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Sarah: I hope you know how to deal with this, Wake. I guess you New Yorkers are used to rough situations like this.
Wake: Right. 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.
Sarah: Well, my dad used to be a cop there. Tells some pretty wild stories.
Barry: Stuff like this?
Sarah: No, no. Just normal bad stuff. Kinda like your books, Wake. I used to tease dad that he was just like Alex Casey.
Wake: You’ve read me?
Sarah: Oh, sure! You’re a pretty good writer. A little heavy on the metaphors, maybe.
Wake: Nobody’s ever said that before.
Sarah: We’re coming up on the power plant! See the lit building over there? And that’s the dam further up the river. I can’t land here. I’ll take her down the road across the river.
Wake: Just get me there, Sheriff.
Sarah: Hold on!
Barry: Al!
Wake: Oh, son of a bitch! Oof!
Sarah: Wake! We’re gonna have to shake these things. We’ll meet up at the plant!
Wake (V.O.): The power plant glowed in the night. It was close, but I had to find a way across. I couldn’t get across until I found a way to turn the bridge.
Sarah: We managed to lose the flock! You’re almost at the power plant, keep going! We’ll give you support. The birds are back! Wake, we can’t stay here! Get inside! Call us when you know what the plan is.
Wake (V.O.): I recognized the logo on the power plant’s sign. I’d seen a version of it painted all over the area, signifying hidden caches of supplies.
Cynthia: Hold it right there!
Wake: Ms. Weaver! Cynthia! I’m a friend.
Cynthia: Prove it!
Wake: Uh… You knew Zane, Thomas Zane. You’re the lady of the light in the song. You can help me.
Cynthia: About time! Young man, I’ve been waiting a very long time for you. It’s in the Well-Lit Room.
Wake: Excuse me?
Cynthia: What you need to drive the darkness back. The Well-Lit Room is at the dam. I built the room to keep it safe.
Cynthia: Will it help me find Alice? Will it get me back to the cabin? Fine, let’s go. I can get my friends to come back with the helicopter.
Cynthia: Oh, we won’t go outside! Never at night. That’s rule number one. You’ve been breaking the rules, young man, and where has that gotten us, hm? No, I have a secret route, a lit route. An old water pipe. Something was damaged at the transformer yard. It’s draining all the reserve power. Without it, the pipe will go dark. The power to the yard must be cut.
Wake: Let me guess, you want me to do it.
Cynthia: Young man, you’re the one who likes to break the rules. I can’t be outside in the dark! The kill switch is outside. I have been preparing for these times. The dark tides. You have found my caches, haven’t you? You can see the signs? Very few people can. Yes, please, take what you need. This is all for you, for the likes of us. We, we do Tom’s work, don’t we? Hurry! The switch is on the wall facing the shore.
Wake (V.O.): Weaver had sent me to cut the power to the transformer yard. I was willing to do grunt work for her to get her to help me. I hoped Weaver was dependable. I had stumbled into this crazy world a little over a week ago. She had been living this insanity for decades. I could see the kill switch that would cut the power to the transformer yard. Now I had to find a way to reach it. The transformer yard went dark and dead. Weaver’s water pipe passage should now be good to go.
Cynthia: This way, young man. Follow me. Come, come, the pipe’s empty now. We’re ready to go. This way! We need to go! I knew them both. Tom and Barbara. I had such a crush on him… such a beautiful man. I was jealous. There was a part of me that was maybe a little glad when she had the accident. And then Tom started writing and woke the darkness up… He tried to bring her back… but you can’t do that. There are no free rides like that.
Wake: I’m starting to realize that.
Cynthia: In that case, young man, perhaps you’re a smarter man than Tom was… The witch looked like her, but it wasn’t. Barbara was sweet. He didn’t understand until it was too late. He tried to undo it, wrote himself, her, everything he’d ever written out of the world. He was so famous. And afterwards no one knew. Oh, Tom. He left only one thing behind in my care, in case it happened again. Insurance. He trusted me, or perhaps used me a little. Tom knew how I felt—knew I wouldn’t refuse him. I built the Well-Lit Room and put it there. It’s been waiting for you. We are characters trapped in a story you have written and none of us will survive to see the end of it if the darkness isn’t stopped. She’ll twist the story to her own dark ends.
Wake: How do you know all this?
Cynthia: Tom. That’s the way he wrote it. He still talks to me, you know. In television, from beyond, from below. We have both been touched by the darkness, young man. He saved us both with light. But the darkness stays with you, leaves a stain.
Cynthia: This pipe will take us directly to the Well-Lit Room.
Wake: Okay. I need to call my friends, tell them where we’re going.
Barry: Hello? Al?
Wake: Barry, we’re headed to the dam in one of the pipes. Meet us there.
Barry: Okay, I’ll tell Sarah.
Wake: It’s “Sarah” now?
Barry: WHOA! NO! For the sweet love of—
Wake: Barry! Barry! We gotta go see if they’re okay.
Cynthia: They’re probably dead. You must reach the Well-Lit Room! This is no time to be a selfish idiot!
Wake: That’s my best friend!
Cynthia: Well, be a fool! I’ll use the pipe. I’ll meet you at the dam, if you make it.
Wake (V.O.): At least I didn’t have to worry about her. She knew how to stay safe.
Wake: Barry! Sheriff Breaker! Sarah!
Wake (V.O.): The crash site looked bad, but as far as I could tell, the wreck was empty.
Wake: Barry? Barry!
Barry: Al! Over here!
Wake: Hang in there, I’m coming!
Barry: Get the hell back, you freaks!
Sarah: You know when to make an entrance, Wake. We were ready to make like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Wake: I have a different ending in mind.
Barry: Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.
Wake: I knew you’d be all right.
Barry: How’s that?
Wake: “The flaming eye of Mordor.”
Barry: Laugh it up, funny man. Didn’t we have somewhere to go?
Wake: Weaver’ll meet us at the dam.
Barry: When you spend most of your night running uphill while a crazy bunch of demon hicks try to take your head off with an axe, you know your helicopter crash landed in… Night Springs. Shoulda… I shoulda kept that gym membership.
Sarah: You see those lights? That’s the elevator we need to take.
Barry: Al, I think we’re being watched! What the hell is that thing? It’s everywhere!
Barry: Was that it? Are we safe?
Sarah: That was… wow! I think we’re okay.
Barry: Hey, Al, I got a bad feeling.
Sarah: Let’s keep our eyes open.
Barry: We… made it! We made it! Oh, geez, I hate this.
Sarah: Wake, call the elevator! I’m keepin watch.
Barry: I think I hear something moving around!
Sarah: Heads up! Here they come!
Barry: Oh no! Oh no!
Sarah: They’re coming! We have to hold them off!
Barry: I swear this is the slowest elevator in the world!
Sarah: It’s almost here, Wake! Just hold on!
Barry: It’s here! Al, let’s go! Al, hit the button!
Sarah: We’re almost there. There’s an entrance into the dam at the top. What’s the plan, Wake?
Wake: Well, Weaver’s crazy, but she’s got something Zane left behind, something to fix this.
Barry: Gee, could you be a little more vague?
Sarah: Thomas Zane? Seriously? Might as well be Paul Bunyan or Bigfoot.
Wake: Yeah, well. He was real.
Sarah: Okay, Wake, there’s a button over there that opens the door. I think something’s broken. Hold the button down so we can get in.
Barry: Al! Al! What’s going on?!
Sarah: Wake! We can get to the dam through here! What’s happening out there?
Wake: You guys go ahead and find Weaver, she should be in the dam now. I’ll have to make it alone through the top!
Sarah: Okay, Wake. Good luck. Don’t get yourself killed!
Barry: Al? Please be careful!
Sarah: I’ll take good care of Barry, Wake. You just look after yourself!
Wake: You gotta be kidding me. Down, boy.
Wake: Oh no.
Wake (V.O.): I was ridiculously outnumbered. The searchlight could even the odds.
Jagger: Enough. You will go no further. Stop. Stop now.
Barry: Al! Over here! Run! Run, goddammit!
Cynthia: Young man! Come quickly now! Inside! You made it. Well done. I’m glad I was wrong, but it was a foolish chance to take. Don’t worry about the noise. We’re safe here. I have looked after the Well-Lit Room for many, many years, now. There is no shadow in the Well-Lit Room. The power is fail safe and all the bulbs are numbered and changed regularly based on their make and model.
Barry: Riiight.
Sarah: There’s an old Army base at Rain Cove Point, north of here. It was active during the Second World War. They operated here back then. They must’ve built this.
Cynthia: Yes, they did. It’s my place now.
Cynthia: Take it. Then I don’t need to worry about the room anymore, because 6, 33 and 118 need changing soon, and I don’t want to climb up the ladder to change them, because it’s very late, and I’m tired, and if you take it I don’t have to do that anymore.
Wake (V.O.): The page was autobiographical, a memory from my childhood. But I didn’t write this. It was a page written by Thomas Zane. None of them were supposed to exist anymore.
Zane: Alan, seven years old, would fight sleep to the bitter end. When he did sleep, he soon woke up, screaming, the nightmares fresh in his mind. One evening, his mother, sitting by his bed, offered him an old light switch. She called it the “Clicker” and flicking the switch would turn on a magical light that would drive the beast away. To imbue the talisman with all possible power, she added that it had been given to her by Alan’s father. Alan never knew him, and anything of his took on mythical proportions in his mind. With the Clicker firmly in his hand, Alan finally slept like a baby. Now, almost thirty years later, Alan thought of this, as he stood on the rim of Cauldron Lake, the Clicker in his hand. He took a deep breath and jumped.
Wake (V.O.): 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.
Wake: I can get to her now. I can finish this.