay?) Well, thanks for the heartfelt vote of confidence.No one asked you to come here, Barry. Either work with me on this, or go straight back to New York. Your choice.This is not a goddamn debate, Barry.I knew I should have gone to the cops. This wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I was still angry with Barry for trying to talk me out of it.(Barry: What-- what the hell was that? I saw it from the window-- I saw-- I saw something!) Forget about it, Barry. It’s just me “going crazy.”Give me the gun. (Mott: Heh. No can do, Wake.) Are you kidding?! Give me the gun!Let’s cut the act now. Where’s my wife?No! Come back here! I swear I’ll kill you if you hurt Alice! Do you hear me!? Come back here!!
You son of a bitch! Where’s my wife?!For me, the supernatural had been nothing but a metaphor for the human psyche, a tool to use in writing fiction. Now it was happening for real, and I couldn’t put a single word on paper.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ RANSOM: ꩜I had fallen off so many cliffs it was ridiculous. That’s what you get for naming a book “The Sudden Stop.”As a teenager, just starting to get interested in writing, Stephen King had been a source of inspiration to me.No one is safe in a good horror story, certainly not the protagonist. That’s what makes them fun. This was anything but.I had never been this glad to see the sunrise.A drowning man will clutch at a straw.Little by little, without realizing it, I had come to believe that the story in the manuscript was coming true. The current of its narrative had taken me deeper and deeper into dark waters.Alice had been taken from me. Barry was probably in jail. I was a fugitive from the FBI. The whole world, taken over by the Dark Presence, was trying to destroy me. It all felt real, but it matched a textbook case of insanity.Different scenarios ran through my mind, ways of how I’d torture the kidnapper to get Alice back, or the different horrible things he could've done to her. I imagined her dead.The bastard never showed up.I’m gonna kill him!The kidnapper had sent me a text. The message was full of spelling errors and insults.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ THE TRUTH: ꩜No, you-- you… lying. (Hartman: You’re suffering from various symptoms of undifferentiated schizophrenia.) Bastard… K-kill you.I felt groggy. Whatever Hartman had pumped in me was making me numb. I felt like this was happening to someone else, someone I was watching on television. I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.Yeah, I see you brought your pet gorilla with you, so sure, I’m calm. I get the message, loud and clear.(Hartman: I don’t blame you for it.) Big of you.(Hartman: I specialize in treating artists.) I bet you do.I wasn’t ready for another shot, so I went along with it. He had to be lying. But under the influence of the drug he had given me, I had to fight not to believe his words.I let him talk. Hartman obviously loved his own voice. His words echoed madly inside my head. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands to stay focused.(Odin: It takes crazy to know crazy!) That’s the sanest thing I’ve heard in a while.The white glare of the blank page in front of me hurt my eyes. My hands began to shake uncontrollably.What’s… what’s with the cutout? (Barry: I stole it from the diner to piss off Rose after what she did to us. That’ll teach her.) ...Yeah, that's a harsh punishment.Tell me one more lie and I’ll shoot you in the face.I’m crazy. But that’s fine, Barry.(Barry: Don't worry about it! I'm on the case.) Now he’s Rambo.I had seen glimpses of the light before. I had seen it in my dream. It was a strange spaceman or a diver in a bulky suit. He was the one who’d been placing the pages on my path.For a moment, I felt bad for doubting him. After all, I’d made it this far myself. But Barry was Barry.I’d known the brothers used to be some kind of rock stars, but it hadn’t really sunk in until I saw the stage.I’m so glad you decided to go it alone, Mr. Bronson! (Barry: Shut up and shoot!)Bright Falls, rock-and-roll capital of America.And this from the guy who learned about Ozzy Osbourne through reality TV.(Barry: This farm is a crazy place for crazy people.) We should feel right at home then.(Barry: Might as well get some rest. And by rest, I mean drunk.) Come on, Barry. This is-- Yeah, what the hell.I’m a writer, goddammit.If I just wanted to, I could write ten books a year. And-- and they’d be the best books that year. (Barry: No, you couldn’t.) That’s right, I couldn’t. But I could. ‘Cause I’m a writer.I just miss her, Barry. I just want her here with me.I couldn’t find her in all that blackness. I must have thought she’d drowned.I’d been easy prey.Zane was weak, far away. But I had written him into the story, and his light had been enough to set me free.It had to have cost Zane terribly, thrown him even deeper into whatever dark place he now haunted.I wrote it. It’s my fault.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ THE CLICKER: ꩜(Barry: Ohhhh, wait, we’re in jail now? Oh, Al, Al, this is not good.) That about sums it up.(Sarah: You need to bypass the damaged control box!) What am I, an electrician? Hold on!Oww! Damn it, that smarts!I already got electrocuted once today. How about I look for the keys and you get burned for a change?Right now, I’m not a big fan of my own writing.Yeah, there’s no way going through the crypt’ll turn out to be a bad idea.What… what are the Christmas lights for? (Barry: Protection, man! Like garlic against vampires.) …Vampires.Hey, I want a head lamp. (Barry: Last one.) ...Bastard.(Sarah: I guess you New Yorkers are used to rough situations like this.) Riiight. The city’s a war-zone. King Kong, mutant alligators… and Alex Casey shoots the place up every weekend. Look, I never even carried a gun until a couple of days ago!You’ve read me? (Sarah: Oh sure! You’re a pretty good writer. A little heavy on the metaphors, maybe.) Nobody’s ever said that before.Ms. Weaver! Cynthia! I’m a friend. (Weaver: Prove it!) Uhhh… You knew Zane, Thomas Zane! You’re the lady of the light in the song. You can help me!(Weaver: The power to the yard must be cut.) Let me guess, you want me to do it.That’s my best friend!I knew you’d be alright. (Barry: How’s that?) “The flaming eye of Mordor.” (Barry: Laugh it up, funny man.)The page was autobiographical, a memory from my childhood. But I didn't write this. It was a page written by Thomas Zane.My mind swirled. I had given the Clicker to Alice. Yet it was here. Zane had written it into existence… in a story I had written.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ DEPARTURE: ꩜I had a hangover. My head was about to explode, and the light hurt my eyes. I needed my sunglasses, and painkillers to dull the pain.In one of my finer moments of self-deception, I swore to quit drinking.The sunglasses made the world look bearable. Now I could keep my eyes open without feeling like a vampire in the sun.(Garrett: Look-- uh, I’m gonna be honest here…) Is that wise?(Garrett: Why the hell did you kill Casey? What the hell were you thinking, man?) Good riddance! No, seriously, though, seven years and six books is a long time. He was a gloomy guy to spend all your working hours with. And it was a good run, but it’s time to explore new things.My next book will be a departure from the old for me.Yeah, no kidding, Casey’s lady friends tended to die on him. With Casey, it was all about his pain… No, nothing autobiographical about that. I’m a happily married man. My wife is my muse.(Garrett: …you got into a fight with some paparazzi.) Ohh man… Well, that guy was really in my face. I lost my temper. I know that wasn’t cool.(Garrett: You are famous for that temper…) Well, I did also write several books…At least I’d been funny. I told myself I could live with that.(Alice: Hey, honey. Did you watch the show?) I didn't say anything stupid, if that’s what you want to know.(Alice: Oookay, grumpy. You want an aspirin or something?) Are you gonna start with me about drinking, now?What, now you can’t even talk to me?Once this is over, let's go away together-- a vacation, just you and me. Some peace and quiet.When I got out, it was warm and sunny. I had flicked the switch of the Clicker. Had it done this? I didn’t stop to question it.On Zane’s page I had stood on the rim of Cauldron Lake, about to use the Clicker. That’s where I was headed.The darkness had touched me. There was a link between us, always would be. I could feel its presence again, getting closer.(“Alice”: Everything’s fine.) Turn the lights on. Turn the lights on!(“Alice”: Come back to bed and I’ll make you forget all about your fear of the dark.) My fear? It’s YOUR fear! Why aren’t you afraid?I had written myself across the ocean.There’s light and there’s darkness, cause and effect. There’s guilt and there’s atonement. But the scales always need to balance, everything has a price. That’s where Zane had gone wrong.There’s a long journey through the night back into the light.It’s not a lake. It’s an ocean.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
꩜ THE SIGNAL: ꩜For a while, everything was about the work. Like an illness, it consumed you. Changed you. You locked yourself away from the world to do it, and now you need to recover, learn to live without it. Find a way to crack open the door and let the light back in.˗ˏˋ Nightmares. Too deep. Can’t take the pressure. It’s too much! Suddenly, Wake found himself face-to-face with himself. ˎˊ˗At the sight of myself, the dream suddenly became lucid. The Dark Place. That’s where I was.I knew it was my writing, but the words were jumbled, dreamlike fragments.˗ˏˋ The town itself turned against Wake. Cars flew toward him, eager to crack bone and crush muscle. It oozed hate! It wanted to bury him! ˎˊ˗(Zane: I can help you, if you just stop sinking.) What? This is bullshit…˗ˏˋ The playground. Wake’s pathetic memories of the wonder years and the contrary little boy pretending he didn't miss his father he never knew! ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ The world was… It was changing. Twisting out of control! It was too big on the inside. He couldn't see the ceiling. Something was moving in there. He was lost! He couldn’t find the exit! ˎˊ˗
Asshole.You nag the way the real Barry does, you know that? (“Barry”: Well, hey, you know. Be fair. It’s not my fault you think I'm annoying.) I don't think you’re annoying!(“Barry”: Hey Al? I guess the pen is mightier--) If you complete that sentence, you’re fired. (“Barry”: …Mightier than the sword.) …You’re fired.(“Barry”: When you get up to something on your own, that's when the trouble starts.) That's horseshit!˗ˏˋ Wake’s own words, littering the landscape. His books, common and discarded, like mud beneath his feet. Hardbacks, paperbacks, turned against him. Trash. Just cheap trash. ˎˊ˗I had seen weird transmissions of myself before, but not like this. The version of myself I saw now sounded insane, like a demented storyteller who was out to torment and destroy his protagonist.(Alice: You know how people go for those dangerous bad boys…) But I'm not dangerous.Haha! Guess danger is sexy.It was a good memory. I wished I hadn’t seen it.˗ˏˋ Darkness… darkness coming! Swept him away. Lost. He knew. He knew! He couldn’t hold on. He knew there was no way out. Ohh. The world was going wrong. Wrong! ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ Wake didn't understand it. He would never make it. He would never wake up! He’d get swallowed up in the rising tide of darkness. It was coming! It was coming! ˎˊ˗
Shut up!˗ˏˋ The darkness wasn't so bad. It was in him. He felt it. He knew the voice spoke the truth. It was-- just too hard to think. He can’t-- couldn’t make sense of it! Couldn’t. He wanted to go with the flow, stop thinking and just… let go. ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ What did he have left to fight for? He’d lost everything even before he came here. Even his sanity was gone. What was the point? He was… he was killing himself! ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ WHY? WHY? WHY? HE COULDN’T MAKE IT STOP! WHAT GOOD WAS IT GOING TO DO? WHY HAD EVERYONE ABANDONED HIM TO DIE HERE?! ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ Too loud. Too loud! I can't think! It's in my brain! ˎˊ˗⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ THE WRITER: ꩜˗ˏˋ Wake heard the Old Gods playing. The music came out all wrong. It attracted the horrors! ˎˊ˗I was glad to have Zane with me in this place. He knew the terrain, such as it was. But a part of me wondered if he was even human anymore, after so many years in this place.˗ˏˋ Wake was too high. Too high! At this height, the water would be like hitting concrete! ˎˊ˗
You can’t want me dead this badly!˗ˏˋ Wake was forced to run through a maze, hopelessly sprinting in the wheel, never getting anywhere. His life in miniature! It was useless! ˎˊ˗An elevator. Sure, why not… Next stop, sanity.Wait. Are you telling me I’m not real? (Zane: You’re as real as anything else in this place.)So there are two of me? (Zane: Yes.) And the one you called Mr. Scratch, he’s me as well? (Zane: No.) Zane, are you playing some kind of a game with me?!(Zane: I am not the author of your story.) How can you say that when you wrote that page about me and the Clicker? It wasn’t one of my pages. You directed me to it!What? I don't understand-- (Zane: Alan. You should keep going.) Zane? Zane..? Come on! Well, that cleared things up.(“Alice”: The only thing that keeps me from killing myself is the hope that I’ll never see you again!) ˗ˏˋ I… I just can't argue with that. I think I should stay here before I ruin what life she has left. ˎˊ˗(“Barry”: So Zane’s your new buddy now? I feel abandoned.) This is ridiculous. You’re not even real.Fine. You’re abandoned. Bye.˗ˏˋ Where am I? Why is this happening to me? It’s too dark! Where am I? I can't find my way. Why is this happening to me? I can’t find my way. It’s too dark. Why-- why is this happening to me!? ˎˊ˗Before, I was ready to curl up and die, let myself slip away. But here I was, the yet unwritten future waiting to unfold before me.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ WRITER IN THE CABIN: ꩜I’ll write. I’ll keep writing. Outside there’s only darkness, outside the cabin-- outside the story, there’s only darkness. I can feel her presence in the dark. Just now, I could smell her perfume in the room.I’ll reach her. I’ll fix it. I’ll bring her back. The story will come true. If I stop, she's lost.A writer is a light that reveals the world of his story from darkness, shapes it from nothingness, the way a sculptor carves a statue from a block of granite. If I stop, the world I’m making dies. Darkness will reclaim it.It’s a long, hard journey into the dark. Alice’s life is at stake, but I can’t think about that, or I’ll lose it. The dread lingers at the edge of perception. I’ll push on. Anything is possible here. I’ll write the story, I’ll save her.I can’t tell reality from dream anymore. But it seems I have an imaginary editor to help me. She’s an old woman in a funeral dress. I call her Barbara Jagger. She’s very strict.I’m writing faster and faster. My manuscript is being heavily revised. The edits are getting very aggressive and each day there’s less of me and more of her. I hate it, but I know she’s right.She has worked with another writer under similar circumstances: Thomas Zane. The genre of the story seems to be shifting. It’s turning into a horror story. I’m getting close. I can feel it.Anything outside of writing is a struggle. I feel ill.There’s a shoebox filled with books and papers by Thomas Zane. It’s very hard to focus but I managed to read some of it. He’s a poet and a good one.He writes of muses and creators, summoning fabulous things from a magic lake, using its power to shape the world, of a realm of gods and dreams, and demons, dark things that wait for a chance to slip through, wearing the flesh of men as disguise.Zane writes about himself, his girlfriend being taken over by a dark presence, about growing scared of the lake. Zane believes it’s a mirror to the gaping void of darkness above, where some Lovecraftian presence lurks.Something’s wrong. I’m not myself. It’s hard to think. There’s a shadow inside my head. I can only focus on writing, everything else is a blur. I’m trapped in this cabin, have been for days, but it’s always dark outside.My editor is real, I saw her again. She’s not human. It’s not human. A dark presence wearing the old woman’s face. She was covered in clinging shadows… There’s a hole in her chest where her heart should be.I think I’ve made a horrible mistake. I don’t think I'm any closer to saving Alice. It's been lying to me, using me to get the story it wants. And the story will come true.I’ve run through every possible course in my head. If I continue like the Dark Presence wants me to, the story I'm writing won’t save Alice. It’s a horror story and it's going to kill her, and me, and everybody in this town. No one will survive.Darkness will consume everything. This is what it's wanted all along. It will be free, unstoppable. It used Alice to get to me, dangled her in front of me to keep me going. It was never going to release her. I’m going to change this. I’ll escape.I’ve written myself into the story. I’m now the protagonist. This feels like a terrible risk, but it’s the only way to save Alice. I’ll be bound by the events of the story just as much as anyone else who’s been woven into it.The story must stay true for this to work. There have to be victims along the way, near escapes, cliffhangers. In a horror story it can't be certain that the hero will succeed or even survive. He has to almost die. I’ll write my own escape into the story next.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ MANUSCRIPT PAGES: ꩜✍︎ The man turned to face me. His face was covered in shadows. It was hard to make him out in the darkness of the forest that surrounded us, but the axe he lifted was plain to see. It glistened with the blood of his victim.✍︎ It was a scene from a nightmare, but I was awake.✍︎ The taken stood before me. It was impossible to focus on it, as if it stood in a blind spot caused by a brain tumor or an eye disease. It was bleeding shadows like ink underwater, like a cloud of blood from a shark bite.✍︎ I was terrified. I squeezed the flashlight like my life depended on it, willing it to stop coming any closer. Suddenly, something gave, and the light seemed to shine brighter.✍︎ For a long time, the Dark Presence had been weak, sleeping, nothing but a half-forgotten nightmare or a shadowy flicker in the corner of an eye in the forest at night; not real enough to properly exist, and yet too evocative to fade away completely.✍︎ Now it was waking up, the writer like a fly caught in a spider's web, each jerk and kick vibrating the strands that led deep into its lair. It was aware of him now, and it could use him. All he'd need was a little incentive.✍︎ I spun around just as the cloud was upon me. For an instant, I stared into a hundred dead eyes, black pearls glittering in the darkness. I raised the flashlight and the swarm exploded like fireworks. Feathers burned, turned into ash. I couldn't hear my scream above theirs.✍︎ At first I kept finding the pages as if by accident. The book I couldn't remember was either a terrible and true prophecy, or an act of creation that had rewritten the world. I began to hunt the pages, feverishly, for they held the answer to the mystery.✍︎ Without any warning, I was blinded by a bright light. An old portable TV on the shelf had come alive by itself. Impossibly, I could see myself on the screen, talking like a madman.✍︎ I would probably never have gotten out of the woods alive without her help, but I couldn't tell her the truth of what I'd faced the previous night. She'd think I was lying, or crazy. She'd lock me up. And she wouldn't help me find Alice.✍︎ Rose knew she'd been gushing, but right now, she didn't care. As far as she was concerned, her brief meeting with Alan Wake was literally the high point of her life.✍︎ She watched as he got in the car with his wife. She was pretty, confident, at ease with Wake, not like Rose. They were perfect for each other. She'd have given anything to be called their friend.✍︎ He'd jumped on a plane after his calls were ignored by both Al and Alice for several days. It could mean that they were both on a second honeymoon, but Barry didn't buy it. Al had been way too unstable for that -- not sleeping, messed up.✍︎ Barry had years of experience dealing with Alan Wake, and he couldn't ignore it; something was wrong.✍︎ Barry took another sip of the heavenly coffee. He grinned at Rose. Surely, this was love.✍︎ Rose gushed on, breathlessly: "The new one will be a masterpiece. I know it! You must tell him not to listen to the trolls in the forums saying "Departure" will never get finished. He should take his time and make it perfect. I can wait."✍︎ It's true what they say about the fall and the sudden stop at the end.✍︎ I'd lain here in the snow while the lurid chain of scenes that had led me here kept playing in my head, a rerun of my own private snuff movie, a memory of my corpse. Alone at my own wake. Thinking in metaphors again.✍︎ My blood painted the snow red -- a gruesome slushie -- dissolved all the scattered painkillers, and leisurely dripped down to the sewer, mingling with the bile of the city, becoming one with it. I can see them now, my wife and my baby. Honey, I'm home.✍︎ In spite of its human mask, to describe the Dark Presence as intelligent would have implied human qualities on something decidedly inhuman.✍︎ The thought of Alice in his hands was revolting. We stood on the wooden platform of Lovers' Peak, the waterfall and the mountain behind us, the lights of the radio-mast blinking red in the heights above. I fought with the urge to take a swing, forced myself to speak.✍︎ Alice looked through the viewfinder, lining up the shot. Cauldron Lake was breathtaking. Something caught her eye: a figure standing in the shadows behind the cabin, like a thin woman in a black dress.✍︎ She lowered the camera and looked again -- no one there, just a collection of bushes that looked vaguely human-shaped. She shook her head and laughed.✍︎ Barry had never gotten along with Alice, but he knew Alan loved her with an almost frightening intensity.✍︎ Now something had happened to Alice -- and here was Al, armed with a gun and saying things people got put in padded cells for. It was as if his friend had experienced a massive psychotic episode and was now totally disconnected from reality. It scared the shit out of Barry.✍︎ It didn't hurt until he tried to move and saw his leg bend the wrong way, felt the broken rib stabbing him on the inside. Rusty howled in pain and fear, suddenly afraid to die alone.✍︎ I stumbled into the pool of bright light. My lungs burned; I was too exhausted to move. I tensed as I waited for the killing blow, but it never came. I raised my head. Nothing moved in the darkness beyond. For the moment, bathed in the cold light, I was safe.✍︎ In that last instant of consciousness, Rusty thought about Rose. He was older than she was; Rose was barely out of her teens. But she made him feel young and forget what a train wreck his long dead marriage had been.✍︎ He still wore the ring. He'd been waiting for her to tell him to take it off. Now she never would.✍︎ On more than one occasion, Alice had tried to explain to me how it felt to be afraid of the dark. To her, darkness wasn't simply the absence of light, but something more tangible than that. It was something you could touch and feel.✍︎ For her, things changed when they were wrapped in darkness, they turned into something else, something foreign, and nothing was safe or innocent anymore. I'd never really understood what she meant, until now.✍︎ The flashlight was heavy in my hand, and each pull of the trigger sent a painful shock up my arm. But I was finally out of the woods and things were looking up. That's when I heard the chainsaw.✍︎ When Barry saw the darkness attack the Visitor Center, it made him a believer. The men Al said he'd shot -- they hadn't been just locals on crank.✍︎ Somehow, the world had changed. Like the channel had been switched without a warning. You think you're watching a sitcom and you're really watching a horror show.✍︎ The FBI agent's command froze me in place. I considered surrender. It was all falling apart anyway; I could give in, let someone else deal with it. But it felt all wrong. Call it instinct; his posture, the way he held the gun. He was no friend.✍︎ The Dark Presence had touched the girl to lure the writer into a trap. Now it was night and he lay helpless, drugged, lit only by the flickering of the TV screen filled with static.✍︎ Shadows coalesced in the room as the Dark Presence leaned close to the writer, ready to touch him again: "Back to work, boy."✍︎ Rose was just the kind of fan that Al hated, but she really tried to help. She was smart too, knew a lot of what was going on in the town, knew a lot about Al, even knew who Barry was.✍︎ Barry liked her. That was no big surprise. When it came to women, Barry and Al rarely saw eye to eye.✍︎ Sarah didn't care about the legal threats Wake's agent had made. She let Wake go without argument because there was something about him she couldn't quite put her finger on, something that reminded her of her father.
✍︎ She didn't think Wake would hurt his wife. Then she thought about the way he waded into Hartman, that hair-trigger rage flaring up without warning.✍︎ There was no misunderstanding, Cauldron Lake was where Alice and I had stayed, but there was no cabin and no island. I was missing a week. What had happened to me? What had happened to Alice? I had to get her back. I couldn't face life without her.✍︎ It wasn't any of his business what she did in her trailer, but those strangers -- the writer and his smartass sidekick -- looked like trouble, and they'd been in there for hours, way past her normal bedtime. He reached for the phone and called the Sheriff's station.✍︎ For decades, the darkness that wore Barbara Jagger's skin slept fitfully in the dark place that was its home and prison. It was hungry and in pain.✍︎ The rock stars had stirred it from the deep sleep the poet had sunk it back to in the end. When it sensed the writer on the ferry, it opened its eyes.✍︎ Where was Alan Wake? What was this about an accident? Where was his wife? And most importantly, why did she let Wake go? He wouldn't answer her questions. "Federal business" was all he'd say.✍︎ I slammed the door shut right in his smug face. He pleaded for me to open the door. True to form, the asshole actually thought I would obey. I had no sympathy left. No guilt, either, not for him. I took a moment to savor the scream. I bet I had a smile on my face.✍︎ The darkness roared and cast me away. I fell, toward the dark waters of the lake far below.✍︎ Touched by the Dark Presence, Rose was lost in a dreamland where everything was drawn in black and grey crayons. The old lady had promised her that all her wishes would come true. She would be Alan Wake's muse.✍︎ She was smiling so hard it hurt her face. She crushed a bottleful of sleeping pills into the coffee. Deep down inside, she was screaming in terror.✍︎ Even after all this time, hearing the Night Springs theme caused a surge of conflicting emotions in me. It had been my first real writing gig.✍︎ Barry had known a guy who knew a guy, and suddenly I'd been a semi-regular writer on the show. I'd always been ashamed of the job, felt it was trash. I had wanted to be an artist, a novelist. I'd been naive back then. It had taken a long time to learn to be proud of the work.✍︎ When Thomas Zane fell for Barbara Jagger, it happened fast. She was young, vibrant and beautiful, full of life. He had never been a very happy man, and without any seeming effort she had changed all that.✍︎ Zane felt good for the first time in his life. Everything she did was another piece of a jigsaw puzzle he hadn't even known he'd been missing. And best of all, she made the words flow, strong and sharp. She was his muse.✍︎ Some of the Taken retained echoes of their former selves, but these were just the nerve twitches of a dead thing. Nothing remained but a shell, covered and filled with darkness.✍︎ In most cases these puppets were enough for the purpose of the Dark Presence. But for anything more elaborate, as with the writer, it was different. It needed his mind. And so rather than taking him over completely, it merely touched him.✍︎ I stared through the bars of the jail cell. Barry stood behind me, swaying on his feet, looking as ill as I felt.✍︎ Things were never as simple in real life as in fiction. I had lost count of the times I had wished there'd be a clear reason for my writer's block. Something to fight, something to lash out on. There wasn't.✍︎ I was nothing like the hero in my books. Alex Casey had gone through his life with single-minded determination, never wavering from his goal. Even now, I was angry at myself, angry at Alice, angry at Barry. I was fumbling and I had no plan.✍︎ For all he knew they could all be under Wake's spell already. You do what you have to do to get the job done. He took comfort from the bottle in his hand: "Please," he thought, "just let me get through this."✍︎ I tried to hold on to Alice, but her form melted away. I was losing control. Dr. Hartman stood in her place. I wanted to hit him, but my arms were jelly. He smiled. It was a reassuring smile and I hated him for it.✍︎ Doc sat down heavily. He'd examined Barry and Rose. Barry was already recovering. Rose was another story: she was conscious, but she was barely present, almost delirious, disturbed, "touched in the head," they used to say.✍︎ I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it.✍︎ Zane could feel the poems, taking form, shaping things. As he experimented, he imagined he could almost feel the power surging through the keys of the typewriter. It exhilarated him, but there was fear, too. If not for his young assistant, Emil, he would have given it up.✍︎ He raised his voice, cut through the monologue. "Hey, Hartman? Where's Al?" Hartman stopped in the mid-sentence, annoyed at the interruption. He nodded at the hulking orderly standing nearby. The man smiled and clapped a practiced hand on Barry's shoulder.✍︎ Hartman followed the fall of Alan Wake with his binoculars. When the writer hit the water, he ordered Jack to take the boat to him. The spot was easy to see in the dark even with all the extra lights in the boat. The flare floated and kept burning even in the water.✍︎ Mott knew that Wake was smarter than him; Wake had more money, a beautiful wife, everything. And Hartman said Wake was important. That made him better than Mott. But Mott was calling the shots now.✍︎ He'd expected Wake to whimper and grovel, but instead, he seemed willing to fight. Mott knew he'd gotten under Wake's skin. If only Mott actually had his wife. The thought made him shiver.✍︎ Hartman watched as Wake's features slackened. The man was bull-headed, no doubt; even lying on the bed, he'd almost broken Hartman's nose the second time. But with a little time, he could break Wake down, give him proper direction.✍︎ Wake was easily the most promising subject he'd had...well, since Tom, really. "Sleep well, Alan," Hartman whispered with a smile. "Let me take care of you." He sniffed hard to clear his throbbing nose; swallowed blood and barely tasted it.✍︎ He put the gun to Wake's head, and almost became a murderer. His hand shook and his throat felt tight and dry. Biting his teeth, he tried again to pull the trigger. He lost the nerve. Wake stirred. Nightingale would have to settle for an arrest.✍︎ Alice had screamed until she had no voice left to scream. Around her, the darkness was alive. It was cold and wet and malevolent and without end. She was a prisoner, trapped in the dark place.✍︎ The terror would have burned her mind out, but one thing made her hang on: she could sense Alan in the dark. She could hear him. She could see the words he was writing as flickering shadows. He sensed her, too. He was trying to work his way to her.✍︎ Thomas Zane knew he had to remove all that had made this horror possible, including himself. That was the only way to banish the dark presence he had unleashed and now looked at him through the eyes of his dead love.✍︎ But he also knew that despite his best efforts, it might someday return, so even as he wrote himself and his work out of existence, he added a loophole as insurance, an exception to the rule: anything of his stored in a shoebox would remain.✍︎ Making her way through the water pipe alone, Cynthia was angry at the writer. Foolish young man, taking unnecessary risks. And the way he broke the rules! Didn't he understand what was at stake?✍︎ The Dark Presence was no longer trying to capture the writer so he could create the ending it wanted. The writer knew too much. He was too strong, and he carried a weapon left behind by Thomas Zane, something that could hurt it.✍︎ Zane cut its heart out, but it didn't die. The thing that wore Barbara's face kept crooning sweet nothings, sugar laced with poison.✍︎ He put on the suit, untied the monster from the chair. The thing in his arms thrashed weakly, but he held fast. He stepped outside, off the pier, and into the dark water, a sinking pinprick of light, descending toward a bottom that never came.✍︎ I followed the idea of a path. I had written myself across the ocean that blocked my way, and with that, there was a bridge to the island beyond. The idea of the cabin flickered in the underwater darkness. I willed the cabin to be real. And it was.✍︎ Barry gave up the gun and sat down on the floor, shielding his face from the merciless glare of the Well-Lit Room. "I don't think I'm ever gonna see him again," he said in a weak voice. Sarah didn't have it in her to be mad at him. Besides, he was probably right.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
꩜ ACT I: ꩜I’m going to tell you a secret. There are places in our world where fiction and dreams can come true, powered by the dark energies leaking from beyond. These places are a battlefield in a war between the powers of light and darkness.I’m Alan Wake. A writer. A creator. I know the rules of the game.Fiction WANTS to come true. All you need to do is help it achieve its potential.It’s a little sad how many problems you can solve with buckshot.Just to be clear: you should know that we haven't actually met before. (Emma: Sure we have, Mr. Wake! Remember, you stayed at the motel here!) No, the guy you’re talking about just looks like me, even if he uses my name.Fine. The page is a formula for rewriting reality. Either I use it to close a strange portal to a place that isn’t in our world, or shadowy serial killer monster things keep pouring out of there.(Emma: And the guy who looks like you opened it? ‘Cause he was hanging around the oil field before…) He gets around, unfortunately.Thanks for helping me. (Emma: Ohh, I wish I thought you were just a nutcase.) Actually, I kind of expected you to.(Emma: But I feel like this is how it’s supposed to go. Isn’t that weird?) Not really. I get that a lot in my line of work. (Emma: What do you do, anyway?) I’m a writer. (Emma: Obviously.)What was that you said about my “aura”?Look, just because I say crazy things, that doesn’t mean I believe everything.Yeah, okay, I think I’m-- (Emma: Or, I have some wonderfully potent herbal detox suppositories--) Yeah, I’m good. I’m good.(Emma: So… You might have brain damage, you’re about to go do great things with a magic piece of paper, and you came here from another dimension?) No, I'm from New York. I-- I was just visiting another dimension.I have to ask… Do you always wear that to work?Maybe that’s just how the story goes. (Meadows: What?) Never mind.Lady, you’ve got darkness on the brain. I-- I think I can help you if I can get the lights on in here.
So… where shouldn't I go so I don't turn the power back on… accidentally? (Serena: It’s… the big building on the other side of the drive-in? But it’s locked.) Where’s the key? Just so that I know to avoid it.Hey, no problem. I'm just gonna go do some… other stuff. Scout’s honor.(Serena: You should be in me. You should touch me again.) Not with a ten-foot pole, lady.Hey… just in case there’s a part of you in there that's freaking out right now, it’s not your fault. I promise I’ll do what I can to help you, okay?Don’t sweat it. I’m just saying that in case you really need to hear it… I’ve been there. (Serena: I… I think there are spiders in my eyes. I think you put them in me.) Yeah, I’m just gonna go now.(Scratch: You are gonna shit yourself when you realize what I have done!) Shut up!That’s the security system? I guess it was too much to hope for an alarm and a fat rent-a-cop.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ ACT II: ꩜Oh, not birds again… What… the… HELL?(Emma: How come you’re not freaking out over this?) Because on my personal weird shit-o-meter, this just doesn’t rate.(Emma: I knew something bad was going to happen to me!) This is not the bad thing! (Emma: What?!) Nothing!It’s not déjà vu, Doctor. This has happened before. We’re caught in a time loop.I can’t really explain it. I suppose I could call it magic. (Meadows: I don’t believe in magic.) Neither do I, but I can't argue with what I've experienced.You’re not having a psychotic episode, Doctor.For what it's worth, I'm a skeptic by nature. I completely understand your reluctance to believe me.I guess they didn't like that.The whole damn mountain’s trying to kill me!So I’m used to reality working in strange or even impossible ways, and I've fought these things -- not exactly like this, but close enough -- for a good while now. Of course, I have certain advantages.At the risk of sounding like a lunatic: reality is much more fluid than people think. It can be… influenced.(Meadows: I didn't take you for a mystic.) I’m not. I’m a writer. And under certain conditions, I can, for lack of a better word, rewrite reality. Change things. (Meadows: That’s absurd.) But it works.(Meadows: Why don’t you simply, I don't know, write yourself some superpowers?) It’s not quite that simple. You need to follow certain laws of… drama, I suppose. You need to think about consistency and symbolism.Often what you write isn’t anywhere near as important as what you imply. There are things out there that will take advantage of your mistakes.Don’t look at me like that, you’ve experienced some of this yourself!Well… It’s more like having a destiny, a path you’re on. You’re not aware of it, but there it is. If somebody changes it, what difference does it make? It’s what every writer does.Look, all I meant was that if you’re genuinely making all your own decisions, and those decisions lead to whatever destiny you have, what practical difference does it make?!I… You’re taking this very well. I thought you’d be angry.I’m already married to someone who isn’t crazy, thanks.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ ACT III: ꩜Holy shit. What are you, the king Hillbilly?(Emma: Plus, I figured I’d take the edge off. You know?) Mm-hmm. Those herbal supplements are pretty good, huh?If you’d called the cops, we’d have dead cops. He’s not human, do you understand? It’s not your fault. (Emma: But I could’ve tried to stop him…) Believe me, if you had, you’d be dead.(Emma: Why does he do this stuff?) I’m not sure myself. Maybe he’s just evil, or my dark half... He does a lot of the stuff I’m trying really hard to get away from -- things that just messed up my life.Yeah, I could do without the murders and the end of the world.I’d imagine that being stalked by horrible axe murderers would curb their enthusiasm a little.Let me be blunt: if you drag me into this, I’ll deny everything. I’ll lie like my life depended on it, and writers are damn good liars. Word of advice: This is “things man was not meant to know” territory.(Alice: I love you.) I… I love you.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ MANUSCRIPT PAGES: ꩜Under Construction :3⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Alan Wake II
꩜ PROLOGUE: ꩜Back to the beginning.We all come to a story with hopes and expectations, looking for an answer. Sometimes, it would be better to live with that hope-- without ever knowing the full story.In a horror story, there are only victims and monsters, and the trick is not to end up as either. But trapped by the genre, we are all ripped to pieces along the way.This is not the story I hoped it would be. This is not the ending I wanted. This story will eat us alive. This story is a monster… And monsters wear many faces.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ THE HEART: ꩜Ah, No! It’s my fault! It got out-- with my face! Scratch!My name is Alan Wake. I’m a writer. I-- I’ve been…⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ LATE NIGHT: ꩜Alex Casey? How? Am I still… is this the Dark Place? No, it can’t be. I got out…You have a flashlight? It’s not safe without a light.Thirteen years… Fuck me.Oh, fuck… Was I on a talk show tonight?Waking up in places with no memory of how I’d gotten there. It was out of control. I didn’t need another mugshot in the fucking tabloids.(Door: We’ve all been dying to know what ‘it’s not a lake, it's an ocean’ really means.) You and me both.Wait, this isn’t right. I haven't written anything. (Door: He’s so humble.)Okay, you got me. Good prank. Very funny. But yeah, sad to say I’ve not written this… I’d remember if I’d written a book, right?...I guess we’ll just keep doing this whole show. The joke’s on me!Hello..? I’m losing it. Something’s not right here. I needed to get home. To Alice.What the hell was that interview? Some kind of joke? “Initiation?” I never wrote a book called Initiation. This felt like a bad dream… Could make a good horror story.I was a mess. I had never heard of this talk show or Mr. Door before. None of it felt right. Was I losing my mind?Old Gods of Asgard… That name sounded familiar.Hey! I think I’ve been locked in! Anybody..? Fuck. Now I have to find the code myself… Great.A ghost of a memory surfaced. About writing here for countless days.I could trust these words. I had to act on them. “You must write to escape.”I’d use my writing to project myself out of this room. Like a deep sea diver-- to go deeper and explore the depths of this prison for a way out. This room was my boat. Writing was my lifeline.He looks exactly like I always imagined Casey to be… It’s uncanny.It’s not that… They’re their own thing. They’ve gone with choices that are different from mine. I-- I feel protective about my stories, and these adaptations… I don’t know, I guess I just wish I could have been more involved in making them.What do you want me to get from the basement? And my name’s Alan, not Tom.The janitor was a bit out there, but still a friendly face.An old lamp in a shoebox. Was this what the janitor had left for me?The lamp felt significant. A tool for bringing light to the darkness.The lamp was glowing. The bulb hummed. It held the light now.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ CASEY: ꩜Oh hey, we met at Door’s show. (Casey: Alan Wake, the writer. I’m Alex Casey. I’m looking into a murder.) Come on… What is this?Picking up Casey’s gun felt like I was assuming the role of the detective.Oh, fuck!Who’s this mystery man? (Tim: Wouldn’t be much of a mystery if I knew. All I have is a name. Warlin Door.) The talk show host?The fed had glimpsed into the maw of darkness. It swallowed him whole.It was disturbing finding myself in the story this way, but I was desperate and it felt right for the story.The cultist laid the Casey novel onto the altar with reverence. Their twisted bible.The sketch you have does look like the Door I know! The talk show host.None of this was real. It was all real.Fuck me.The Dark Presence, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!It was always out there. Hunting me.This is Alan Wake! I’m trapped here! The Dark Place. Under Cauldron Lake!Help me! Please help me!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ HAUNTING: ꩜Who was writing who? Who was writing this poem? Me..? No.Time loses meaning here. How long have I been trying to escape? Long enough for Alice to think I’m dead.Alice… This is a photo of Scratch. How did Alice get this? Is he stalking her?The story had brought me here-- brought me nowhere. Looped me back. I was writing this story. And in the story, I now stepped into the Writer’s Room… But there was no one here writing.꩜ LOCAL GIRL: ꩜He’s Scratch when he looks like me. But he can change into this… other form…The Clicker. “Magical” doesn’t quite cover it. Scratch wants it to bring about his ending. That can’t happen. If I can get the Clicker, I-- I can send him back to the Dark Place, make all this shit go away!Look. I know it’s bat shit crazy. My memory is full of holes and I’m not sure how much of it I can trust. It’s like-- it’s like a half forgotten dream.I remember writing an endless amount of pages… When this happened before, the pages were being sent from the Dark Place to help me. Maybe the same thing is happening here.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ NO CHANCE: ꩜I take it you’re not a fan then, Agent Casey.(Casey: This is not your playground. And I’m not your fucking creation.) It doesn’t work that way. You can't make something out of nothing-- even in the Dark Place where the rules hardly apply, it’s very complicated to make fiction come true.I saw visions of what’s happening, what will happen, dreams. I tried to use them in my writing. I understand how dangerous it is now, even with a paralyzing amount of planning.I think I stopped writing. I think I gave up… But there’s a manuscript. Maybe I forgot not to write. The Dark Place makes you forget.I just want to fix this. Find a version of the story that fixes everything.Casey, look out!What the fuck?Why didn’t he kill me with the rest? What did he want?I needed to find Casey. We were on the same side in this fight. Strength in numbers.A gun and a flashlight! How nostalgic.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ WE SING: ꩜♫ And Mama gave me a magic clicker! Well yes, I think it’s true and fair to say. ♫♫ My dreams would light up my imagination! ♫So true.♫ It was all too much, I had to get away! ♫♫ I never meant for it to ruin my life that way! ♫♫ Dark shades could never save the day… ♫I didn’t see that coming.♫ Such a Dark Place, am I trapped in here? Is this real? I cannot remember. ♫♫ There was a manuscript, it held a key. A vicious cycle I must not surrender to. ♫♫ Echo scenes to seek out, again and again, until I figure it out, to bring this song to its end. ♫♫ I gotta figure it out, and bring this song to its end. ♫And I thought this place couldn't get any stranger…Catchy, right?⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ ROOM 665: ꩜(???: Alan Wake? Do you know who I am?) How the fuck could I? (???: Whoa! There’s that famous temper! Lucky thing I’m not a paparazzi!) You keep jerking me around, refusing to tell me who you are!The Oceanview Hotel. A suspicious invitation to a shady meeting. Right on the money for the hardboiled genre this whole city was built upon.What had the mystery caller said? “If the waves keep pushing you away, you just need to find another way in.” With only dream logic to lead me to the hotel, I looked to the neon signs for guidance.This place kept pushing me under, getting into my head, poisoning me with darkness. I had to find a way to escape before it was too late. Too late again.(Tim: How’s the memory doing?) Sorry, who are you? Kidding! Good to see you, Tim.Zane? The poet? The diver?You look like me. How the hell..?It’s “Return” because… We return.I need the Clicker! Hahaha!I was both solving the crime and creating it. As every writer did.The cult in the play was called the Cult of the Tree. With their deer masks, they were the backwoods echo of the Cult of the Word’s urban horror.A haunted hotel… Yes. It’s a trope for a reason.I know that song you keep humming. It's… The theme from Night Springs. (Tim: That old sci-fi show?) Sci-fi horror anthology. I used to write for it, a long time ago.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ SCRATCH: ꩜(Saga: What the fuck is wrong with you?) I’m trying to fix this! I will fix this. I’ll save everyone but we’re running out of time, I need the Clicker!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ RETURN: ꩜A horror story about the Dark Presence escaping from the Dark Place. Taking over Bright Falls. I couldn’t remember writing it. I had not written it. I would never write this. I knew who had.Scratch. A monster with my face. If this story came true, Scratch would get out. People would die. Destroying the manuscript-- it wouldn’t stop it from happening. I would have to fix it. Edit it.I needed someone in the story to fight the darkness. Saga Anderson. I kept seeing her in my visions. She was already in Bright Falls, already involved. But she was not in Return. Not yet. I’d write her in. try to stop Scratch within the limits of the horror story.It was almost impossible. It was taking too long. I had not reached the end… NO!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ MASKS: ꩜Zane had said we worked on Return together. That was a lie. Scratch wrote Return… I would pay Zane another visit.I don’t have time for this, so let’s get it over with. Tell me, was this all fake, a show?Masks come off.Whatever you say.Door, Zane. The masks were finally coming off. Was it a sign I was closer to escaping?Be careful out there, Tim. If you see me, make sure it’s really me. Not some psycho wearing my face.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ ZANE’S FILM: ꩜Zane’s room, 665, was upstairs.Something told me Zane wouldn’t be happy to see me this time.I’m in control now. The second you try anything I will shoot you in the head!Scratch wrote Return, not me. You’re a fucking liar!I told you not to try anything!Did I stop writing at some point..? I can’t stop. There’s too much at stake.I was back out into the night. The seedy alley, away from prying eyes, was a good scene for dark deeds.The Casey in the story was losing it. I wasn’t far behind.I wrote you in to be the story’s hero. Scratch made a horror story. I need to match the genre. It has to be dark, but the hero can break through. Save her family. Save us all!⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ GONE: ꩜I was traveling deeper into the Dark Place. The poem on the wall was growing at the same pace, dogging my footsteps like my unwanted shadow moving in the corner of my eye. It wasn’t my writing. I didn’t know what it was. A terrible prophecy, a curse, looming over me.(Alan: The Dark Place operates in loops. Time is a story. I’m calling you from a different point in that story.) From the future..? I’m never getting out of here, am I? (Alan: Yes, you will. And no, you won’t. And that is by your own choice.)I’m sorry for what you will have to go through.I’m my own deus ex machina? Really?How many writers does it take to finish a story? One for each draft.Alice was dead. Scratch tortured her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Until she broke. And all that time, she thought it was me.I had seen this before. This was not Scratch… This was me. Caught in a loop.I was the one haunting Alice. It was always me… I killed her.This is the ritual to lead you on. Your friends will meet him when you’re gone.Not Casey… Scratch.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ SUMMONING: ꩜Scratch, the Dark Presence inside Casey, threw Saga into the lake. If she ends up in the Dark Place, she could be there forever. It took me 13 years to get out. Zane never did.(Estevez: Tor and Odin went in after her, right? Maybe they’ll get her out. With the “power of rock and roll.”) I saw them when I was trapped there. They performed in my musical. (Estevez: I’m immediately less optimistic about this.)I was awake again. Clear-headed for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.I was back exactly where I left. A dark forest outside Bright Falls. A gun in one hand. A flashlight in the other. Haunted by my own writing. Alice taken from me. I knew what I had to do.I thought it was hunting me, closing in… It was inside me the whole time.Saga. Casey. Alice. All this horror originates from me. It’s my fault.I’d driven down this road before. Been driving on it forever.In 2010 I had dived in, a leap of faith. For Alice. With no idea the cost would be a nightmare worse than death. It had taken me 13 years to get out… Now Alice was dead-- because of me. And I was going to make that leap again. This time knowing the cost all too well.Another way to look at it: I had brought the Dark Place here with me. I never had gotten out. Maybe after this I finally could… It was a fool’s hope. I had no choice. I had to do it. That didn’t make me any less terrified.Fuck it.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ DEERFEST: ꩜This is… not what I expected.This was an obsessive, egocentric nightmare. All revolving around a vain monster of a writer. And his final, divine work of art. The novel, Return, come true.(Scratch: Everything revolves around us!) Fuck!(Scratch: We belong together!) Fuck off!Ahti. I didn’t expect to see you here, but it makes sense… Can you help me find my way, one last time?Return’s ending was an eternal Deerfest that would keep spreading. Given time, Scratch would plunge the world into his nightmare. I had to stop that from happening. I had to write one more chapter for Return. A perfect ending that would save us all.In a horror story, there’s only victims and monsters. If there is a hero, they will ultimately pay a heavy price.The scales always need to balance.This was the beginning of the end. We were characters in a horror story, charging blindly toward the finale.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ COME HOME: ꩜You see visions too? I used to think they were ideas, inspiration, but they’re real. Just like this, now. I tried to use them to make the story come true.I don’t know what to do. Fuck. I-- I’m so sorry. This whole thing is a fucking mess.I have an idea how to help Casey. He’s a real person who I twisted into a character. He isn’t my creation, so he isn’t a suitable host for the Dark Presence. I can write that into the ending to drive that fucking thing out of him.(Saga: We’re in this together.) Then let’s bring it home.See you on the other side.I feel like I’ve always been on this journey. It must end here. This darkness. What lies under the surface now shifts. A play of shadows catching my eye. Thrusting my face into the water… It’s shockingly cold-- past the mirror of the surface, and I will see.A white searing light of truth that, for a flash, pierces the shadows and reveals the hidden horror. And in that moment of silence, the whispered message, finally heard.Come on, you motherfucker. Come on! Come home!What if there’s nothing waiting to be revealed? The play of shadows fooled us all. Subterfuge to get our price of admission. Darkness not as a monster, but as emptiness. We are none the wiser. No answers. No truths.The hero turns to look inside, is destroyed by what he sees, and is redeemed.Saga said we’re both heroes. I’ll pay that price. So will she. We are here to kill the monster.I pray nothing comes after this. Nothing but sleep.What if this is still the Dark Place? Another dream to wake up from. Always coming back to the beginning. The memory of what came before burned away by this terrible realization. Maybe it’s a mercy, forgetting. To know nothing when we loop around, back to--It’s not a loop. It’s a spiral.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
꩜ WRITER’S JOURNEY: ꩜I write to escape.This place is a nightmare. Not real and yet more real than anything.I use the story to dive deeper. Every word I write is a step forward on this spiral into darkness. I dive to the bottom to find the answer, the map, the key, the compass, combined to form the door leading out.But how do you open a door that’s not a door? At the bottom of an ocean that’s not an ocean, in a lake that’s not a lake?I’m a writer! I write! Writing is the key. Art is the key. To find my way out of the Dark Place. I can’t forget this. Don’t you fucking forget this!Remember: its dark energy can make art come true. Make dreams and nightmares come true. Yes! I can use this. I need to use this!Hungry, monstrous things, out there. Plotting to stop me. To devour me. Become me... Oh no.The memory is fading like a dream. I must hold onto it.I remember an awful beacon in the darkness. The scene of a ritualistic murder site in the subway tunnels. Is it a previous draft of my writing? Must be.I’ve been trying to shape the Dark Place around me, but so much fades away. Even my memory of the process. Washed away by dark waves.It’s my goal. A stepping stone to travel deeper, to escape. Write a narrative that takes me there. Casey will lead me to it.The Dark Presence is out there. It’s hunting me. Its spies are always watching. It’s trying to catch me. I think it did. More than once.It’s stealing from me, stealing my identity. It wants to be me. Replace me. A twisted version of me.Scratch. Mr. Scratch. It’s slithering into the story. Once it’s in the story, I have to use it. To keep the story true. It got in. I have to make the story darker now. But that gives it power. That’s bad. I don’t want that… But I have no choice.It’s an arms race. Keep it together, damn it… I’ll be the first one to cross the finish line. I have to beat the devil at his own game.I can do this. Yes! The visions I’m seeing. From the world beyond this nightmare. From home. They sink down to the bottom of this ocean. I catch them. Visions, echoes. Big fish.No. It’s good. It will work. They’re my inspiration. Elements for my story, to make it more true. Even the parts that aren’t true! I must change reality to escape. The writing has to be just right. Just right! Or else it will all just wash away…I’m lost. I’m lost in the dark. Drowning. I’m drowning. I’m drowning. No way out. There’s no way out. Sinking deeper. Deeper and deeper. This is hell. I’m in hell. I died. I wish I was dead. Let me die. I just want to sleep! Please let me sleep. I’m so tired.I just want to go home.I’ve written so much. I write and I write. There’s nothing left. It’s all gone. I don’t know how to write. All the words are gone. There’s no more words. Where did they go? Did I eat the words? I don’t recognize these words anymore. Are the words moving?This is familiar… Why is this familiar? I’ve been here before. Have I said this before? I’ve read this somewhere.Where am I? Who am I? Alan Wake-- Wake? That’s a strange name. A. Wake. That sounds like a character’s name. Did I write the name up, did I make that name up? I don’t want to be a character. I don’t want to be in this story. Just write me out of this story!Ram these words down your throat. Make you choke on these words. I know the words. Secret words. You can’t take the words. I eat the words. These are my words! Stop using the words-- the words! Cult of the Word.This isn't your story. It never was your story. This story is a monster. The story will eat you alive. The darkness is coming! The darkness inside.This is MY story! You’re in my story! GET OUT OF MY STORY! You are a character in MY story! You can't stop the story. This story will go on forever.There’s no escape! You will NEVER escape! You will drown here. You’re stuck in a loop. You don't have a clue.You’re lost. You lost the plot… I’ll show you.I see it now. The question. How do you run from an idea? From a thought? From a story that lives in your head? You can't escape your fears. You carry your monsters with you. The devil on your back. It’s in you. You’re running right back to it. A loop.I have to stop. Stop running. Stop writing. I won't write another word. It’s too dangerous. Only horror comes out of it. People get hurt. I will let the currents of this ocean wash me away.But what if I forget why I stopped? What if I forget I stopped at all? That is fucked up-- if that happens, I’ll start writing again.I’m awake, I’m back. I’m feeling… feeling awful, what is this feeling? I died? Did I die? It got me. It ate my mind. You’re not making sense, man. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! Get it together man!Return. I was writing Return. Something went wrong. I’ve written it so many times, and it always fails. It fails-- I’m doing something wrong. I forget. What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Am I wrong somehow, am I missing something? Skipping over some vital beat?I have to write. Sure, of course, that's a given. That's a given. I wrote Departure. That worked. That worked fine. Maybe there’s a missing step before Return.What’s between Departure and Return? The tasks, the challenge, the lessons... “Initiation”. Yeah. I haven’t written that. To master this place. To set things up. Can’t go to Return before Initiation. That's right, that feels right! “Initiation”. I have to write Initiation.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ PROFILING: ꩜The writer is the reader. The next chapter, the next chapter, the next chapter. Keep the pages safe. The dark shining of the words.A cloud of wrath wears my face. The Dark Place in your place. Scratching out my body of work.Don’t wake up the dreamer if your life is a dream. I swam to the shore, but the water is rising.The Big Apple in an ocean of darkness. Gone diving. Note from my editor: you are using the wrong tense. Trapped in a loop. My friends will meet him when I’m gone.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ FINAL DRAFT: ꩜Back to the beginning, with the memory of the past loop already fading fast. But while it lingers, I know there’s hope. We are not doomed to repeat our failures in an eternal loop. This is a spiral.A fictional poet once said: beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle, illuminated. I will not settle for a shadow. I will find the miracle. Through the night.It’s not just victims and monsters. I see now there are heroes, as well. We can find our way through the darkness. We will break through the surface. We will emerge into the light.Time is broken here. Maybe time never worked the way we think it does. It loops around. And yet goes forward. A spiral.I thought I was finding remnants of the earlier loops-- earlier drafts of my writing. The murder sites. That I had left clues, mementos for myself to guide me on. But maybe that’s only part of it.If time is not a straight line, then there are loops beyond these loops-- vast complex superstructures beyond what’s happening to me now-- ahead of me-- and I’m there as well, a version of me, something I have become-- some elevated, enlightened version--An archon, a demiurge, a demon of some sort-- playing a secret game, building something-- his past self a pawn to get him there-- a deus ex machina pushing me there. I hate the idea. A crazy intrusive thought. And yet, no crazier than anything else here.Which version of myself was I? Where was I in this grand loop?Like a ray of warm light, I felt her presence. It gave me strength to go on.I was caught in a loop. The deeper into the dark depths I got, peeling off the layers of the Dark Place, like the ocean zones, from twilight to midnight to abyssal to the deepest trenches-- the closer I felt to going mad.Was Scratch’s insecure need for fame, for praise, drawn from my psyche? I would bring his sick fantasy crashing down around him.When the bullet of light blew the darkness out of the crater of my skull, the Dark Presence was born from the remains, feeding on the horror around it to grow. It found me writing. Tapped into me, influenced me. I was lost in my work.The link was severed when I finished “Return”. But the Dark Presence was hungry for more. And I was missing the small part of myself that it had been born from.Alice. Love is strange. Even apart, we are still together in our memories. We put each other through hell to set us free. Again and again. Different versions of us.It has taken so long. The process to change reality is so delicate, to be true in just the right way, and still find a way past our flaws. So many drafts. So many photographs. So many lives lived outside of time, an eternity apart on this journey to finally arrive here.Thank you, my love.And so I return.With me, I bear the torch of knowledge. The light. The miracle, illuminated. The master of two worlds… No, the master of many worlds.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆꩜ PLOT BOARD NOTES: ꩜✍︎ Everything Door had said had felt true. Was that part of my writing, or coming from somewhere else?✍︎ The talk show felt real and not real. Alex Casey was my creation, but now it seemed he had a life of his own.✍︎ The janitor seemed to know me. But he got the name wrong. Had I written him into existence?✍︎ On the security screens I saw myself in the Writer’s Room, writing. Mad. But it was not what I was writing now. A vision from the past I had forgotten?✍︎ Casey was killed by the Dark Presence. I had assumed his role. Every writer is a detective, finding the story.✍︎ There’d been another manuscript there. The title page read “Return”. Had I written it? But then forgotten about it? It felt important. It was important.✍︎ I had to find a way to get ahead of the Dark Presence. Get ahead of Scratch. I knew how this worked now. I was in control now.✍︎ I had fooled myself into thinking I could control the story. I had not planned this to be a part of Initiation. Who did? Door? Old Gods of Asgard?✍︎ My life's story as a song. As a child, I saw nightmares of dark shadows. Was that because I was trapped in the Dark Place now? Dreams as visions through time.✍︎ Thomas Zane. Not a poet or a diver. Or so he claimed now. A film maker. He said we’d been trying to escape together. My manuscript “Return” was the key.✍︎ Things were getting worse at home. Alice’s art project had consumed the apartment. She was obsessed with darkness, with finding the truth. All she would find was Scratch. I had to get to the Writer’s Room behind my study door. I needed the truth too. I needed “Return”.✍︎ I was trapped in an Old Gods of Asgard musical, reliving the trauma of my nightmare-filled childhood.✍︎ I was trapped in the musical, forced to face my issues and failings, unable to cope with my seemingly perfect success story.✍︎ I did not know who or what Door was. Not a talk show host. But I did not create him. An entity affecting the story from outside. Affecting me. Not the only one.✍︎ My stories had not created anyone. The power of the Dark Place changed lives, messed up lives. Real lives. But I could not stop now. Or else darkness would win.✍︎ My statue in the plaza had changed to Alice’s. Parliament Tower was condemned.✍︎ I could hear someone inside my study. The sound of typing. Scratch was there, undoing my edits to “Return”. I would stop him. Even if it was the last thing I’d do.⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
꩜ MANUSCRIPT PAGES: ꩜✍︎ And then there was the page. This page. The first page they had found. Not the last. The first step down into terrifying depths. Secret truths trembling beyond the threshold.✍︎ Reading the words, these words, felt like a message. Was a message.✍︎ Someone knew they were here. What they were doing. Someone was playing a game with them. Leading them on. An invitation. How could they not accept? The sheer audacity of this impossible mystery presented to them. Even if they knew it would end up hurting them.✍︎ I flick the switch, it goes 'click'. Show me the Clicker. Lights are off. But somebody's home. "Hemingway brought you here, witch! Get out of my house!" Nightingale shouted.✍︎ A wave of terror crashed through Saga's head. The awful truth. Nightingale had no heart in his chest. But here he was. Killing. A monster. The world had lurched out of balance. You found yourself trapped on the far side of the mirror.✍︎ Saga was back at Cauldron Lake. He was there too. Nightingale. Was, but wasn't. A Taken. A creature of darkness. He was beyond her reach. Where some other strange reality, the Dark Place, merged with ours.✍︎ This place and the Dark Place. A tarp thrown over top. Drowning everything beneath it. A flood of darkness. Soaking into everything. Spoiling it. Rotting it. The page called this area an 'Overlap'✍︎ Stop the monster. Her job. Before he killed again. He'd be inside. Waiting for her.✍︎ Saga bent down to inspect the body on the table. Somehow, it felt familiar. The straps. The heart. The mutilated corpse laying on the rain-soaked wood. Like deja-vu. She chased the source of the feeling. Found nothing.✍︎ It didn't feel like anything from her past. More like something from a dream. From a life she could barely remember. Maybe one that wasn't even hers. Then the feeling passed like a shadow in the trees, shifting with the wind.✍︎ The writer went into the lake. Banished the Dark Presence. Taken still lurked in the woods. The Dark Place receded. The current pulled back those with darkness inside. Into the lake. Nightingale was there. One of them.✍︎ They sank beneath the waves. The Dark Place. Wandering in the shadows. Muttering to themselves.✍︎ "It's dark. I'm lost. Where am I? Who am I? I can't remember. It's cold. Premium cabins for rent in Bright Falls. Who said that? Can you hear me? I need help. Please. Stop this. What did I do? You must dig it out."✍︎ Their shapes shifted. Echoes of the writer's dreams. Fading in. Fading out. The next story, and the story after that. The writer was writing again.✍︎ He'd been on the trail of the writer forever. The writer he despised. Hemingway. Bukowski. Wake. "I'll get you. I'll find you. I'll make you pay. You're in over your head."✍︎ A cultist leaned close. "I carry his words close to my chest now. You're not allowed in the lake until he says otherwise."✍︎ He'd be caught. Murdered. They got him. They didn't get him. He was reborn out of hate. He was there, but he was risen. Sent to find the lightswitch up from the lake that was not the lake.✍︎ "I brought you the heart, witch. Show me the terror." Saga pushed the heart through the hole in the sign. This was the key. The tree was the threshold.✍︎ There was something hidden under it. She strained to see. The opposite of sunspots in her eyes. Blacker than black.✍︎ The reality-changing influence of the Dark Place flowed like water flowed. Like fear flowed. Down the path of least resistance. Eroding weak spots until they cracked.✍︎ Animals stayed away from the water's edge as if to avoid some unseen, submerged predator waiting just below the dark surface. They never drank water from the lake. Birds flew around it, never over. Darkness flowed from Cauldron Lake.✍︎ Gaze in the black mirror of the lake, you'd see it all around you, and you'd understand, it was already out, already where you were. It was already too late.✍︎ Cauldron Lake used to be alive with people. Beautiful forests. Hiking trails leading to stunning vistas. Then the government put up a fence. Kept the people out. Volcanic gas, they said. They didn't want anyone knowing the truth.✍︎ The lake wasn't a lake at all. The dark water a mask to hide the hungry and bottomless ocean below. A fence couldn't stop the flood that was coming. Nothing could. The return of the nightmare, rising from the depths.✍︎ Somewhere among all the urban legends lay a secret truth. The real identity of the cultists prowling the woods. Real faces hid behind the masks. Real hands held the knives. Real people fulfilling a grim purpose. The forest was not safe.✍︎ The writer of the first word / Not the writer of the last / With the terror of the light / And the shadow cast // The third eye now opened / To project the night / This is the moment / To write✍︎ This is the ritual / To lead you on / Your friends will meet him / When you are gone✍︎ Scratch stalked through the forest, a terrifying dark presence in the night, more sensed than seen. Darkness boiled in his skull. Like a storm cloud crammed into a bottle.✍︎ The woods were alive with those he had taken. They were coming with him, directed by him. His army of darkness. HIs singular purpose was a sharp, pulsing blacks hole in his head, waves roaring out of it to whip his flock into a frenzy, filling them with his purpose.✍︎ The Clicker. He wanted it to make his horrific ending to the story come true. The art was there. The Clicker would push it across the final threshold. A detonator to send out a tidal wave that would spread to overtake reality. He was so close to claiming it.✍︎ The Taken gibbered and shouted, straining against their invisible leashes. Filled with bloodlust. Scratch let them go. They launched themselves into the night with violent glee.✍︎ He ripped a signpost from the ground, swung it in his hand as if it was made of air. Ahead, the music started. It called him on. Let the final Deerfest commence.✍︎ "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker! Bright Falls' fucking finest!"✍︎ They crept over, pulling out their flashlights. The horror: this was Monica from the tackle shop. An innocent woman. Thornton's pastrami came back up.✍︎ The killing of Monica Thomson was a terrible mistake. Thornton blamed Mulligan's itchy trigger finger. Mulligan blamed Thornton's shitty pastrami sandwich.✍︎ They fed the body to the maw of a crumbling well, like the murderous Huotari brothers did long ago. They lied to everyone. The word would never get out. But a secret like this doesn't die. It grew inside them. Like cancer. The darkness taking over. Filling the shape of them.✍︎ Thornton did his best woman's voice. "I'm a stuck up FBI bitch. I'll make a big fucking mess then get these dumb backwater cops to clean it up."✍︎ Thornton turned to his partner. "These government motherfuckers! Next time, Mulligan, I'll tell her: 'You've got no clue. You let your own kid drown. You're a fucking fraud.'"✍︎ "Pinning the murder on the Bookers would have fixed this whole god damn mess. But their kind always sticks together. I reckon we should show the bitch who's boss, Thornton." Shadows crept over Mulligan and Thornton. Inside them. They grinned.✍︎ "Mocha was a wonderful moose, who deserves a place of honor in the hall of the Kalevala Knights. His skull will become the crown of the grandmaster. The dead brought back to life!" There was polite applause.✍︎ They brought the skull into the workshop. To boil it and bleach it. They grumbled. Wanted to just get it fucking done. "It was just a stupid animal. But I guess moose steak is never a mistake, huh?"✍︎ After getting his hands on the FBC files, Ilmo Koskela knew what he was up against. He masterminded the cult, his and Jaakko's army to fight the fucked up horror lurking under the lake, and a plan to keep those feds in their bunker by the lake in the dark.✍︎ One time, months later, when the alarm rang, they drove to the lake again, ready for a fight. But this time they didn't find any monsters. Something else had washed ashore. The light switch.✍︎ The writer, Alan Wake, had gone into the lake. He'd faced Jagger. Pushed some mystic light switch into a hole in her chest, flicked the switch and gotten rid of her. If Wake ever came back, he was bound to be bad as well.✍︎ Bailey saw a snarling face in the darkness. Then he realized it was his own face. He was snarling. He was standing in the street in the dark and he was snarling. "He was snarling," he snarled.✍︎ Saga was beginning to see why Casey disliked the woods so much. They felt oppressive here. Too many places to hide. The distorted carnival music drifting from the amusement park ahead did not help.✍︎ "You let Logan drown!" The weapon it carried could crack her skull like a brittle egg. Brains leaking out like yolk. Everything she loved. Lost. Everything she was. Lost. "We will watch it eat your mind!" Reading this made her sick. But the fear was sharp when she faced it.✍︎ What had kept Watery afloat all these years? A century, if not more. The locals knew the answer. Grit. Or, as they put it in the language of their Finnish forefathers, sisu. These days, sisu was needed more than ever.✍︎ Most people had left to find jobs in other towns. Only the most tenacious stubbornly remained. Dug in. Parasites in the body of a terminal patient. Sisu.✍︎ Saga had slid into a nightmare. A growing amount of evidence said her daughter was dead. Saga couldn't accept that. Wake said it could be undone. But Wake was gone. In custody of the Federal Bureau of Control. Casey, her only ally, was gone too. She was alone.✍︎ Saga was trapped in a horror story. It was manifesting itself around her like the darkness of a mental illness. Pushing her deeper and deeper.✍︎ Tor Anderson had lightening in his veins. This was rock 'n' roll, baby. That Weaver girl had cast a spell on him. Tor would do anything she'd ask. Tor deserved this. Tor wanted this.✍︎ Tor needed to warn someone. It was all happening again. Tom was back. Coming back. Tom would need help too if he was going to make it. But the bothers were too old to stop it this time.✍︎ Odin felt useless. He wished he could tell Saga how his silly faces made her smile when she was young. Too young to remember. Odin used to joke that Tor was her grandfather, but he was the All-Father. He smiled at the memory.✍︎ As their agent, Barry Wheeler had managed to coax a few hit songs out of them before that. Balance Slays the Demon. A couple of others. The old men rocked like their namesakes. The backstage parties got out of hand. The air was thick with smoke.✍︎ Wheeler squinted. His migraine flared. Booze and drugs. A rock n’ roll cliché. They ran off after every gig. Wheeler had security track them down to the craziest afterparties.✍︎ Barry used to be the agent of a manic-depressive celebrity writer, Alan Wake. Wake had various addictions on his back. An on-off death wish. Wheeler had seen a thing or two.✍︎ Wheeler paid a lot of money for a good shrink. Got himself convinced that all the nightmares he’d seen leading up to Wake drowning himself were just his imagination. PTSD. Now he had pills to keep the shadows from his sleep.✍︎ Barry Wheeler cancelled the Old Gods tour. Called it off. It was over. He couldn’t stomach the idea of another client dying on him.✍︎ The contractors figured out Wheeler was gone for good. They took the money and ran. When the fall rains came, the leaks started appearing.✍︎ Cynthia Weaver hated being old. She'd been a doer. A fighter. Now the bathroom frightened her. Afraid she'd break her hip, like Norman.✍︎ Someone in the bathroom with her. In the dark. The lightbulb had blown. She meant to replace it days ago. How could she forget? She had slipped getting out of the tub. She lay in the tub now. She lifted her hand. It looked wrong. Too many hands.✍︎ In a black void, with no sense of up or down. She was underwater. A dark shape pushed her down. Dark water pressed itself into her. She screamed. It came out in bubbles.✍︎ Cynthia Weaver smiled. Lost without her lantern? Nonsense. Cynthia felt giddy as a young girl in love.✍︎ Now Tom had come back to her. They'd be together now. See the world. She'd always dreamed of seeing New York. They were there now. In a fancy hotel. She drew a bath. She would become like Barbara. No. Better. She sank into dark water. Into Tom.✍︎ Tom had enemies, plotting against him. Cynthia would deal with the nasty Anderson fellow, Tor, always poking people with his hammer. He had it coming. Anything for Tom.✍︎ With all the lamps in the room, it took her a while to find the one with an angel. Luckily, the dream Alan had sent her had been very clear. Rose was certain that Cynthia would not miss one lamp. She had so many.✍︎ Tonight, Rose would put the lamp in a shoebox and let it sink into the garden pond. That's what Alan wanted. That's how she could help him. The thought made her whole body buzz with joy.✍︎ Cynthia knew the lamp was missing the very moment she came back to her room. She was overcome by grief. It had been Tom's lamp. One of the few things that reminded her of him.✍︎ It had not worked in a long time with the cord severed and the light switch gone, but there are other kinds of lights than the ones we can see.✍︎ The invisible light of the angel lamp had held Cynthia together all these years. With tears welling in her eyes, she didn't see the shadows shifting in the corners of her room.✍︎ Gail was dying. The black hole was sucking everything good out of him. He imagined looking through it. Into the darkness. The black hole grinned. Gail couldn't escape its gravity. He worshiped it. Gail sacrificed to it. In blood.✍︎ Bright Falls was no stranger to odd happenings. But to cancel Deerfest? Out of the question. The townsfolk were anxious. Their anticipation mixed with fear. People had restless dreams. The lights seemed dimmer.✍︎ It was like herding a clowder of cats. Rose didn't mind. She liked cats. She knew she was where she was supposed to be. With her little Vikings. Waiting for the hero to come.✍︎ Tonight the residents were restless. More so than usual. Ahti was wearing Blum's coveralls again. Tor stood by the phone. Too late, Rose saw the hammer in his hand.✍︎ It was out in the open now. Ugly and slobbering, they reached at him with their unwashed hands. He'd beat them down. Beat them until they no longer moved. And then he'd wash his hands with a strong antibacterial disinfectant.✍︎ Lost on the shore / Between the forest and the ocean / The owl and the deer / Reflected in motion✍︎ In his room, he will hurt her / In hers, he is caught / His story ends / Her story does not✍︎ Rose woke up from another dream from her idol, another message. All through her morning routine, she was humming happily, so happily she realized she was starting to forget what Alan had told her. Something about a hero who would come to save them all? And the hero…✍︎ Rose nodded, determined. She'd use knitwork to guide the hero to the secret stashes she had hid in the forest to help them. Knitwear to mark the spot. Alan will love that, she thought.✍︎ Young felt optimistic. The Parautilitarian was already in custody. Another clatter. Behind him. Closer this time. He turned, hand on his holster. He called out to the darkness.✍︎ A pale balloon in the sky / Float and sink deeper / Night springs when bright / Falls for this sleeper✍︎ The surface disturbed / The reflection now a traitor / In the cavity of the skull / Turned to a crater✍︎ Ilmo’s gaze swam. He was seeing double. The pyramid on the folder was a spruce tree. A tree, he thought. A fucking tree. It was a sign.✍︎ Ilmo turned to face the hotel. He could see Saga's partner in the window. Ilmo slapped his brother on the shoulder. The brothers donned their masks. The Cult of the Tree was ready.✍︎ In the dream, he’d been covered in blood, gleefully murdering people — his friends. When his twin brother had tried to talk sense into him, he had murdered Jaakko as well. Ilmo slammed his fists so hard into his temple it hurt. The dream made him feel sick.✍︎ But they were the Koskela brothers; their mother had not raised them to become murderers. They had backbone. They had honor. They had Finnish sisu. Something bad was coming.
✍︎ It’s 1988.
Key
Thanks for visiting! Let's go over how I formatted the quotes:Symbols:˗ˏˋ Said by "Insane" Alan (AW1 DLC) ˎˊ˗
♫ Sung dialogue ♫
✍︎ WrittenInitially, I put quotation marks around all dialogue (or monologue) and planned to leave written segments like manuscript quotes blank. However, I decided I actually hated the way that looked, so I've removed quotations around them all together. The first handful of posts are in this old format, but the rest from here on out should adhere to the new one... Unless I goofed up the code somewhere!- slommy (@alllisonisdead)