Writer’s Journey
A message
Alan (V.O.): There was something here. A broker transmission I couldn’t quite make out. What was that? A message? Impossible to say.
The Dark Place
Alan: The Dark Place wants to drown me. I’m losing myself. I have to fight it. I have to remember. The Clicker. The light switch. I lost it. But I have the lamp now. The lamp the switch was cut from. This place is a nightmare. Not real and yet more real than anything. The danger and the horror are real. It feeds off my mind. Twisting whatever it takes into psychotic reality. I’m trapped here. I write to escape. I’ve tried this many times. Written countless stories. Forgotten how many. I keep failing, but I must keep trying. 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?
Writing
Alan: 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! I’m in the Dark Place. I’m outside time and space. Outside reality. But this is real! A nightmare dimension, an ocean of darkness. 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.
Murder Sites
Alan: 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. Every memory of the process. Wasted away by dark waves. But some things remain. The darkest, nastiest elements. Like the murder site. 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
Alan: 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 its own game.
Visions
Alan: I can do it. 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. Some are actual events. Some are forgotten ideas. 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.
Drowning
Alan: 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. The 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.
Stop Writing
Alan: 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.
Initiation
Alan: 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 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”.
Night Springs
Season Intro
Alan: The talk show host?
Mr. Door: Good evening. A writer trapped in a dream world attempts to write a story to shape reality around him and escape. He is beset by vision leaking in from realities beyond his own. He uses those visions as inspiration for his stories, in hopes of giving them power, to make them come true. Us hidden few know that ultimately he will succeed, but before that, many of his stories collapse back into the stuff that dreams are made of, to remain as they began, works of fiction. And yet, maybe there is a gleam of truth to be unearthed from these tales, a rare glimpse into the unseen realities beyond our own, offering us intriguing avenues of contemplation as they transpire in … Night Springs.
Commercial
Mr. Door: Night Springs. A special place. A shifting place. Existing in a countless number of parallel realities. Sometimes a quaint small town, sometimes a hulking metropolis. Different every time we set upon the road that leads us there. And yet, like a half-remembered echo of a fading dream, always familiar to us. These are the stories that take place there, awe-inspiring, macabre, terrifying, heart-breaking, nail-biting, absurd and thrilling. Sometimes all these things at once. A haunting new season of mind-bending episodes, written by Alan Wake. I am your host, Warlin Door. And I will see you soon in… Night Springs.
Alice’s Documentaries
Part 1
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”.
Part 2
Alice: For months after Alan died, I didn’t leave the apartment. I was flattened by the confusion, the shock, the guilt, the fear. I could barely get out of the bed. Barry Wheeler started visiting, even cooked me meals. I couldn’t stand the huy when I first met him, but he’s a better friend than I gave him credit for. He still checks in, even after he moved out West. One morning I saw a deer soar past my bedroom window. It was a balloon of some cartoon animal. And I looked down at the street below and I saw a little girl crying like losing that balloon had just ended her whole world. It was the perfect image of the horror of caring. And that’s when I got myself out of bed and I picked up my camera. There was something in the dark. Something I needed to see. To show. The more shadows I photographed and filmed, the more I felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough. I submerged myself in it, I only went out at night. My search became obsessive, but I still had no idea what I was looking for. There’s a world hidden behind ours. A dark tide ebbing and flowing against reality. Faces in the shadows. Fear of the dark is really just fear of what could be. That vast paralyzing ocean. But photography can freeze reality in a snapshot. Put a cage around the infinite. Capture it. I need to prove those faces are really there.
Part 3
Alice: I… It won’t end. Like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I thought I could contain Alan in my photos, but… I can’t. The monster just keeps coming back. Every night. Like waves hitting the shore. I’m… I’m so tired. He is here all the time now. There’s so much rage inside him and I can’t stand it anymore. I tried so hard. But I can’t. I can’t. I’ve made a decision. Most of you won’t understand. People call me an artist, but I don’t care about any of that. I just wanted to show the world what I see. I can’t keep going like I have been. It’s time for a perspective shift. To go from photographer to subject. Fort artist to art.
Addendum: Alice Wake took her own life shortly after completing her work on The Dark Place. She will be missed, but will live on through her art. What follows are her final photographs.
Part 4
Alice: This part is just for you. After the haunting started, I got in touch with an organization that was still looking into what happened in Bright Falls. I went to their offices and… something happened there. After I got home, I could suddenly remember everything. I remembered being trapped inside that lake, a dark ocean with echoes of myself, my fears, my photos. Inside a dark tide of madness. The same events and images, looping again and again. Then I saw a light. Your light. You dove in just as I swam out. You never drowned. And you’re still there, reaching out. That is what the haunting is. I can see you because I’ve been there too. I chose to come back to the Dark Place. This is why I put on this exhibition. I had to mislead you, so that I could get you to where you needed to be. The only way out of your loop is destruction or ascension. Light or dark. And we’ve covered the destruction part, many times over. We’re getting to the ascension, bit by bit. Time means nothing here. You’ll still need to go through the loop. But I will keep showing you the images you need to see, the light you need to see, until you’re ready. Alan, I think we’re getting close.