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Wake: Heh. Damn it.
Alice: Alan! Alan! Where are you! Help!
Wake: Alice! I’m coming! It’s all right! I’m coming!
Alice: No! Alan! Help me!
Wake (V.O.): It was a crazy, drunken dream, and yet it was more than that. It was the truth, a suppressed memory unearthed by the Andersons’ moonshine. I was there, an out-of- body observer. This was the night Alice and I had arrived to Bright Falls, the night Alice had disappeared. I had a chance to find out what had happened. I remembered being surprised to see the cabin dark. Alice would have never turned the lights off.
Wake: Alice! Alice?
Wake (V.O.): I remembered thinking I caught a glimpse of her form underwater, sinking into the darkness. Diving after her was the last vague memory I had of that night. After that the next thing I could remember was waking up behind the wheel of the crashed car and finding the first pages of the manuscript. I couldn’t find her in all that blackness. I must have thought she’d drowned.
Wake: Alice.
Wake (V.O.): Jagger had Alice, and so she had me.
Wake: Alice!
Wake (V.O.): I’d been easy prey.
Jagger: Look at the cabin. Is there someone in the window?
Wake: Alice?
Jagger: Maybe she didn’t drown after all. Maybe she’s inside.
Wake: Alice!
Jagger: Yes…
Wake (V.O.): The Dark Presence had touched me. She had dug her nails into my brain and used me, made me her puppet.
Jagger: She must be here somewhere. Maybe upstairs, in the study?
Wake: Alice!
Jagger: Yes! That’s where she is. You can apologize.
Wake: Alice!
Jagger: You’ll laugh at the whole thing together and put it behind you.
Wake: Alice?
Jagger: She’s not here. You were foolish to think so. No, she’s dead. She drowned.
Wake: No! No! No!
Jagger: It’s your fault your wife is dead. You are guilty. All she wanted was to help you write. You killed her. Oh, hush. There’s still hope. Cauldron Lake is a special place. Here, you have the power to change things. She wanted you to write. I will tell you what to do. You can write her back. The story will come true and all will be well again.
Wake (V.O.): She had Alice, and the manuscript was the ransom for her.
Wake: Yes. I’ll write. I’ll fix it. I’ll bring her back.
Jagger: You!
Wake: No! I wrote it.
Wake (V.O.): I remembered it all now. In the dark, I’d written for days—a week—almost a complete manuscript of a novel entitled “Departure.” Jagger had been my editor, whispering in my ear, making sure that the unfolding story would make her more and more powerful. I thought I was saving Alice. Even with the cobwebs she’d put in my head, some part of me had been aware enough to write my escape into the story, to bring a light into the cabin to release me before I could finish—to interrupt the horror story before the ending, where darkness consumed everything and everyone. Zane was weak, far away. But I had written him into the story, and his light had been enough to set me free.
Diver: It isn’t here now. I’m here because it was written. I brought the light to set you free. You must hurry. It will know I’m here. It will be back soon. It stole the skin of my Barbara a long time ago. She looks so old.
Wake (V.O.): I had woken up confused and groggy, my mind consumed by darkness and fear. All I could do was to escape.
Diver: Barbara.
Wake (V.O.): The week spent in the cabin had taken its toll. I was barely conscious and fading fast. It had to have cost Zane terribly, thrown him even deeper into whatever dark place he now haunted. But he had managed to weaken the Dark Presence. Kept me safe that night.
Wake: I wrote it. It’s my fault.
Nightingale: That’s right, James Joyce. It’s your fault, and you’re gonna pay for it.