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Alan (V.O.): Who was writing who? Who was writing this poem? Me? No.
Casey (V.O.): Stepping to the murder site, I had felt it, hanging in the air. A meaning. The violent emotion of the act. Like a cloud of wrath. The dead eyes of the victim, staring at something you couldn’t see, and yet, making you aware of it. Something had soaked into this place on a molecular level. Overlapping with your meaningless existence. A regression to something you had managed to forget. Marking you. Taking you for a ride. Making you crazier.
Alan (V.O.): The station had changed. I was closer now. Parliament Tower. Our home in New York. Was I really this close to being home? Going up to our apartment, would I be home? Or was this just an echo of the real thing? Even then, the murder site had brought me one step closer to escape. Time loses meaning here. How long have I been trying to escape? Long enough for Alice to think I’m dead. The payphone at the edge of the plaza was ringing again.
Unknown Caller: Hey, Alan. Thank god you picked up. I thought I lost you again.
Alan: Who are you? Why are you helping me?
Unknown Caller: Did you go deeper? To the overlap?
Alan: Are you talking about the murder site? Yeah, I did. I—
Unknown Caller: That’s fantastic, Alan. We’re closer to getting out. We’re making progress.
Alan: We would be, if you would answer my damn questions.
Unknown Caller: Last time we spoke, you were pretty worried about Alice. Did you ever check Parliament Tower, to make sure she really got out of the Dark Place?
Alan: Of course she got out. That’s why I’m here. That’s the whole goddamn point!
Unknown Caller: Be very careful, Alan. The Dark Presence is stealing from you. It can already manifest as your double. Scratch will —
Alan: Wait. Wait! Hello? Shit.
Casey (V.O.): The writer. Maybe he was a victim. The cult using his words. Or maybe he was the monster behind it all. Either way, Alice Wake, his ex, knew things. It was there in her art for all to see. A cry for help. The darkness she’d witnessed. And that put her in danger.
Alan: Was Alice here, in the story?
Alan: Ah!
Alan (V.O.): Alice’s photo equipment. Set to go off when the door opens.
Alice: Get out! Leave me alone!
Alan: Alice! Alice! Alice… This is a photo of Scratch. How did Alice get this? Is he stalking her?
Alan: This is the door to my study, where I wrote my books. The symbol wasn’t here before.
Alan: Alice’s video camera. No memory card inside. “Part 1”? What was Alice working on?
Alice: When I was younger, photography was everything to me. I moved to New York thinking I’d make it as an artist. And then I met Alan. We had a good thing. We were both dedicated to our creative ambitions. The only difference was that Alan’s work made money. He brought me work when he could. I took his promo shots, created covers for his books. I’m sure he forced his publisher into it. I was taking photos, just not my photos. That gnawed at me. Things got complicated sometimes, but that’s life right? We loved each other. Then Alan hit a block. It brought out a meaner side of him. One I didn’t like. I set up a trip to see a doctor in Washington. I didn’t tell him until we got there. We argued, things went wrong… then he was just gone. Drowned, allegedly. Easy for people to think it was my fault. Hell, I do too sometimes. About six years ago, I started hearing noises in the night. Typewriter keys clacking. Voices. Alan was back. Haunting me. Then it got violent. It was Alan… and yet it was a monster. He always did have anger in him. I set up cameras around the apartment, with motion sensors and flashes. Now, when the monster comes, I turn it into art. My nightmares caught on film. And this is the focus of my new exhibition. To show people the world is so much darker than they ever knew. I’m calling this exhibit “The Dark Place”.
Alan: Alice! Scratch was terrorizing her. Why?
Alan (V.O.): I sat in the Writer’s Room and wrote a story. “Initiation”. To project myself through the Dark Place. To look for a way out. The story had brought me here. Brought me nowhere. Looped me back. I was writing the story. And in the story, I now stepped into the Writer’s Room. But there was no one here writing.