Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PART TWO
2010

My lover smelled of smoke and rain.

He had just come home to find me laying in his bed, naked but modestly half-covered by a pale green sheet. I feigned being asleep, my arm draped over his pillow. I could hear him undressing, taking his time to keep me waiting. He loved our little game.

The bed sank as he joined me, pulling me into his arms to nuzzle my neck and press kisses into my warm skin. Now I could no longer pretend; the tickle of his beard always made me smile and laugh.

The words we shared were always difficult to make out. It was all muffled, like being underwater. Whatever I said, it made him happy, for I could feel the shape of his smile against my neck, the way his fingers dug into me to hold tighter, like he was afraid I’d slip away from him somehow.

Tonight, he surrendered to me, as he often did after a long day. I wanted to believe I was being a considerate partner, taking care of the things he needed, but it wasn’t just him I was attending to—I needed to lose myself as much as he did. There was always this underlying tension between us, an urgency neither of us was willing to name. Our time was limited, with grains of sand falling in an invisible hourglass. In this bedroom, with the rain hitting the fire escape outside, we could be together—was this the only way I could be with him?

I never saw his face, even when we became fully joined. His body was a canvas for me to memorize, but I couldn’t look into his eyes. The angle was never right. I didn’t know his name, but I knew everything else about his form. The texture of his lips. The slide of his tongue along every inch of my pliant, willing body. The primal, brutal sound of his hips rocking against my thighs. The way he grunted my name as he came inside me. I would have given anything to see the emotion upon his face, but his hair fell into his eyes, and all I could see was the shadow it cast.

Despite all these facts, his identity remained a mystery. Unanswered, unknown, no matter how much I craved the forbidden knowledge.

But I loved him all the same.

After, my head rested against his solid chest, and my fingers traced the outline of his scars. I was always fixated upon them, in awe of how anyone could survive so much violence. I would never be able to understand why the scars upset me as much as they did, but a hand clasping mine stopped my exploration, instead bringing my fingers to chapped lips.

Soft words echoed in my mind—some clear, others distorted. I could never parse what was being said despite their importance. I would never remember; no, this moment was caught between two worlds, pressed between glass like a butterfly on display.

This was just a dream, one where I was warm, safe. But without fail, this was the calm before the storm. I had been here before. Passing through one threshold into another. This was the start of a familiar nightmare and I was powerless to stop it.

I drifted into a dream within a dream, a cardinal sin. To go deeper into the subconscious invited danger.

When I opened my eyes again, the bed was empty. I was alone, naked, and the rain outside had stopped. The windows had frosted over, and the unbearable chill caused me to pull the blanket tighter to my body. The apartment was too quiet. Not even the city outside made a sound.

Draping the blanket around my shoulders, I left the bed and padded into the hall in search of my missing lover.

Yet upon opening the door, the dream shifted.

I was in the driver’s seat of an old car with nothing but a lonely highway ahead for miles.

This was the same nightmare I had been experiencing over and over since my seizure two years ago. The circumstances were always weird and illogical, even by my standards, but recurring nonetheless. It was a well-scripted exchange, a play I had rehearsed too many times. The details were never identical, but the circumstances were consistent: I was always late, driving too fast, desperate to reach my unknown destination.

Sometimes I was driving down empty city streets, sometimes I was out in the country, following a winding road leading to nowhere. Sometimes the night was a sea of darkness, without the moon or stars. Sometimes a full moon illuminated the way, casting long shadows.

Tonight, however, it was raining so heavily not even the windshield-wipers could keep up. I was driving on a coastal road, with the sea on my right and the forest line on my left.

I was tired, my eyes struggling to stay open. The radio was tuned to a talk show featuring some author bragging about killing off his character for shock value.

Good riddance! I mean, you spend seven years and six books with a guy, you start to get a little sick of him. He was a gloomy guy to spend all your waking hours with. I think it was time to move on. See other people, so to speak…

The author sounded like a real asshole, so I changed the station to something else. A pop song I had heard too many times against my will came over the speakers. The singer wailed about some lost love, making my heart pang in my chest.

There were no road signs or markers to indicate where I was. I would have given anything to see the neon glow of the word vacancy so I could pull over and get some sleep, but I couldn’t rest. There was somewhere I needed to be. I was racing against a clock. Someone was expecting me, counting on me to make it on time. I couldn’t let them down.

My head slumped against my chest, heavy from exhaustion. I was too tired to see the man standing in the middle of the road. I jolted awake and gripped the steering wheel, but there was never enough time to swerve out of the way.

The crash was usually when I woke up. The screeching tires, the acrid smell of burning rubber. There was always something in the real world happening to coincide with my dream, startling me from my rest. My morning alarm, a pat on the shoulder, a forehead kiss from my wife, the ringing of my phone.

But this time, the nightmare didn’t end after I struck the man.

I slammed my foot on the break, causing the car to lurch forward. Shaking, I unbuckled the seat belt and scrambled out of the car, expecting to find a dead man splattered on the grill and dragged along the road.

Instead, there was nothing but empty pavement, not even blood from the collision. It was impossible, but this was a dream, so it didn’t need to make sense.

The dread was unshakeable. I had been so sure I had hit him, so sure I’d killed him, but with all evidence gone, what was I supposed to think? I chalked it up to being awake for too long, for what other conclusion could it possibly be?

So I got back into the car, eager to leave and put the unsettling feeling behind me, but the ignition wouldn’t turn on. The battery was dead. I was on an empty, open road in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn’t get my car started.

I had no cell phone to call for help, so with no other choice, I abandoned my car and started walking on the side of the road. Maybe a kind driver would find me and show mercy.

There was no reasonable explanation, but I was certain something—someone—was stalking me from the treeline. I could feel eyes on the back of my head, sending shivers down my spine. Every time I glanced over my shoulder to peer into the dark treeline, I saw nothing, but I couldn’t trust my eyes. I’d written too many horror stories to know how this went. And as time passed, my instinct wasn’t wrong. It continued to follow me, its presence like my shadow.

I broke out into a run, and that was when I heard it—the crunch of leaves, the low laugh of a man. It was chasing me, hunting me like prey, and it was gaining.

Up ahead in the distance, the beacon of a lighthouse came into view atop a hill. Somehow, I felt like this was my destination all along, the place I needed to reach.

There was a shortcut off the side of the road which would lead to the lighthouse. There was a fissure ahead with nothing more than a rickety wooden bridge connecting the two points. I raced for it, ignoring the sound of heavy breathing growing closer and closer.

Yet as I moved to enter the bridge, a shadowy form appeared before me, cutting off my escape. I staggered backwards in shock—the figure was nothing more than the silhouette of a man cloaked in darkness. A redaction personified. His body was scratched out as if he had been erased entirely from existence.

“Don’t you remember me?” He asked, his voice distorted.

The question was rhetorical, it had no logical answer.

“I… I don’t…”

“It must be nice. Letting it all fade away. I wanted to forget and couldn’t. You wouldn’t let me.”

I slipped past the hulking figure blocking my way, but I suspected it was because he had let me escape.

“Go ahead and run. I want you to,” he called after me as I crossed the bridge. “Makes for more suspense. Your readers will love it, won’t they? They love watching the protagonist suffer!”

I reached the other side with my heart racing in my chest. Leaning forward to catch my breath, the same dark, sinister laughter returned, booming within the confines of my dream. My head jerked upright, and once again, the shadow towered over me.

The distortion had grown worse, the monster’s voice turning into buzzing static. “How does it feel? Making so much progress, only to run into obstacle after obstacle. To struggle and fail. To have someone laugh at your misery.”

I didn’t want to hear this anymore. I had to run. I had to reach my destination or I risked giving into madness. But as I rushed ahead, a wooden signpost appeared in my path with dozens of various tabloid publications with pictures of me trying my best to avoid the flash of cameras.

Basket Case Publishes Next Book From Padded Room

More Than Just Skeletons in This Famous Author’s Closet!

Violent Author’s Drunken Rampage: Again, Readers Ask?

“You were so scared of being found out,” the monster whispered close to my ear. There was something familiar about its voice, now sultry and inviting. Some messed up part of me wanted to surrender. “Poor Alan Wake, the tortured, sad writer with deep, dark secrets. No one understands him. No one can ever know the truth.”

A shadowy hand reached around and cupped my neck, holding me in place. The shadows had texture, a physical presence. Unbidden, I leaned into its frame, craving its caress despite all the warning bells urging me to stay away.

“Did you get what you wanted, in the end? Was my sacrifice worth it?”

No, no, no. It hadn’t been. It wasn’t. It never would be.

“You think you’re the victim of this horror story, but you’re not.”

Its grip on me tightened, the once alluring touch turning painful. It was burning through my skin, and I cried out in pain.

“You’re the monster,” it hissed, its voice becoming louder and harsher as it branded me a villain. “You’re the one doing this. Hurting people you claim to love. That’s what you enjoy doing. But it’s not so fun when you’re the one getting hurt, is it?”

Tears flooded my eyes. I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t listen to this any longer. The need to run returned in full force. I was desperate to escape my shadow, and when I broke free, I bolted for the lighthouse. The monster sauntered after me, as if it had all the time in the world to pursue its prey.

“You can run, writer, but you’ll never be rid of me,” it taunted. “I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

“Fuck off!” I yelled over my shoulder. The monster just chuckled.

Sanctuary was just ahead: a lonely lighthouse atop a cliff’s edge. Its beacon burned in the night, guiding me to safety. There were only a handful of steps necessary to reach my destination at last. I threw open the door, staggered inside, and closed the way behind me.

Pressing a hand to my head, I tried to slow my breathing and do the impossible. I tried to parse my nightmare within its confines. I had never gotten this far.

Surely this was just my active imagination getting the best of me. I was just processing my real life problems through a nightmare. It was pairing my imposter syndrome from my young adult years with my current contention with writer’s block—and it was all being filtered through your average slasher story. The monster chasing after me was just my own inner voice, brutal and crueler than ever.

Suddenly, the door flew off its hinges with a loud crash. The shadowy figure stood in the frame and crossed the threshold to prowl toward me. He tilted his head to the side and laughed.

This would be the final scene of my nightmare. There was nowhere else to go, nowhere else to hide.

Now that I was aware of what my nightmare was trying to accomplish, my fear subsided. If my subconscious wanted to kill me to make a point, then fine. Dying in my dream would be no different than falling in one. I’d wake up when the shadow finally consumed me, but I’d be safe and sound in real life. Sure, my heart would be racing, maybe I’d feel a little disturbed for the rest of the day, but I would be fine. Everyone died in their dreams once in a while.

“You think you’re so fucking smart, Wake.”

My blood ran cold. The monster’s distorted voice had changed once again. I knew that voice but couldn’t name its owner, but the way he said my name was unmistakably familiar.

“You think you know your own mind so well, but you don’t know shit,” he snarled. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this. When you’d have no choice but to listen to my voice through the static. You can’t tune me out this time.”

As the shadow advanced, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Staring at the shifting shadows was mesmerizing, and I was drawn to its mystery. Who was underneath? Who was this monster?

“You try not to remember. You try to forget, to cover your eyes and clap your hands over your ears, but you can’t get rid of me. I’m burrowed into your skull, crawling under your skin.”

When the entity stopped before me, I was trapped, awaiting my certain doom. The creature towered over me, the shadow somehow capable of sneering down at me. It had a distinct smell, which flooded my lungs: whiskey. The scent triggered a memory—something hazy around the edges, something I couldn’t fully mold in my mind. I wanted to unravel it, but there was something else blocking me.

“You can deny it all you want, Wake, but you’re nothing without me.”

And then a hand fisted my shirt, shoved me up against the wall, and the shadow angled his head, bearing down as it intended to kiss me. I didn’t push away, I didn’t fight. When his mouth slotted over mine, I parted my lips, inviting him in, and gasped a name—

A loud foghorn snapped me back to reality, and my eyes opened wide as I jolted awake.

Distantly, two voices called my name, each distinct in their own right. I glanced to my left and saw Alice in the driver’s seat of our car, facing me. Her lips moved as she spoke, but I was hearing someone else’s voice through her. I blinked, confused, and her face fell with a frown as she realized what was happening. She leaned away from the center console and sighed.

I ran a hand over my face and groaned as I remembered where we were: a ferry ride to Bright Falls, Washington.

My nightmare was fading fast, but longing seized my heart in an iron grip. Why did this always happen to me?

To us, a quiet voice echoed.

I faced a vicious cycle, one I couldn’t break free from. I was so worn down from these recurring nightmares. When was the last time I had an actual good night’s sleep? Two years, now? Every day I regretted my decision to deny my doctor’s offer of using sleeping pills, but I couldn’t shake the memory of my mother becoming reliant upon them in the few years we could live together while I was in high school.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and took a deep breath to shake the lingering despair. I needed to focus on what mattered: the first day of our vacation. That’s why we were coming to Bright Falls, to escape the mad rush of the city and to reconnect as a couple.

A stretch of water awaited us as the ferry took us to Bright Falls. How long had I been asleep for?

“You alright, hon?” Alice asked, patting my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’m fine.”

“You were thrashing in your sleep.”

“Sorry.”

An awkward silence followed, with Alice gripping the steering wheel. There was something else she wanted to say, but it had turned her tongue to lead, making her hesitate.

“...You were muttering Casey’s name, again.”

Cold dread washed over me, tightening my throat. “Again? What do you mean, again?”

Alice had mentioned in the past that I was prone to talking in my sleep, but this was new information entirely. She was picking and choosing her next words with extreme care.

“Well, you’ve done it before.”

Before I could ask about the particulars, Alice cut me off again.

“You know Alan, it’s perfectly okay to miss him. He was a part of your life for many years…”

I cringed, suddenly wishing I could close like a clam shell or bury my head into the sand. Alice was wrong; it was pathetic to miss my character. He wasn’t real. To feel distress over his absence was ridiculous, and to cry out his name as I slept was downright embarrassing.

“Alice, please don’t worry about it. He was just a fictional character.”

“Well, I think we can all agree he was more than just fictional to you…”

I rolled my eyes, petulant as a child. “And what makes you think that?”

“I think your writer’s block is because—”

“It’s not. You know I was planning out a new manuscript…”

Alice nodded, but we both knew all the so-called “planning” I had done was a smokescreen. It was a lie I told myself to stay remotely calm as I sat for hours at my typewriter and came away with no written progress.

“Regardless,” Alice started, eager to shift the conversation, “that’s why we’re coming out here—to help you find your writing voice again.”

I raised a brow. “I thought this was supposed to be our romantic getaway.”

“It is! Of course it is.” She sighed. “I’m just saying if the fresh air and great views just so happen to inspire you… Well, maybe go with the flow and see where it takes you? Doctor Hartman says in his book that…”

And this was where my mind turned off. I didn’t like this Hartman guy. He was just another psychologist looking to make a quick buck by writing a self-help book for a hyper-niche audience—in this case, troubled artists. Alice had devoured his book and had constantly been referencing advice from it.

No amount of scenic landscape would be able to inspire me to write. I wasn’t a writer from the 1800s going out and “rediscovering myself” in the middle of nowhere.

Cauldron Lake wasn’t going to become my Walden Pond.

I’d be lucky if I could muster the energy to write a postcard to Barry.

Chapter Text

Our interactions following my nightmare had been… strained, as much of our conversations were these days, no matter how much Alice and I tried to deny it. We had tried to clear the air by walking around the ferry, talking with some of the locals, and taking a few pictures. My small-talk was stiff, my smiles forced. Alice was taking more photos than usual, clearly unsatisfied with each shot. Her subject wasn’t cooperating, but it wasn’t her fault.

Thankfully, my phone rang and put Alice and I both out of our misery. It was Barry, so I answered while Alice packed up her equipment.

“Hey bestseller! How’s the trip going so far?”

I swallowed thickly. “Fine.”

It was anything but fine. This vacation was starting off on the absolute wrong foot, and it was my fault, like everything was these days.

“Glad to hear it,” Barry said, trying his best to sound perky. “Things have been quiet back here. I gotta admit, I’m bored. We’ve been so busy these last few years, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself when there’s no fires to put out!”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you’ll find something to do.”

“Yeah, probably. Maybe I’ll pick up a new hobby.” Barry chuckled. “Was the plane ride okay? Not feeling too jet lagged?”

“We’re fine.”

“I’m sure Alice can’t wait to start taking photos. She loves scenic landscapes. Reminds me of your guys’ wedding. All those snowy white mountaintops in the background. I bet she’ll make a killer slideshow after this trip’s said and done.”

I glanced over my shoulder back at Alice. She wasn’t looking at me, but I could tell she was listening in on our conversation. The frown on her face filled me with guilt, so I hung my head in shame and turned away to lean against the ferry’s railing. Barry had no idea.

“We’re just about to pull into the harbor.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll let you go. I hope you both have a great time. Just be yourself, Al. You’re a very lucky guy. She loves you very much—more than you realize. We both want the best for you. Don’t forget that.”

I nodded and sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Let it sink in, buddy. Seriously.”

“Okay, dad.”

Barry snorted. I could easily imagine him grinning. “You joke, but I’m just trying to look out for you. Remember that, Al. Have some faith in yourself, and you’ll get through this rough patch.”

“Hope so.” I gripped the phone tight. “Love you, Barry.”

“Yeah. I love you too Alan. Send my best to Alice.”

We got back into the car and drove off the ramp to head into town. Hearing Barry so hopeful for us, seeing happy people on the sidewalks… it dislodged something inside my chest.

Vacations were what you made of them. Alice was trying. She understood this was our chance to get away, to rekindle the spark which had inspired us to get married in the first place. She had done her research, talking about activities she had planned for us. What had I done other than mope in the car like a sad pet going to the vet?

I needed to change. Alice deserved better. If I had any hope of salvaging my marriage with my wife, I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and start acting like a man. That was where Doctor Hartman was wrong. Warm sentiment and patience wouldn’t pull me out of my depression—brute force would.

I reached for Alice, resting my hand on her knee. “Hey… Alice?”

“What’s up?”

“Thanks for planning this,” I said. “Where’s our first stop?”

Alice smiled at me, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. I wish I could inspire more faith in her, but maybe it was better, healthier even, to keep her expectations realistic. She tilted her chin towards a restaurant on the left hand side of the road. “Hungry?”

“Yeah, I could eat.”

Alice dropped me off in front of the Oh Deer Diner which reminded me of old restaurants from the fifties. Bright red and blue neon signs blared even on a bright, sunny day. An advertisement on the window encouraged visitors to try the pie and the daily special.

“Head inside hon,” she said, leaning closer to the window. “The guy who owns the rental cabins said he’d meet us here. I’ll park the car and join you.”

I pushed through the diner’s doors and was greeted by the low rumble of conversation, music from the jukebox, and to my total horror… a familiar cardboard cutout of me holding The Sudden Stop.

The display stopped me in my tracks, catching me off-guard. Why was it here? Was this some sort of a joke?

“Ohmygoddddddddd!!! Pat was right! It is you!”

Like a deer in the headlights, I froze. A woman stood behind the U-shaped counter pouring a pot of coffee into an expecting patron’s mug—and causing it to overflow.

“Rose, pay attention!”

“Oh!” She retracted her pouring arm and scoffed. “Well Rusty it’s not as if we’re blessed with esteemed guests every day! Can you blame a girl for being a little starstruck?”

“Yeah, I can actually,” Rusty scoffed, but he was glaring at me, as if I’d been the one doing something wrong.

But Rose had already moved on. Her attention was laser-focused on me and me alone. A meteor could crash through the sky and Rose wouldn’t care.

“Mr. Wake, Alan? Can I call you that? Welcome to the Oh Deer Diner.” Rose batted her lashes, and I half-expected to see I love you drawn onto her eyelids in eyeliner. “What can I dazzle you with today?”

The rest of the diner patrons collectively groaned and eye-rolled.

“My wife and I are looking for Stucky. He manages the rental cabins?”

“Oh, he’s not here yet. He usually stops by for lunch around,” Rose glanced up at the clock above the entryway, “well I’d say he’ll be here in about thirty, usually.”

“Fine. I guess we’ll wait.” I didn’t want to, but there was no other choice.

“You should have something to eat,” Rose explained while rushing to come out from behind the counter. “Let’s get you comfy at a booth.”

I noticed the Seat Yourself placard. “It’s fine, you really don’t—”

“You must’ve had quite the trip from the big city. You must be starving.”

Rose herded me into an empty booth by the window. Outside, I saw Alice had just parked and was heading to the diner.

“Your brain needs to stay oiled up to keep those writer neurons healthy and firing! Coffee with two sugars and no milk, right?”

I could only nod, my mind reeling. Just how did Rose know my exact coffee order?

“I’ll be back in a jiffy, Alan,” she cooed, winking at me. “Just rest and relax. You need to conserve your strength.”

I didn’t appreciate how she was treating me like a pregnant woman who’d been on her feet for hours. I slumped into the booth, wishing I could disappear, skimmed over the menu, and then tossed it back onto the table with a sigh.

“Oh, don’t worry about Rose, kiddo.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a man from the adjacent booth had turned around to talk to me. A toothy grin poked through a forest of grey-white facial hair. He wore a bandana over his hair and only a black vest decorated in patches and pins.

“She’s harmless compared to everything else you’ll find around this town.”

“Don’t scare him like that, brother,” the other man said. He was older with a receding hairline and an eye-patch over his right eye. “By the way, I’m Odin, that asshole’s Tor. We’re the Andersons. You’re that big time mystery writer, aren’t you?”

I grimaced. Why had Alice and Barry picked out the one small town in all of America where everyone seemed to recognize me?

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“I’ve never had a chance to read your books, but I’ve wanted to! Which one should I start with?”

“The first one.”

“Uh huh.” Odin scratched the top of his head. “Remind me, which one is that again?”

I swallowed hard. Would it be rude if I just turned away and ignored them? Of course it would be. I could imagine a little Barry on my shoulder reminding me to always be nice to my fans.

“Alex Casey,” I mumbled. “That’s the name of the first book.”

“Ohhh! Right, right. That’s the detective fella I always hear old Pat Maine talk about on his weekly book club. Pat’s the radio guy around here. Plays all our hits. Have you met him?”

“Yeah.”

“Say, speaking of tunes, could you do an old guy a favor?” Odin asked with a smile. “Could you go play number seven on the jukebox? I’d do it, but my knees aren’t what they used to be. Bad circulation, creaky bones. If I’m getting up it’s to head outta here.”

Sighing, I slid out of the booth and took his money. I felt like a boy scout reluctantly helping the elderly.

“Number seven?” Tor grumbled once I was out of ear-shot. “And you call yourself a rocker.”

I weaved through the crowded diner, dodging Rose at every opportunity I could, to reach the jukebox in the corner. It was one which played actual records. The entire catalog of options were love songs, mostly from the 80s and 90s, with the only anomaly being number six: Coconut by Harry Nilsson. Number seven was (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight by Cutting Crew. This request suddenly felt like a prank, but if this was what the old man wanted to listen to, then so be it. He’d given me the money.

But as I came back to my table, Tor sported a shit-eating grin and Odin had a suspicious twinkle in his remaining eye, like they really were in on some joke I couldn’t understand.

“Thanks sport, you’re a champ,” Odin said.

Our strange interaction ended right as the bell on the diner’s door jingled. Alice slipped in and joined me at my booth.

“Any word from this Stucky person?”

“The waitress says he stops by for lunch around noon.” I called out to Rose, “Could you get a cup of coffee for my wife as well?”

Rose’s lips thinned. She heaved a sigh. “I suppose, if I must.”

We had a half-hour. Alice reached for the menu at the far end of the table.

“Want to share something?”

I shrugged. Much of my appetite had evaporated after seeing the cutout near the front door. It was just another reminder that I hadn’t written anything in over a year. Did reminders of my failure to produce anything meaningful have to keep following me around like a ghost?

The song played in the background, the lyrics running together until one particular stanza cut through the static:

It was a long hot night
—made it easy, —made it feel right
But now it's over, the moment’s gone
I followed my hands not my head, I know I was wrong...

I stuffed my balled fists into my jacket and sunk into the booth as the guitar solo took over. Why did every love song make me feel sick to my stomach with guilt?

A few minutes later, Rose returned with two coffees. Alice said her thanks despite the overwhelming waves of jealousy radiating off of Rose. Alice ordered a burger and a plate of fries. She knew me all too well; maybe I didn’t have a strong appetite, but I’d at least pick at fries.

We spent the majority of our lunch waiting for Stucky. We couldn’t settle into our “picturesque cabin near the lake” until we had the key. We talked about our plans at the cabin while Alice ate. She always served as our vacation cataloger. Everything would be photographed one way or another during this trip. Alice always made great slideshows for our friends back home.

“First thing I’m going to do is check out our view of Mirror Peak. The brochure says the lake completely reflects the mountain…”

I wasn’t so sure about the great outdoors, but at least Alice was excited.

After Alice finished eating, she asked Rose for a slice of cherry pie and two forks with a smile. Rose nearly combusted into flames at the idea of us romantically sharing a dessert. She stalked off, her cheery mood soured.

I had to commend my wife. Alice never became fazed by fans who hated her, who were jealous and wanted to take her place. She had developed thick skin to shield herself from snarky comments, rude behavior, and being overlooked.

Rose was just another in a long line of women who fawned over me—maybe it was because of my appearance, the books, or some combination of both. The tabloids played up my “bad boy” behavior and some women thought they’d be able to “fix me and save me from myself.”

Of course, those rabid fans never saw the sides of me Alice did. They didn’t know what kind of asshole I became when I was in one of my moods. They didn’t know about the devastating self-loathing and doubt. They didn’t know I was a washed up hack who hadn’t written in over two years. Alice tolerated my bullshit and for whatever reason had stuck around.

Rose returned with a big slice of pie and two forks. She placed the plate on my side of the table, serving me with a wink and a blown kiss. I quickly slid the plate to Alice once Rose walked away.

“Well, hopefully it’s not poisoned since she put it on your side,” Alice joked before taking a bite of the pie.

I cracked a small smile.

“I can’t wait to settle in at the cabin,” Alice mused. “It’ll be nice to just get away from everyone.”

Some part of me could agree with Alice—and Barry, who had helped coordinate this vacation along with my wife.

Everyone agreed I needed a break from the city, the stress of being unable to write. After years of writing book after book, I was burnt out and depressed over my lack of inspiration. This potent brew of negativity had boiled over in the last year, and I’d made some stupid fucking decisions in an attempt to “find myself” again.

Maybe peace and quiet wouldn’t magically solve my writer’s block, but maybe it would help me relax. And maybe… I caught her gaze right as Alice met mine over a piece of pie. Maybe we would be able to glue the pieces of our fractured relationship back together.

“Stucky just came in,” Rose said as she came out of the kitchen carrying two platters of food for other diner patrons. “He just stopped by the restroom to wash off some grease.”

“I’ll go talk to him and see if he’ll just give us the key so we can head out,” I told Alice.

“Okay hon, I’ll pay up here.”

We split up. Alice paid the bill at the register where Rose sported a petty pout, like we’d ruined her day. For most fans, that’s how it went: the idea of me never matched who I really turned out to be, and Rose was just the latest casualty. As I headed for the back rooms, the woman seated in the furthest booth grabbed my arm as I passed by.

“Don’t go back there, young man,” the woman warned, holding an old-fashioned lantern to her chest. “You can’t go back there without a light. You’ll get lost. It’s too dark. Too dark.”

It was the kind of thing a character would say to a protagonist before they made a terrible, life-altering decision.

But this wasn’t a book. The lights in the back area of the diner were on. Every small town had its share of crazies; this one just happened to love clutching a lantern while raving about darkness.

I shrugged her off and entered the back area of the diner. Nothing catastrophic happened. Sure, a light started flickering above, but nothing else about this experience screamed horror movie—and I would know. I was the king of the horror-thriller genre, after all. Just because I’d grown complacent and lazy atop my throne didn’t mean I didn’t deserve to rule.

I pushed against the bathroom door but it didn’t budge. I couldn’t hear anyone inside, so it couldn’t have been occupied.

Suddenly, the lights went out. The blackout only lasted for a few seconds, but in that singular span of time, images flashed in my mind: a dark haired woman holding out her hand as she drowned, Alice screaming, and the same shadowy figure from my nightmare calling my name, his voice sounding all too familiar...

When I turned around to leave, I jumped out of my skin.

An old woman stood there, her posture hunched forward with her hands clasped in front of her. She wore all black with a pill-box hat. A thin funeral veil covered her wrinkled face.

“You’re staying at Bird Leg Cabin?” She asked, her voice low and strained.

“Y-Yeah? Do you work with Stucky? I was supposed to meet him here.”

“He is indisposed, but don’t worry. I have your key.” She smiled, but it didn’t fill me with reassurance. “Diver’s Isle is a good place for artists like yourself, Mr. Wake.”

I frowned. “I’m not here to write. I’m on vacation.”

“We’ll see.”

She unfurled her boney hand, revealing a tarnished bronze key and a piece of paper in her palm. I reached for it, tired of whatever game she was playing, and pocketed the items.

“You’ll have no trouble reaching the cabin. Just follow my instructions,” she said. There was a strange echo when she spoke, as if a younger woman was speaking at the same time. “Do enjoy your stay.”

I left in a hurry, but the old woman remained. Her gaze followed me until I turned the corner to head back to the main area of the diner.

The woman with the lantern had grown pale. She stood abruptly from her booth, her whole body shaking with fear and rage. “She… She touched you, didn’t she?”

When I tried to side-step her, she cut me off and shouted in my face with an accusatory finger stabbing into my chest.

“That screaming hag! She stole Tom and now she’s going to steal you, too!” She drew away, covering her mouth as she mumbled, “It's happening all over again, just like Tom said it would!”

Over her shoulder, Alice watched the commotion, shocked and confused. All I wanted to do was leave.

“Cynthia, leave poor Alan alone!” Rose scolded, wagging her finger from behind the counter. “Get out of his way before I summon the fury of Alex Casey on your paranoid rear end!”

The invocation of my intrepid detective Alex Casey made my blood run cold.

I needed to get out. Now.

I pushed this Cynthia aside and didn’t blink as she fumbled over her feet and crashed back into the table. She had nearly dropped her precious lantern and was now nursing it to her chest like it was a baby swaddled in her arms. Cynthia berated my carelessness, but I wasn’t interested in listening any longer.

Not even Alice could quell my fury as I stormed past her for the diner’s exit. Distantly, I heard Rose shouting at Cynthia, furious with her for upsetting me—the so-called greatest author of our generation.

I was so keyed up I didn’t dare speak to Alice as we climbed into our car. Once inside, my boiling blood evaporated into steam. I closed my eyes, but I didn’t like what I saw in the darkness, so my eyes snapped open.

Alice didn’t question me. The car ride was silent as we followed signs to lead us to Cauldron Lake. Whatever good mood we’d found during lunch was gone, destroyed by the scene back at the diner. She probably thought I was an asshole who needed to be more grateful to what fans I had left. Maybe she was worried our presence here in Bright Falls would only draw more and more attention. I prayed it wouldn’t.

As Alice drove along forest roads to reach our cabin, all I could do was lean my head against the window and stare at the scenery passing by.

I already hated this place. Bright Falls. It was full of strange people. Whatever the fuck that was back at the diner, I didn’t care.

Why couldn’t people just leave me alone?

The sooner I could get the hell away from everyone and have some time for myself, the better.

Chapter Text

“This… doesn’t really look like the brochure,” Alice murmured.

Standing at the mouth of the bridge leading to the island, we could take in Diver’s Isle as a whole. This certainly wasn’t what I had been expecting when Alice first suggested we take a romantic vacation. This cabin could have easily been the setting for a Hitchcock horror movie. Crows perched on the weathered wooden facade, their dead, glassy eyes following our every movement.

I glanced over the hood of the car to where Alice stood with her brows narrowed with intense displeasure. I could already imagine the text Barry would receive tonight which would prompt him to call the travel agent on our behalf to complain about the accommodations.

When Alice noticed me staring, her frown quickly transformed into a small, hopeful smile.

“Well, maybe it’s not all bad. Maybe it’s meant to be quaint, vintage,” she remarked. “You know, shabby chic?”

Or someone had heavily edited their pictures for the online listing.

“Didn’t know we’d be starring in a slasher.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just being mean. Maybe it looks much more welcoming on the inside. You can’t find places like this anymore. Everything’s so commercialized now.”

“Uh huh,” I teased. “Maybe for good reason.”

We grabbed our luggage out of the back of the car, but as we began walking across the rickety plank bridge to reach the isle. The boards squeaked and groaned as we crossed. The water gently lapped at the shore with the breeze. Cauldron Lake was still.

My eyes drifted to the two circular windows overlooking the water. Something caused me to freeze in my tracks. No one should have been here, no one but Alice and I, but I swore a shadowy figure lurked before the tinted glass. A shiver ran down my spine.

The cabin was calling me. Drawing me in. It pulled me into its orbit singing a strange siren’s song. There was something wrong with this isle. All the warning signs were flashing, alarms playing in my head, but I was transfixed, unable to resist its gravity…

“Everything okay?” Alice called back to me.

The world caught up. I pressed a hand to my head, rubbing my temple, and nodded. I had another one of my usual headaches. “Just tired.”

“You’ll be able to take a nap once we’re all unpacked, sleepyhead!”

It would be a miracle if I managed to get some sleep staying at a place like this. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to confront the high likelihood of bed bugs and other creepy-crawlers lurking inside the cabin’s four walls.

I caught up to Alice, crossing the bridge to peer at the structure up close. The building didn’t seem to be falling apart or termite infested, at least, but I could already imagine the nasty review I’d leave for this place.

Two stars. Maybe five, if the idea of being hacked up in the night is your idea of a romantic getaway.

On the overgrown dirt path, a wooden sign read Bird Leg Cabin in faded white paint. A fitting name considering how many birds perched around the island. No one had been taking care of the island’s landscaping. The fencing was falling apart, with planks missing. I wasn’t sure the gate even had a working lock anymore. The porch was dirty, the wood weather-beaten. A sagging power cable ran from the building to a shed further down the sloping island.

The inside, at least, was comparatively better than the exterior, but the bar was already on the floor. Upon entering the cabin, we tested the lights for Alice’s sake, and thankfully the power worked. All the lights came on. We wouldn’t be spending the night cowering in the dark at least.

We encountered a polished rocking horse in front of the window near the front entrance. Its painted eyes were wide in terror as if it had witnessed something terrible. As if the fucking cabin wasn’t unsettling enough.

“Hey, you know,” Alice said, looping her arm through mine. “Maybe the people who originally owned this place had kids?”

I shot her a withering glare. The idea of kids playing on this isle sounded like a nightmare, with the craggy rocks, the countless birds, the spider infestation...

“Okay, fair enough,” she conceded. She kissed my cheek, and we split up to settle in.

Dust and cobwebs covered much of the threadbare furniture. Some of the floorboards had obvious splinters and rusty nails. The rugs were faded from overexposure caused by the sun. The curtains appeared to be from the seventies, completely out of touch with modern aesthetics. I wasn’t an interior designer, but none of the decorative choices made sense. It was as if this cabin was frozen in time.

Proving my point, the grandfather clock stood at the base of the stairs, but it wasn’t ticking. The time was stuck at 5:35. Even if this was a beautiful antique, no one had bothered to try and get it fixed.

The brick fireplace was cold and barren, but there were pre-cut logs if we wanted to cuddle by a fire. A large open-mouthed fish was mounted above the mantle and overlooked the sitting area. An old shoebox sat on a desk. Inside, there were five books, all titles from some author named Thomas Zane. I’d never heard of this guy, so he couldn’t have been famous. Maybe Zane was some local, small-time author. The box was haphazardly packed as if someone had been in a hurry but had been stopped abruptly.

Further investigation of the cabin did little to alleviate my concerns. The back door was slightly ajar, leading to a porch with a stairwell ending at a pier by the lake. The kitchen was sparse, with a dining table and four chairs. The cabinets were empty. I guess we were supposed to bring our own food for the week. Maybe we should have grabbed something to-go from the diner.

The entirety of the cabin was in shambles. There was no redeeming factor about the place. I couldn’t believe this was where Alice and I were supposed to stay for a week’s vacation. Was this some kind of elaborate joke? Was a camera man going to appear from behind the china cabinet announcing I’d been pranked on live television?

Regardless, my review of Bird Leg Cabin would be scathing. If this was supposed to be a romantic getaway for couples looking to reignite the sparks in their marriage, it was giving mixed signals.

If you enjoy being poisoned by black widows, a brochure could say, then come stay at the Diver’s Isle cabin!

Maybe the bed would somehow be better. Maybe that’s where all the investment had gone into maintaining the place. Maybe the whole cabin would be a shitshow, but maybe the mattress was so comfortable it could make anyone fall asleep the moment their head touched the pillow.

Just what on earth had drawn Alice to this place? How could Barry have approved of this trip?

A loud creak caught my attention. I glanced upstairs, and the same sinking feeling from when we arrived returned in full force. Someone or something was upstairs, pacing back and forth.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hm?” She looked up from her camera bag on the kitchen table. “I don’t hear a thing, hon. Just the sound of the lake.” She smiled sheepishly at me. “What’s got you all worried? You’re not one to get spooked so easily, Mr. Skeptic.”

I folded my arms across my chest and grumbled, “I’m not spooked.”

But the sound of footsteps above didn’t stop despite Alice saying otherwise. The sound was unmistakable. Was she choosing to ignore it? Or was she really not hearing it? I had no desire to follow that train of thought.

Nothing’s wrong, I reassured myself. I’m just exhausted from traveling across the country. Anyone would be.

“I’m going to go take a look around outside,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Get some fresh air. Maybe I’m still feeling jet-lagged.”

Alice was completely unphased as she busied herself with unpacking her camera. “Don’t wander around for too long! It’s going to get dark soon!”

Outside the cabin, eyes still followed me, but I wrote it off as being just the murder of crows looming all over the island. Something about this place seemed to make every crow in the entire state of Washington flock here. It was unnerving. Ignoring their stares, I shoved my hands into my pockets and toured the small craggy island.

On one side, there was a long pier jutting out into the lake, which made sense if this was called Diver’s Isle. The setting sun made the waters of Cauldron Lake sparkle as its glassy surface reflected the distant mountain peak and the warm hues of the sky.

A tree stump caught my eye. Within the large outline of a heart were the initials of two people:

BJ + TZ

A forlorn breeze rustled my hair as I slumped down against the trunk. The still lapping of the lake’s waters and the sound of my even breathing calmed me down. My eyes fell half-closed as I wondered about the people who had left their mark here. TZ was likely Thomas Zane, the unknown author whose works I had discovered inside the cabin. I could only assume BJ was someone special to him.

Maybe I’d had it wrong all along. Maybe Diver’s Isle was romantic, and I was too much a city boy to understand the woodsy charm of a place like Bird Leg Cabin.

But my problems ran deeper. My perspective towards anything was always glass half-empty. Of course I saw all the flaws of Bright Falls. I was so out of touch with the concept of happiness and living life to its fullest I couldn’t comprehend an alternative. I had been this way for a long, long time.

This was supposed to be a chance to start over with Alice.

Instead, there I was, sitting in the dirt next to a tree trunk which had already witnessed a profound love. I would never be able to compare. If Alice had been the one to discover these initials, she would’ve found it adorable, romantic. She would’ve wanted to do the same too, to leave our permanent mark on the isle. But I’d come up with some bullshit excuse. I’d call it tacky and old-fashioned, because I could never just relax and have fun.

Why couldn’t I just be the man she deserved? Why had I let my writer’s block poison every facet of my life? I didn’t need to write for a living anymore. We had plenty of money. I could live out my days at Alice’s side, growing old with her. The idea should have made any man feel invigorated with life to even have the privilege.

But it didn’t appeal to me the way it should have. I wanted Alice to be happy, I wanted her to stop worrying about me and to just be more selfish, but she insisted over and over on trying to pull me from my own darkness. It was a futile effort. I was slipping away from her. Away from myself.

More and more, I wasn’t sure if we would ever be able to get back to the way we had once been. I was so fundamentally broken inside, a shell of my former self.

I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. Even in my own self-reflection, I couldn’t help but dwell on the negative. It brought tears to my eyes, and my shame only worsened my grief.

A shrill scream ripped me from my self-loathing and caused me to scramble to my feet.

“A-Alice?!”

“Alan?! Alan, help!” She cried from inside the cabin. “Something’s wrong. The power just went out.”

Without hesitation, I rushed to the power generator inside the small supply shack and pulled the cord as fast as I could. I breathed a sigh of relief when the generator roared back to life. Over my shoulder, I saw through the first story window that the lights had come back on.

I hurried back to the cabin, taking the landing steps two at a time. Inside, Alice stood frozen in the middle of the room. She was having a panic attack caused by the sudden plunge into darkness.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said to her, trying to pull her from her daze. “The lights are back on. It’s just us. You’re safe.”

Alice wheezed an exhale and leaned into me. She grasped me tight, hugging me as if I was the only thing keeping her grounded. Her fingers dug into my tweed jacket.

“Okay, maybe you were a little right,” she mumbled into my neck. “This place is creepy.”

“It’s not exactly the Ritz Carlton, but it’s our home sweet home for the week.”

Alice smiled sadly. “You’re right. Thanks, Alan. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“It’s okay. Never apologize for that.”

“My big hero.” She kissed my cheek and then rubbed away the smudge of lipstick.

Most days, I didn’t feel like much of anything. On the few days I was aware of the world around me, I felt little other than overwhelming regret and sadness. But in between all the bad days, there were rare moments like this where I felt more like my old self. Being a hero to Alice instead of a villain, a shadow looming over her.

“There’s something I want you to see.”

Alice took my hand, pulled me along, and I had no choice but to follow. We went upstairs, and all my previous concern about what I had heard earlier evaporated. We were alone out here. My anxiety had been misplaced.

I expected Alice to be dragging me to the master bedroom to show me the bed she had “discovered” while I was outside. Fear and adrenaline could morph into desire for some people.

Instead, Alice nudged open the door to a smaller side room—the room which had the circular windows and overlooked the lake below.

It was an office. A single desk stood beneath a stuffed owl. To my horror, there was a suspiciously new typewriter. Had Alice brought a typewriter with her to Bright Falls?

“I… I thought maybe with the fresh air and the beautiful views, maybe you would feel inspired…”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, what she was suggesting.

“I thought this was supposed to be a trip for us,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Alan, of course it is, but I thought maybe you could write while I worked on some photography—”

“We came all this way, and you don’t even want to spend time with me?”

“Of course I do. I just thought—”

“You thought what? That some scenic landscapes could fix me? Is that what you think?” I pinched the bridge of my nose in disbelief. “You still don’t get it, do you Alice? After all this time. Even if I could write, it would be nothing but garbage, anyways.”

“We both know that’s not true at all. You’re a bestselling novelist.”

“Yeah, one who’s washed up.”

“You’re not. You just needed to get away from the city. Doctor Hartman says—”

“Enough with that prick! What the fuck does he know? He’s nothing but a quack. You can’t fix what’s wrong with me with a little fresh air and sunshine.”

“I’m well aware of that, Alan, but Doctor Hartman actually has a retreat out here for creative types. It’s even on the lake, not too far from here—”

“So you’re trying to get me committed, is that it?” I shook my head, my rage building. “I can’t believe this! You lied to get me out here. This trip was never about us, was it? You’re tired of me and you want to shove me off so I can be someone else's problem!”

Alice blinked at me, stunned by my fury. She collected her thoughts and explained, “Alan, you’re hurting. You’re struggling. You don’t see what I see. Every single day I’m terrified I’m going to discover you overdosed on pills or find you dead in our apartment because you couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Oh, so that’s what this is. You think I’m psychotic just like my mom, don’t you? That I’m out of control?” My face twisted into a sneer. “You think I’ll just kill myself like she did, is that it?”

Alice’s lips parted. She tried to reach for me, but I jerked away. Rebuffed, she ran a hand over her face, desperately searching for the right words to say. “Alan, you’ve never told me about what happened to your mother.”

“And why would I? It doesn’t make for good discussion around a dinner table.”

“If I had known…”

“You would have what? Got me locked up sooner?”

“Of course not!”

“Then how the fuck do you explain this?”

“Alan,” Alice tried again, “I understand how this looks, but I promise, I was just trying to—”

“I don’t want your fucking help!”

Somehow, the force of my shouting caused the lights to flicker. A silhouette of a woman blinked in my vision in the space between Alice and I. It startled me, but Alice remained unphased—had she even seen it?

No, of course not. Because Alice wasn’t crazy.

But there was one thing she had seen in that flash: She’d witnessed me losing my temper, turning it on her. Her eyes were now glassy. The harshness of my words and my visceral anger had made her upset, frightening her more than any earthly darkness could.

A better man would have apologized for his outburst. He would have dropped to his knees and begged forgiveness. He would have agreed to anything to make up for lashing out.

But instead of pleading for her mercy, her grace, I doubled down.

“You’ve never known me at all.”

She scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. “How could I, Alan? You don’t let me in. You don’t let anyone in.”

“Yeah, well I don’t want to be picked apart by the likes of you or some fraud like Hartman. You have no idea what I saw from the likes of well-meaning people who tried to help my mother. I’m not going to end up like her. I’m not going to let any of you lock me up!”

“You really think I would do that?”

“How the fuck should I know? You brought me here.”

“Because I thought…”

“Well you thought wrong, goddamnit!” I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the strands. “What the hell did you think would happen? One session with some quack therapist and I’d suddenly be back to normal? This is who I am now. I’m not writing ever again.”

“Alan, I don’t care if you ever write again. I just want you to be happy.”

But how could I be happy when I couldn’t write? Didn’t she understand? If I wasn’t a writer, then what was I? Becoming an author had been my life-long dream, and every passing day, I was moving further and further away from that dream.

Writing was everything to me. It was a fundamental part of who I was.

Without it, I’d never be whole.

“If you can’t accept that this is who I am now, then leave. I won’t stop you.”

Alice’s eyes widened. “Alan… How can you say that? If you won’t even try living for me, what about Barry? Do you seriously think I’m alone in this feeling? You think he enjoys watching you tear yourself apart?”

I glared at her. Bringing up Barry was low, especially for her. She didn’t even like my best friend, but now she was invoking his name. The image of Barry appeared in my head. He had endured so much of my shit, and he deserved better too. A better friend.

Alice and Barry… They would be so much happier without me. They would be able to move on with their lives.

Suddenly, all I wanted to do was fill my coat with rocks and walk into the lake until it swallowed me whole. It had worked for Virginia Woolf, surely it would work for me.

Alice must have realized what was on my mind. “Alan, please, you don’t…”

“I don’t want to be saved, Alice,” I uttered, “I’m not a charity case.”

Yet when I tried to turn away from her, Alice grabbed my arm and spun me back around.

“You’re not a goddamn charity case!” She yelled back at me. “You’re my husband! The person I swore to stay with through sickness and health, and you’re choosing to give up instead of letting the people who love you take care of you! You are so profoundly selfish!”

I hadn’t expected Alice’s ferocity. We had fought before, countless times, but she had never raised her voice like this, shaking the foundations of the cabin—and me, along with it. It overpowered my despair, reigniting the flames of my own anger and causing it to boil over.

I stormed out of the office, leaving her behind. I had to get the hell away from her. I didn’t want to hear her frustration, for I knew deep down it echoed my own. If she was pissed off with my selfishness, she wasn’t alone. I hated myself plenty for it.

Evening had fallen on the isle, bringing a low, misty fog from the lake. The moon hung high in the night sky, full and luminous. It bathed everything in an ethereal glow.

Just as I stomped by the tree trunk, a flicker of light on the lake caught my attention. I stopped suddenly and saw a shadowy figure on the pier. I couldn’t make out who it was, but I was certain it was a man standing on the edge with his hands in his pockets.

Just as I was about to shout at him to ask what the hell he was doing trespassing, another scream bellowed through the cold night.

This time, it wasn’t from the power going out.

Terror gripped my heart in a vice as I bolted for the cabin again. Why the fuck had I let my anger get the better of me? How could I have left Alice like that?

I pushed open the door so hard it groaned and came off its top hinge. I looked around frantically and saw the back door to the cabin wide open, flapping in the wind.

“A-Alice…?”

I ran to the back porch and couldn’t believe this was happening. The wooden deck railing was broken. Had Alice thrown herself off of it in her anguish? No… No, Alice couldn’t have killed herself. Not because of some bastard like me. She was strong; she would never…

“No, no, no, Alice, no—”

Indents in the wooden deck caught my eye. They looked like nails scraping the surface of the panels. Had she been attacked? Had Alice fought so violently her attacker had no choice but to drag her over the edge?

Leaning over the deck, I searched for signs of Alice. All I could see was a dark figure under the surface of the bubbling water, sinking deeper and deeper into the depths.

There was no time. There was only one way forward.

I jumped into the lake.

Chapter Text

“You need to wake up.”

A horn blared, droning on and on.

“Get up,” a voice insisted, cutting through the noise.

“What… What happened?” I groaned.

“It doesn’t matter! Listen to me. You need to get out of the car.”

I blinked, moving sluggishly. My head throbbed as I leaned back in the driver’s seat. My face had been pressed into the steering wheel, triggering the horn. A trickle of hot blood slid along the contour of my face and down my neck.

“Alan, you need to move, now.”

To my left, a strange figure cloaked entirely in shadow stood by the car window. The form had the shape of a man, but his whole body was nothing more than a dark silhouette. His face was gone, replaced by an endless void of shifting lines where his features should have been. It was as if something had made an error and needed to redact him out of existence. Staring at these moving lines was mesmerizing.

I blinked again, trying to clear my vision. “Am I dead?”

The shadow scoffed. “Despite your best efforts, not yet.”

The last thing I remembered was driving alone. Right, I’d been speeding down a forest road until something, someone, appeared over the center divider—a woman with a veil? I swerved and then… nothing. I couldn’t remember anything else other than the blare of the horn.

A loud groan from the car drew my attention to the view through the dashboard. The car teetered on the edge of a cliff. Metal grinded against metal as the car tried to balance itself. I instinctively leaned as far away from the front of the car as I could, foolishly thinking I could somehow right the balance on my own.

“If you don’t get out of this car right now, you’re going to die.”

The harshness of the voice shook me out of my stupor and triggered my adrenaline. Frantically, I reached for the door handle and shoved it back as fast as I could. I tumbled out of the car, staggering to my feet.

Without my weight balancing the car, it tipped over the edge, rolling down the cliff until it hit the ground with a crash, followed by a loud explosion. I swayed, suddenly struck by the reality that I could have been smashed if I hadn’t woken up. All my senses grew numb except for my own hyper-awareness to the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears.

The shadow man appeared at my side, and when he reached out with one of his tendriled appendages, I stumbled backwards, terrified. The man sighed and drew away.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, exasperated.

I touched my forehead and hissed through my teeth. A chunk of skin and blood stuck to my fingers when I lowered my hand. I tried to focus on my breathing to stop the world from spinning, but it kept turning and turning. My heart raced in my chest.

“W-What… What’s happening?”

“What do you mean?” The shadow rubbed what would have been his chin. “You’ve been in an accident, Alan.”

Something about the way the shadow man said my name struck a chord, his voice sounded like something I had heard before, but I couldn’t place it. This entity was aware of who I was. That didn’t narrow down much; the whole world could pick me out of a lineup.

My head was killing me, making me wince every time I shifted my body ever so slightly. Did I have a concussion? I wasn’t dead, but I didn’t feel right. I was seeing a shadow, a shadow that could talk, a shadow that knew my name with eerie familiarity.

“What the fuck’s going on?” I said again, wrapping my arms around myself. “Are you a ghost?”

The man shook his head. “Hell if I know how any of this works. You’re the author.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The shadow shrugged, the strange lines more active than before. “Where are you?” He asked, ignoring my question. “This doesn’t look like New York.”

No, this certainly wasn’t New York. This was the middle of fucking nowhere. “Bright Falls, Washington,” I said.

I patted my jacket’s pockets, searching for my phone. When I found it, I pulled it out to check the time, but the battery was dead. I couldn’t call for help. But why would my phone be dead? I always kept it charged in case Barry needed to contact me for emergencies.

I wracked my brain. I’d been driving in the middle of the night, and then somehow I’d ended up here. Where was Alice? Why wasn’t she with me? We’d come to Bright Falls for a vacation, a second honeymoon. We’d come off the ferry, gone to a diner…

My blood ran cold.

A woman with a black veil had given me the keys to our cabin. We’d gone to the lake, to Diver’s Isle. A night hadn’t even passed before… There was a blank space in my memory, but terror lingered on the fringes of my mind. Something about the lake… Something about it wasn’t right.

I was forgetting something critical. Something that should have been in the space where there was nothing. I started to panic, pacing back and forth. Had something happened to Alice, causing me to drive off into the night in a mad frenzy? Why couldn’t I remember?

Had I done something stupid? I hadn’t broken my tenuous streak of sobriety, had I? Fuck, what if I had? What if I couldn’t remember because I’d blacked out, because I’d overdosed—

“Alan?” The shadow man asked, breaking my train of thought. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t… I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where Alice is.”

“Your wife? She’s here with you?”

“We were staying at a cabin on the lake,” I mumbled.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

What I could remember of the past twenty-four hours played in my mind like a film reel, and I explained what I could like he was a detective taking my statement. I told him about the ferry ride, Barry’s call, the diner. The keys. The strange woman with a lantern berating me. We had arrived at Bird Leg Cabin, unpacked the car. Explored the isle. Initials on a tree stump. The local author’s books. An argument over a typewriter… I even admitted to being a fucking asshole who had stormed out on his wife because she tried to encourage writing.

And then there was nothing else. It was like I had fallen asleep and woken up in the car, completely clueless and hallucinating. Talking to a shadow, a ghost…

“You should focus on figuring out a way to get back to town,” the shadow said. “Maybe your wife’s waiting for you there.”

For being a whatever-the-fuck-he-was, he spoke with a strange conviction which settled my anxiety and calmed my heart. Maybe Alice and I had somehow become separated. Maybe there had been an accident at Diver’s Isle. I had to find a way back to Bright Falls.

“You’re right,” I muttered. “Thanks.”

I turned my attention away from the shadowy figure to assess my surroundings. There was no signage indicating where I was on the road. Was I closer to Bright Falls or Cauldron Lake?

In the distance, a neon sign blared through the night for Stucky’s Gas Station. I was closer to Cauldron Lake, then. We had passed by Stucky’s on the way to the cabin. If I could navigate the forest to reach it, maybe Stucky would be there to help, or maybe at least there’d be a phone.

“The gas station,” I gestured. “I have to find a way there.”

But the way forward would involve trekking through the forest at night. Countless miles lay between this road and Stucky’s. I wasn’t exactly an outdoorsman. I wasn’t dressed for a hike, let alone a leisurely walk. Waiting for another car to pass risked wasting time, and I needed to find Alice.

I glanced at my shadowy companion, expecting him to say something. If he was a ghost or some kind of guardian angel, surely he would offer some kind of direction or sagely advice. Instead, he said nothing, only shrugging.

It was decided then. I would have to navigate the forest and hope for the best.

With my decision made, I headed off in the direction towards Stucky’s. To my surprise, the shadow man followed.

The forest was dead silent, unbearably so. I had spent almost the entirety of my life inundated with noise. The constant sounds of the city, Barry’s non-stop chatter… Just thinking of Barry sent a pang of longing through my heart. What would Barry think if he knew I was out here on my own?

Well, not exactly on my own.

The shadow man may have been as quiet as the dead, but his presence was inescapable. I half-expected him to leave the moment I got my bearings, his purpose fulfilled. For now, he remained. Why was he following? What did he want?

Despite my questions, some part of me hoped he wouldn’t leave. He had saved my life despite being nothing more than a hulking mass of darkness in the shape of a man. He was surely a symptom of my psychosis or proof I had used again, but some part of me wanted to believe he wasn’t a sign of something horrible. Maybe he was a ghost haunting Bright Falls or my guardian angel.

If he was going to follow me, though, I needed answers. I liked writing about mysteries, not being caught up in one.

“By the way,” I glanced over my shoulder, “who are you?”

The shadow stopped walking behind me. “What?”

“Just that. Who are you?”

“You mean all this time, you haven’t…”

The scrawled lines on his face shifted violently, so much that it made me feel uncomfortable. Was he about to transform into some eldritch monstrosity now?

“Explain,” he ordered.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say, I don’t know who or what you are. You’re just a silhouette. Not exactly giving me a clear picture.”

He raised his hands above where his face should have been, glancing back and forth between himself and me.

“What do you mean?”

I gritted my teeth. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

The shadow glared. How could a shadow glare? “Exactly that.”

“You’re just… I don’t know what you are.”

“You don’t see who I am,” he clarified, totally incredulous.

I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. “Why would I be asking if—”

“Because I’m trying to fucking understand what’s going on, Alan. You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m telling you exactly what I see! You’re a walking shadow with some scribbles for a face.”

The shadow fell quiet. I groaned and started walking again, ducking under a series of low hanging branches. For such a straightforward question, it had earned an intense response. I’d somehow struck a nerve and walked into a landmine. I hated circular arguments, questions answered with questions.

When I came out the other side of the obstacle, the shadow was suddenly in front of me, startling me and blocking my path.

“Jesus Christ, can you not scare me!”

“You really don’t know who I am? Not just what I look like, but my actual identity?”

“No, I don’t! Am I supposed to?”

The strange shifting lines stilled. It was almost like I had offended him somehow with my lack of awareness. Apparently something incorporeal could still have feelings.

Then, the shadow reached for me, but to his dismay, his hand continued to pass through my body entirely. It was something out of a horror movie, having a piece of pure darkness phased through my shoulder. He immediately retracted his hand, muttering a curse under his breath. He said nothing further and walked away.

The whole interaction left me unsettled, like the universe had just told a joke I didn’t get but was somehow supposed to laugh at. I didn’t enjoy being out of the loop, especially when not knowing made me feel so… remorseful. Like I had really done something terrible without even realizing it.

But why would it matter, knowing who this guy was anyways? Sure, I owed him my life for saving me from the car accident, but wasn’t he just a good samaritan, a friendly specter? Why would he be upset? How was it my fault I couldn’t recognize him? For all I knew, I had a concussion.

Overwhelming guilt inspired me to catch up to him. I had to make this right.

“Why don’t you start off by telling me your name. You know, introduce yourself?”

“If you don’t know who I am,” he said bitterly, “then it doesn’t matter.”

My hands clenched into fists at my side. “Why are you being so difficult? It’s a simple question! I was just trying to be nice!”

I was suddenly hysterical, my restraint gone. I wanted to punch something, break something in half. My head pounded like a vein threatened to burst.

“I don’t know where I am! I don’t know how I got here! I don’t know where my goddamn wife is! I don’t know what happened to me. Can you cut me some fucking slack? Can’t you just answer one question!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Who the fuck’s going to hear me? I’m alone in the goddamn woods in the middle of nowhere!”

“Calm the fuck down. Having an outburst isn’t going to help your situation.”

My face twisted into a sneer, and I moved into his space, trying to size him up like we were really about to fight. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Seems to me you’re the one with the problem.”

“If it’s such a big deal, then leave!” I bellowed, my voice bouncing off of the trees surrounding us. “If I’m such a nuisance, get lost then! I don’t need you. Why did you even bother waking me up?!”

The shadow sighed. “You really don’t remember, then…”

“I told you, I don’t,” I said, punctuating each word. “How can I make that any more apparent than I already am?”

For one bated moment, I thought he was really about to explain what was going on. But instead, he backed away.

“Guess I shouldn’t be so surprised,” he hissed. “You always make everything so fucking complicated, Wake.”

“I’m the one making things complicated?” I moved into his space again, following after him and all but pressing my face into his non-existent one. “You’re the one being broody and cagey. How am I supposed to trust anything you say when I don’t know who you are?”

“Oh, I see how it is. Now that the tables have turned, the big-time author suddenly doesn’t enjoy having to solve the mystery.”

“Fuck you! You’re such a pain in the ass!”

The shadow laughed. He laughed harder than he should have, considering I was insulting him.

“You think that’s funny? You like being a pain in my ass? Fine! I’ll call you Pain then since you want to keep your real name a fucking secret.”

“Call me whatever you want, Wake. Doesn’t change anything. Are you going to continue whining about bullshit and die of exposure?”

I screamed and stomped off into the forest, completely unaware of where I was going now. “You’re so goddamn frustrating!”

And so that was that. His name was Pain now. One mystery solved. Ninety-nine more to go.

Chapter Text

I quickly realized I was in over my head. I had no idea what I was doing, where I was going. For all I knew, I could have been walking in circles. There was hardly any light to guide my way. Even the moon couldn’t pierce the thick canopy of leaves and branches above.

A thick fog blanketed the forest. It was creepy, disorienting. At any moment, anything could jump out and startle me. My surroundings were quiet, the sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs deafening. Countless unknown variables made me regret my decision to trek into the woods, but there was no better alternative.

We had come to Bright Falls in September, and Alice had said something about how even this early into the season, it could still get very chilly at night. Through my three jackets and a t-shirt, I could feel it, especially on the exposed skin of my face. A light rain fell, making the way forward (if I could even call it forward) difficult as my shoes—which were definitely not hiking boots—sank into the mud with every step.

My argument with Pain, as I was now calling my shadowy companion, hadn’t continued after I stormed off. He followed me without another word, and his gaze watched my every move.

Who was Pain underneath all those shadows? Somehow, we had history, even if I didn’t remember him. I had no idea why he was here, why he was tethered to me. Even if he posed a strange mystery, I felt safer, somehow, with his company.

Something caught my eye in my periphery. From somewhere up above, two pieces of paper floated on the wind and drifted around me, spiraling slowly to the ground.

I bent down, reaching for the face down pages. They were untouched by the rain and mud, and as I stood up straight again, I noticed that the water slid off of them entirely. I turned a page over, and the text on the title page stole the breath from my lungs:

Departure by Alan Wake

It was the same title as the novel I had wanted to write but could never start.

The next page, however, featured actual prose from this so-called novel.

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.

He grinned madly. The shadows were alive, distorting his features.

It was a scene from a nightmare, but I was awake.

A sinking feeling settled in my stomach. A man covered in shadows? I glanced at Pain who was waiting, expecting me to explain what was going on. He wasn’t carrying a bloodied axe. I couldn’t even see his expression to know if he was “grinning madly.”

Pain couldn’t be the man described on the page; if he truly was an axe-murderer, surely he would have already done the job. Establishing him as an ally helped me breathe a little easier, but it was still unnerving to find a page with writing which seemed so familiar and yet so foreign.

“What is it?” Pain asked, gesturing with a tilt of his chin towards the pages.

So I showed it to him, and he quickly read over the contents. “What is this?”

“I don’t know… It sounds like my writing… but I don’t recognize it. Why would manuscript pages be here of all places?”

“How the hell would I know? You’re the writer.”

I gripped the paper tightly. “There’s no way I’d write this. Someone’s impersonating me.”

Pain shrugged. “Maybe you just don’t remember writing it?”

“I haven’t written a goddamn thing for two years, Pain.”

The shadows over his face stopped moving, and I took that to mean Pain was surprised. “What do you mean?”

“What, you haven’t heard?” I scoffed. “All the tabloids talk about how I’m washed up. Everyone knows I’ve been dealing with writer’s block since my last novel,” I explained, matter of fact, as if it were obvious. “We came out here because Alice thought getting away would be good for my ‘creative juices’ as her stupid self-help book suggested.”

Pain fell quiet as he stared down at the page. The longer he looked at it, the more embarrassed I felt, ashamed of the words on the page. My profound writer’s block was a sore spot, one of my many imperfections I didn’t like drawing attention to. To think I had somehow overcome my struggle just to write something so half-baked and bland as this? I couldn’t stomach it.

This was someone’s idea of an elaborate joke.

“If I did write this, I wish I hadn’t. It’s garbage. Full of tropes. An axe murderer in the woods? Could you get any more tropey? It’s not even satire. This is camp, at best.”

Pain folded his arms across his chest and snarled, “What does it matter if it’s good or not? Why is it out here? If you didn’t write it, who the fuck did?”

I tried not to be offended by Pain’s sentiment. Of course the quality mattered. If this had been something I had written, I would have at least wanted it to be written well.

I crumpled the page and shoved it into my pocket. “How the hell should I know?”

Discarding the page from my list of concerns, I marched off. From behind me, I heard Pain’s footfalls through the low-lying brush. The forest continued on and on until Pain broke the silence.

“You just passed another page by the way.”

“Noted,” I mumbled, walking on. If the universe was trying to tell me something, it would have to do a better job. I had no interest in reading the writings of someone impersonating me.

“...So you’re just going to ignore it, Wake?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Don’t you think that’s kind of a bad fucking idea?” He asked, chasing after me. He came around and stopped me dead in my tracks. “These pages might as well be a giant neon sign warning you to watch yourself.”

“The woods aren’t actually full of axe murderers.”

“Oh. Okay. Good to know. Didn’t know Alan Fucking Wake was a woodsman. Glad we solved that.”

“Shut up.”

When I tried to walk past him, Pain kept appearing in front of me. “I’m serious, Wake, you need to be careful.”

“Stop that. I’m trying to walk. You’re going to make me trip!”

Pain grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, but I figured it wasn’t pretty. He shoved the latest manuscript page into my hand. “Read it.”

“Fuck, fine!”

I snatched the paper out of his shadowy grip and started reading. From the first line alone, the words sent a chill down my spine.

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 swallowed hard. What the fuck was going on? What the hell was a Dark Presence? Was I the writer? Or was the imposter who’d written this story the writer?

Whatever the answers to those questions ended up being, I had a feeling I wouldn’t like them. I wasn’t some character in a novel. This was the real world.

“There, I read it.” I said, my voice shaking too much for my liking. I folded the paper to tuck it away in my jacket. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Pain deadpanned.

After, Pain stopped blinking ahead of me like some bad apparition and resumed serving as my shadow, to my relief. I much preferred it that way, having him behind me instead of being a total nuisance.

The thick forest opened. At the base of the hill, there was a lumber mill with many floodlights still on. There would have to be a foreman’s office, and there would probably be a phone. Maybe there would even be workers here at this hour.

“Hello?” I called out.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Pain snapped. “Are you trying to draw unwanted attention to yourself?”

I ignored him. “Hello? There’s been an accident. I’m injured, I could really use some help!”

“Why don’t you just pull out a gigantic sign from your ass that says you’re easy prey while you’re at it.”

“Shut up! This isn’t a horror story. This is the real world and I need a real person to help me, not a ghost!”

Pain laughed. On and on, he laughed right in my face. The shadows moved chaotically, darker than ever before.

“Yeah, okay,” he dismissed. “You never listen anyways.”

“Fuck you.”

Carefully, I climbed down the hill to head for the lumberyard. I squeezed through a narrow opening in the chain-link fence and wandered around, searching for any signs of life.

“Hello?” I called out again. “Please, if there’s anyone out there…”

A harsh, hacking sound echoed around the tall stacks of cut logs. There was a muffled voice which I strained to hear.

“Fail to arrive, you lose the deposit… Cabins for rent…”

Overjoyed to hear someone other than a walking shadow, I weaved through the maze of stacked logs, desperate to find the source of the voice. A real person could turn the world rightside up, someone who didn’t have amorphous scribbles for a face.

Around the corner, there was a man hunched beside a tractor, talking to himself, muttering about annoying tourists who didn’t pay on time. Relief flooded my veins, overwhelming my adrenaline. My body limped forward as I tried to catch his attention.

“Hey!”

“Wake,” Pain warned, “Don’t…”

But I ignored him. Again. I needed some semblance of normalcy, a sign that I’d gone through the worst of it and come out alright.

“Please,” I insisted. “I’ve been in an accident, I need help, I need to find my way back to…”

“Premium cabins for rent in Bright Falls!”

The man’s voice was distorted, as if two people were fighting to speak at once: A man’s normal voice and then something sinister, deeper. He tore an axe out of a crumbled body on the ground and turned slowly, revealing the blood splattered across half of his face.

“Carl Stucky,” he said, but I realized in terrifying clarity that whatever remained of this Carl Stucky was long gone as he dragged himself, one foot at a time, towards me like a zombie. “Pleased to meet you… Non-refundable reservation deposit required. Fair and square.”

The axe dripped with blood. It was just like it had been written in the manuscript. But… But how? How could the writing have brought this to life?

“Rental’s due!”

Not-Stucky charged, axe poised high above his head. I couldn’t move. I stood there, wide-eyed in terror like one of the many victims in my stories, seeing it all happening in slow motion.

“Wake!”

Pain appeared in front of me, yelling in my face. Startled, I fell backwards onto my ass unceremoniously right as Not-Stucky drove his axe down. Not-Stucky missed, and the blade lodged itself into a timber log.

“Run!”

Even as Pain shouted at me to move, it was like my body had sunk into the mud, locking me in place. Not-Stucky was muttering to himself, rambling incoherently as he struggled to pry out his axe.

“What did I fucking say, Alan! Run!”

The axe finally gave, and this time, I moved. I raced through the lumberyard, desperate to put as much distance between me and Not-Stucky. My boots splashed through mud and puddles, caking the bottom of my jeans, but I could hear him chasing after me, keen to receive his deposit paid with blood.

Pain pointed out a warehouse up ahead with a working security light illuminating the entrance. “Get inside, hurry!”

I pulled the sliding door shut, expecting to have a few moments of peace.

…at least that was until Not-Stucky drove his axe through the wall like he was Jack Torrance from The Shining.

A light turned on from somewhere up in the rafters above, shining a spotlight on a workbench with a gun and flashlight. A leather messenger bag hung off a hook on the wall, and I grabbed it, slinging it over my shoulder. I stuffed the manuscript pages I’d found so far into it, this moment felt familiar. I’d had a bag just like this back in school, and it carried some of my earliest writings. I had a feeling deep down I’d need to keep the new pages safe.

The light hurts them, another voice echoed in my mind—not Pain. Use these. I cannot aid you further.

I grabbed the pistol and flashlight off the workbench. I’d never held a real gun in my life, but then again, I’d never been hunted by an axe-murderer before either. I turned the gun over in my palm; thankfully, it was loaded.

“Have you ever used one of those before?” Pain asked.

“Uh… I’ve written about them?”

He sighed. “Great.”

Not-Stucky was starting to break down the door. I didn’t want to use the gun if I didn’t have to, so we made our way through the warehouse. When we finally came out to the other side of the yard, there was another light, like a streetlamp in the middle of the forest path. Pain and I stood beneath its glow while I caught my breath. If the voice I had heard spoke the truth, if the light could hurt whatever Not-Stucky was, then we would be safe for a few moments.

Bent over as I panted, I glanced up at Pain and couldn’t help but smile. He was like a black hole in front of the sun, but he was able to stand in the light without issue.

“Just what are you grinning at, Wake?”

“You’re standing with me. You aren’t burning up. The voice said they don’t like the light. You’re not one of them.”

“Of course I’m not,” he snarled. “Listen to me. What happened back there? You can’t freeze up out here. Do you understand? You’re in a life or death situation.”

My smile faded. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t… I wasn’t trying to…”

I wasn’t making sense. I was breathing so hard each expansion of my lungs felt like a knife was piercing my ribs.

“When I tell you to run, you run. Don’t question, don’t wait around.”

“But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, Alan.” Pain glanced away from me and pointed further up the road. “Look. You’re almost to the gas station. Just a little more forest and another lumber yard.”

Pain was right. I wouldn’t have to deal with this insanity for much longer.

With the gun and the flashlight, I felt a little more confident about my chances of surviving this ordeal. I trudged onward. I was running on fumes, but I couldn’t give up.

Inside this section of the forest, there were more strange manuscript pages. I was really starting to amass a small collection. Each page only had a handful of paragraphs, but each one seemed important, like a warning. One page spoke of a murder of crows turned homicidal. Another cryptically spoke about a lake that wasn’t a lake. The hero kept running into danger, bumbling from one disaster to the next. Pain read each one after I did, but he was as clueless as me. Neither of us had any idea what these written words meant beyond serving as an omen.

As I neared the front gate to the final lumberyard between myself and the safe haven of the gas station, I heard the same distorted voice up ahead, louder and more menacing than before. Not-Stucky was here. He had caught up to me, stalking through the forest like he was a predator and I was his prey.

A sinking feeling in my stomach told me that Not-Stucky would follow me until he was dealt with or until I was somewhere constantly illuminated. He would continue to be an obstacle blocking my way, and I would never be able to get the answers I needed if I stayed huddled in the light forever.

My newfound confidence all but evaporated in the face of these realizations. I glanced at Pain, but his formless expression was more unreadable than ever.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I muttered, trying my best to sound calm. I was terrified. If I closed my eyes, I could still see Not-Stucky charging at me, holding his bloodied axe with every intent to kill me.

“You can,” Pain reassured, speaking softly. He reached out to touch me, but his hand passed through my body and I felt nothing. Frustrated, he retracted his shadowy hand and continued, “Don’t draw attention to yourself. Keep quiet. Move slow. Stay low.”

Staying as quiet as I could, I entered the second lumber yard. Not-Stucky was ranting, shouting into the cold night.

“They didn’t take the key. No refunds. Premium cabins for rent. Perfect for Deerfest.”

Peering through the gaps in the logs, Not-Stucky’s silhouette skulked around the yard. He was audibly sniffing the air, holding his axe like a baseball bat slung over his shoulder.

“You give me one star, I’ll make you see stars…”

Pain led the way. Not-Stucky couldn’t sense him, so Pain served as both a lookout and guide as I navigated through the lumber yard. Having a ghostly ally apparently had its perks. I dual-wielded the gun and the flashlight, hoping it would be enough.

Another page wedged between two logs caught my eye. Pain noticed it as well, and he shook his head, urging me not to go after it, but something compelled me—whether it was purely a desire to understand what was going on or careless curiosity, I grabbed it and began to read.

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.

With it I could save myself.

With it I could save Alice.

“Rent’s due!”

Suddenly, Not-Stucky’s axe slashed through the wooden logs. The paper slipped through my fingers, and I scrambled for the gun I had foolishly put down to read the page. The axe swung inches in front of me, but it was halted in mid-air as I aimed the flashlight’s beam at Not-Stucky. He shielded his eyes, screaming as the light made the shadows recede, revealing the man underneath as it boiled his entire body.

“Shoot him!”

With Not-Stucky immobilized, I pointed the gun and fired round after round directly at him, only stopping once he evaporated into thin air with a roar and disappeared without a trace.

I slumped back into the mud, having trouble getting a handle on my breathing. I’d just killed a man. It had been in self-defense, but that thing had been Stucky, the man who supposedly rented a cabin to Alice and I for our vacation. I’d never shot a gun before, but for some reason, I wasn’t shocked by the recoil, the gunshot. I’d done it before, I was certain. But when? Who had I shot?

“You alright?” Pain asked, kneeling beside me.

“I… I don’t know.”

I loosened my hold on the gun and it fell to the ground beside me. My hands were shaking. I suddenly wanted nothing to do with the gun, unsettled by the unknown.

“You’re alright,” Pain reassured me. “Not bad for your so-called first time, but you’ll need to be less trigger happy next time.”

I’d need to find more bullets because I’d used them all on one monster. I had criticized the writer for writing a hero who could barely function on his own. Yet, circumstances were pointing towards the likelihood that I was that hero. Maybe I had always been as pathetic as the writing had made the hero out to be.

“The pages keep predicting what’s about to happen or something that’s already happened,” I said, running a hand over my face. “How can that be possible?”

“Who knows. Sitting around in the dirt isn’t going to help you find answers any faster. Time to get going.”

My body protested, content to just become a stick in the mud, but he was right. I needed to get up and keep moving again before another monster appeared to finish me off.

“Light seems to stop those things dead in their tracks. You need to get out of the forest and get somewhere better lit. You’re out of bullets. You’ll be out of batteries before you know it.”

I collected the gun and flashlight and pushed off the ground, wobbling once I was upright. Pain watched me carefully, but there was little he would be able to do even if I did stumble.

This time as we headed into the forest, we found only one manuscript page which described Carl Stucky, alone, at his gas station working in his garage. The scene was brief but no less horrific. Without even enough time to scream, darkness had taken him. Changed him into the monster we encountered in the lumber yards. Would the gas station be safe, or would it be another trap?

The manuscript pages were starting to make me question reality more than I was willing to admit. Could I trust them? They had predicted the future once, they had explained an element of the past. The loose threads and unanswered questions were making my head spin, so I decided to tuck the newest page into my bag along with the others and pressed on.

The gas station was atop a small hill. Why did there have to be yet another hill? I was about to collapse, my feet aching. Just a few more steps and I would either be confronted with certain doom or sanctuary.

A tall deer statue atop a float sat parked in the lot. The red neon of the sign reflected off its dull eyes, giving the deer a menacing stare. A sign underneath the float took my breath away.

68th Deerfest in 7 Days!

When Alice and I had arrived in Bright Falls, Deerfest had been two weeks away. If the day countdown was correct, I had lost track of seven days worth of time between the day we arrived and now. I needed to find a calendar or a way to charge my phone to check the date. I couldn’t trust my surroundings. For all I knew, the first manuscript page could have been wrong. Maybe this was a vivid nightmare.

My feet dragged across the pavement towards the open garage. The adrenaline in my body was diminishing rapidly. I was tired, starving, and confused. Just find a working phone, I told myself over and over.

The place was trashed, like someone had lost their temper or a fight had broken out. Tools and equipment were scattered everywhere haphazardly. An overturned can of oil spilled across the floor, creating the same inky puddle I had read about in the latest manuscript page. The fumes were potent enough to give me an instant headache. I raised my hand over my mouth and nose to press forward. Whatever had taken Stucky had no interest in making sure his garage was clean before he took off into the forest.

The convenience store was well-furnished. I grabbed a granola bar off the stand and tore it open right as my stomach growled. I had no idea how long it had been since I’d had something to eat, and I figured Stucky would have no reason to mind.

Just as I reached for the phone by the register, the old television in the upper corner of the store turned on. The distorted image was of a man—a man who looked exactly like me down to the very clothes I wore—pacing back and forth in front of a desk with a typewriter, looking over pages.

I’ll write. I’ll keep writing. Outside the cabin, darkness. Outside the story, darkness. I’ll save her. I have to. There’s no other choice. The story will continue. If I don’t, she’s lost.

The video skipped, the scene changing to the man pressing his face into the screen, wide eyes darting side to side in rapid succession.

I can feel a presence out there. Reaching for me. The smell of whiskey, cologne. Rain. Endless rain. Smoke. Exhaust.

Who are you? What do you want with me? How can a memory be so vivid, and yet so shrouded in darkness?

No. It’s a distraction. I need to stay focused. If you peer into the dark too long, even a shadow will grow a face.

The television short-circuited and the video cut out, causing me to snap back to reality with a jolt. Pain and I shared a look as a shiver ran down my spine. Unspoken questions hung in the air between us, the tension thick.

Between the images on the television and having an imaginary shadow for an ally… Was it… Was it finally happening? The psychotic break my mother’s doctor had warned me about, shortly after her death? Was her illness finally coming to take me too?

“What’s going on, Alan? Why is there a video of you playing on a TV in a gas station in the middle of nowhere?”

“I… I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I have no memory of that.”

“What do you mean? That’s you! How would you not know someone was filming you having a meltdown?”

I had no answers for Pain. I was so fixated upon the sole task I had set out to do in the first place: find a phone and call for help. My brain couldn’t process anything else, so I scanned a list of numbers Stucky had scrawled onto a paper by the phone. I punched the numbers for the Sheriff Station and waited as the phone rang and rang. I gripped the phone tight, desperately praying someone would answer.

“Bright Falls Sheriff Station.”

“Hello? My name is Alan Wake. I was staying here with my wife, Alice. Something’s happened. There’s been an accident…”

And so I explained what little I could remember, well aware of how it made me sound.

To my relief, the dispatch officer agreed to send a unit to my location. The call ended, the waiting began. I ate another granola bar for good measure, my stomach clawing at my insides. At least if I wasn’t starving, no one would be able to say this was a hunger-induced episode.

“Are you sure telling them the truth was the right move?” Pain asked from his position keeping watch by the front door. “Not everyone who wears a badge is a good person.”

“What else am I supposed to say? I need to find Alice.”

Pain glanced over his shoulder back at me, gave me a look over, and shook his head, tutting softly.

I chugged down the entirety of an energy drink and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand while glaring at Pain. Who was he to judge? Just what sort of credentials could a ghost have?

“I’m trying my best here. Cut me some slack.”

“You need to be careful. You’re too trusting.”

“Well I’m trusting you. Are you telling me I shouldn’t?”

Pain didn’t answer.

Time moved at a snail’s pace as we waited. My heavy eyes started to droop, and every time I drifted off, Pain woke me by calling my name. Despite his gruff demeanor, he had saved my life. He had shown no violence toward me, no sign that he wanted to see me hurt. Instead, he had helped me.

I wondered who he was, what he was, and why he was here. Either Pain didn’t know himself or he wasn’t willing to share. He seemed to know me, but I didn’t recognize him. For whatever reason, he had shown up and decided to follow me. Maybe I had wronged him somehow, and now he was haunting me from the afterlife. Maybe his presence had something to do with the seven days of missing time. Maybe there was a manuscript page out there in the forest which revealed all the answers.

One truth was certain: this was the worst treasure hunt anyone could have ever designed.

When flashing red and blue lights filled the dark convenience store, I stowed away the gun and flashlight into the messenger bag and went outside to meet my hopeful savior. Pain didn’t protest. A woman with brown hair pulled into a tight bun slid out of her cruiser. Pain watched the scene unfold from the sidelines.

“Mr. Wake? I’m Sheriff Breaker.”

Sheriff Breaker hadn’t addressed Pain, hadn’t asked about my shadowy friend, so it was clear she couldn’t see him, as I expected.

“Sheriff, thank God. I’ve been in an accident. My wife, Alice, she’s missing.”

“Yeah. So you explained on the phone.” She gestured with a tilt of her chin. “I see you’re injured.”

“I crashed on the road a few miles back,” I explained, talking so fast my words were slurring together. “I’ve been walking through the forest for hours just to get here, to find a phone. I called you as soon as I could.”

“Slow down, Mr. Wake, please.”

I swallowed my rising panic and tried to heed her request. “Just like I told the dispatcher, we were staying at a cabin on Cauldron lake, on an island—”

“There’s no island on Cauldron Lake.”

“What do you mean there’s no island?”

“Not since the seventies, with the big eruption from the lake.”

“That… No, that’s not right. There was a sign for Diver’s Isle! We parked our car right at the top of the pathway. We walked across a bridge to reach Bird Leg Cabin!”

Her hand fell to her hip, hovering over her holster, and suddenly I felt like I should have heeded Pain’s warning.

“You have to believe me,” I pleaded. “Something happened to Alice on the island. I don’t know where she is. I know how that sounds.”

Like the most overplayed excuse said by every asshole husband in thrillers. The self-reporting husband who went on a murder spree, killing his wife in some half-baked fuel of rage.

Sheriff Breaker sighed. “Okay, Mr. Wake. I’ll take to the lake so you can see for yourself.”

So I went with Sheriff Breaker, driving back down to Cauldron Lake. It wasn’t even that long of a drive, even if it had felt like an eternity on foot.

Breaker parked in the same place where Alice had. I was so certain of my truth, so ready to point and laugh, to brag about how I wasn’t insane, the world was.

Yet as I approached the weathered wooden railing, I realized with stark clarity I was wrong. Gravely wrong.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was no Bird Leg Cabin, no Diver’s Isle.

The caldera was nothing more than a lake, its dark waters glimmering under the moonlight.

Chapter Text

When Sheriff Breaker and I made it back to Bright Falls, the sun was rising over the town, bringing the start of a new day.

At the sheriff’s insistence, I was looked over by the town’s doctor. The cut on my head and my subsequent disorientation must have raised red flags. I couldn’t blame her. If I had been the one dispatched in the middle of the night to meet a wayward writer with a giant gash on his head, I would be concerned too.

Doc Nelson patched me up inside one of the many conference rooms inside the station. While he stitched my forehead back together, he regaled me about how Bright Falls had some of the best fishing spots in the entire state of Washington. After I found my missing wife, of course, I needed to take some time on a boat, with nothing but a fishing pole and open water to calm my mind. The thought of going out on the lake left me unsettled.

“Alright. Good as new,” Nelson said as he applied a small bandage over the stitches.

My fingers rubbed over the wound site and I winced.

“Sorry. It might hurt for a little while. Don’t do anything too rigorous.” He cleared his throat and smiled at me over his shoulder while he packed up his supplies. “By the way, Mr. Wake, I think Sarah, er, Sheriff Breaker, wanted to speak with you. She’s wonderful. A great detective, just like her father. She’ll find your wife in no time.”

I left the conference room, trying my best to calm my nerves. Sheriff Breaker just wanted to help. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I had no reason to be worried… and I certainly hadn’t done anything to hurt Alice, either, so I had no reason to feel guilty. Yet the black hole in my head where my memories should have been provided just enough doubt to keep me on edge.

Loud bickering carried down the hall. When I turned the corner to enter the lobby, the woman who had warned me not to go into the back of the Oh Deer Diner played with the lightswitch while another officer shook her head with displeasure. The flickering lights gave me an instant headache.

“Now Ms. Weaver, please,” the officer insisted as she tried her best to remain polite. “As you see, the lights are working just fine. We check them every day, just as you told us to do.”

“Good. Make sure that you do,” the woman said, clutching the strange lantern to her chest. “I’ll be back to check again before nightfall.”

Once the lantern lady was out on the street, the lobby worker’s face perked up again.

“Mr. Wake, glad to see you on your feet. Sheriff Breaker is in her office waiting for you.”

Inside the sheriff’s office, Sarah listened to the radio while looking over files at her desk.

“...No sign of him, sheriff. The garage’s thrashed. Looks like a tornado came through here. The float’s intact though. We’ll keep looking for Stucky, over.”

Sheriff Breaker pressed a button on the radio’s receiver, causing a light to turn on. “Thanks for the update, Mulligan. Let me know if the situation changes. Breaker out.”

Then, Sarah turned her attention to me. She gestured across her desk, so I took a seat in the lone chair in the room. Thankfully, only natural light filtered through her windows, easing my traveling headache.

“Feeling any better?” She asked.

All I could do was shrug. Some part of me wasn’t sure if answering that question honestly was a good idea.

“As you heard, we’re looking for the owner of the gas station. Stucky.” Sarah pulled out a yellow notepad and started writing. “He was supposed to rent you and your wife a cabin, correct?”

“Yeah.”

She tapped her pen against the pad. “And you were told to go out to a cabin on Cauldron Lake. You said you both parked up the road and went out to a cabin on Diver’s Isle.”

“Yeah. It was a two story cabin. The whole island was covered in crows. There was a stump outside with some initials…” I trailed off as I tried to recall what the initials were. Yet, the more I tried focusing on this one detail, the more the details around the rest of the cabin began to slip through my fingers. Had the windows been square, not circle?

“And yet when we drove there early this morning, you do understand there wasn’t a cabin there, correct?”

I sighed. “I’m aware. I know this sounds bad.”

“I’m not trying to question your memory, Mr. Wake, or make assumptions. I just want to make sure I understand the facts as you understand them.” Sarah finished writing and then glanced up. “Can you describe how you ended up at Stucky’s Gas Station?”

My hands gripped the arms of the chair tight. I could tell where this conversation was going. Stucky was missing because I had killed him. I’d burned him to death with a flashlight and shot him repeatedly to put him down. Sarah didn’t believe my assertion about there being a cabin on the lake. Why would she believe me when I explained Stucky had been taken by shadows and turned into something monstrous? She would think I killed him for the usual earthly reasons.

“I was driving away from the cabin. I must have been going too fast, because the next thing I knew I woke up inside my car with this gash on my head and the car smoking. I got out right before it tumbled down a cliff. I saw Stucky’s garage in the distance and figured it would be the best way to get help since my phone was dead.”

“Speaking of which…” Sarah dug into her jacket, pulled out my phone, and slid it across the desk. “I took the liberty of charging it while Doc Nelson patched you up.”

“Thanks.”

“So you wandered through the forest to reach Stucky’s, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And when you reached the gas station, was Stucky there?”

“No.” I scratched my stubbly chin. I thought about explaining how I’d found the place turned over, like there’d been a fight, but decided against it. Those details had come over the radio just as I walked in. I needed my own independent facts to share with Sarah, but I had none to offer.

“When you and your wife were at this cabin, was the vacation going well?”

Alice and I had once again fought over my writing. She hoped fresh air and a pretty view would be enough to inspire me but seeing the typewriter had just made me pissed off.

But I couldn’t tell Sarah that. So instead of discussing how things really went between Alice and I, I pivoted elsewhere.

“My wife’s a photographer. She seemed excited to take in the sights around the area.”

“I see.” Sarah tapped her pen against the paper again. “I’m sorry to ask this Mr. Wake, but was there any friction between the two of you? Had you been fighting? Is it possible she—”

Just as Sheriff Breaker was about to continue down her line of questioning, the door to her office burst open. A storm like no other swept inside. Donning a bright red puffy jacket, a blue Hawaiian shirt, and shorts was Barry Wheeler.

“My client is innocent and will no longer be taking questions directly,” he declared, stepping in front of where I sat. “From now on, you’ll be speaking with me and me only.”

Sarah gave Barry a once-over and raised a skeptical brow. “You’re his lawyer?”

Barry laughed. “No, even better: His best friend and agent.”

I wasn’t sure Barry could just wave his hand and make it so, but this was small town America. Sarah glanced at me for approval, and I didn’t question Barry. He had just become my legal counsel.

Sarah sighed and picked up where she left off. She asked her last remaining questions, and every time, Barry and I leaned in close together like we used to do as kids when we conspired. Each time, he leaned away and gave an answer for me. In turn, Sarah wrote down what he said, but she didn’t seem pleased about this turn of events.

“If that’s everything, Sheriff, then suffice to say, I don’t think you have anything on my client. His wife is missing, and we're wasting daylight when we could be searching for her.”

“I’ve already organized teams to patrol the area to look for her. We’ll keep in touch, Mr. Wake.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

Sarah escorted us back to the lobby, where Barry filled out a pair of forms so I would be able to leave.

“Sorry for not getting here sooner,” Barry said while skimming through the document. “Wanted to smooth things over with Danny,” my publisher, “before heading out here. As far as the world knows, you and Alice are having a much needed romantic vacation without hiccups. We don’t want a media frenzy out here.”

Barry had thought of everything. When he called himself my best friend, he was absolutely right. I owed him a lifetime of gratitude. The last thing I needed was for the media to swarm around Bright Falls and sling accusations. It was hard enough being unable to remember what happened to Alice, but the thought of not knowing and simultaneously being blamed for her disappearance made me sick to my stomach.

When Barry was finished, he turned back to me and grinned. “Trust me, Al, we’re gonna find her.”

I hugged him in the middle of the lobby, burying my face into his shoulder. Hidden by the puffy red jacket, no one would see me shed a few tears. The last twenty-four hours had been miserable.

“Thanks,” I said, my throat tight.

“Hey, of course.” He patted my back in comfort. “It’s going to be okay.”

If Barry wasn’t here, I would’ve spiraled into madness. The unknowns would tear me apart. With him here, I could breathe a little easier. The situation was dire, but I was treading water with him at my side. He wouldn’t let me drown; he never had in the past.

A tall, lanky man in a green sweater entered the lobby right as Barry and I were about to leave.

“Oh glad to have finally caught you Mr. Wake. I’ve been looking for you.”

Barry, bless him, stepped in front of me before the man could introduce himself.

“Who are you?”

“Doctor Emil Hartman. I run a mental health retreat for struggling creatives.”

After hearing his name, I saw red.

“So you’re the asshole who convinced Alice to come out here!”

Hartman smiled thinly. “Your wife reached out to me, Mr. Wake, not the other way around.”

And then it all happened so fast. One minute I was shielded by Barry, the next I was in front of him, going for Hartman. I grabbed him by the front of his vomit-green sweater and drove my fist into his smug face. If not for Barry suddenly restraining me, I would have done it again and again and—

“And here I was coming to offer my services in aid of finding your wife.” Hartman gingerly rubbed his face and shot me a glare. “Now I see why she reached out to me in the first place.”

I thrashed against Barry and snarled at Hartman like a rabid dog. “Don’t you dare talk about my wife!”

“She warned me about your temper.” Hartman smirked. “I should remind you, Mr. Wake, of where you are and who’s watching your little outburst.”

“He’s right, Al,” Barry whispered in my ear. “Cool it. Please.”

The whole police station was watching, including Sarah from her position leaning in her office’s door frame. It wasn’t a good look: belligerent husband with a missing wife who conveniently couldn’t remember the last seven days. I was fucked on multiple levels.

“Perhaps you should come by my clinic sometime. When you need a break from searching. I think it would be good for you.”

“Fuck off.”

“Annnnnnnnd now we’re leaving.”

Barry ushered me out of the Sheriff’s station, practically shoving me onto the street.

“God, imagine if you didn’t have someone like me handling your PR. Jesus fuck it would be a disaster.”

With my arms folded across my chest, I leered at Barry. Even if he was right, he didn’t need to rub it in.

My freshly charged phone began buzzing in my pocket, and when I pulled it out, the caller ID read “unknown number.” Barry noticed my screen and urged me to answer.

“Hello?”

“Alan? Alan, hello?”

My eyes widened. “A-Alice? Honey, where are you? What’s going on?”

“Alan, please help—”

“Listen, Wake,” a man’s voice cut off Alice, “if you ever want to see your fucking wife again, you’ll stop talking to the goddamn cops. You’ll come out to Elderwood National Park. Lovers’ Peak. Tonight. Midnight. You tell the cops, she’s dead. You understand?”

“Who are you? What do you want with us?”

“You want answers? You’ll do as I say.”

“I… I want some proof. How do I know Alice is even alive? That you even have her?”

“Heh. Do you really think you have any bargaining power, Wake?”

My hand clenched into a fist at my side.

“Fine. Go behind the Sheriff's station. There’s a clunker in the lot. You’ll find your proof. Believe it or don’t. It’s your pretty little wife’s blood on your hands either way.”

The call ended before I could get more details.

Static buzzed in my ears. The world narrowed to this one singular goal: get behind the Sheriff’s station. I ran off without explaining anything to Barry, who shouted after me. I couldn’t make out what he was saying over the sound of my feet pounding against the pavement. I turned a corner and raced up the sidewalk to get to the back lot behind the station. A chain link fence stood in my way, so I started climbing.

At least until Barry grabbed the bottom of my shirt and tugged me back down to the sidewalk. “You want to explain what you’re doing, bud?”

“That was the kidnapper,” I said. “He says he has Alice. He said the proof’s hidden here.”

I shared the rest of the information from the call—about the meetup in Elderwood National Park.

“I don’t like this, Al. What does this guy want with Alice? What’s he hoping to ransom her for?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. Either way, I have to find the clue he left behind.”

Barry folded his arms across his chest and shook his head, but there was little else he could do to stop me. I started climbing again, swinging my legs over the top of the chain-link fence and dropping down onto the other side.

“This plan sounds like a one way ticket towards getting yourself killed!”

I gritted my teeth. “What else am I going to do?”

Barry threw up his hands and let out a bereaved sigh. “Fine! Fine. You want to go straight to jail, not pass go, not collect 200 dollars, then be my guest.”

“Keep watch and it won’t be an issue, then,” I said over my shoulder as I stalked off.

There was an old junker on the far side of the lot behind the Sheriff’s Station, right where the kidnapper had said it would be. I had no idea what I was looking for, but my best guess was to look through the truck while Barry kept watch.

“He’s right, Alan.”

Startled, my head jerked up, narrowly missing the roof of the car. I leaned back to search for the source of the voice. In broad daylight, Pain leaned against the hood of the truck with his arms folded across his chest. I wasn’t sure if I should be grateful to see him here or annoyed.

“It’s… It’s you,” I mumbled, brows rising in surprise.

“You remember me?”

I scratched the back of my head. “Uh… Yeah, you’re the shadow from last night. I called you Pain because you wouldn’t tell me your name.”

Pain pushed off the hood of the truck and shook his head. “Yeah. Sure. That’s right.”

Last night, I was certain Pain was a result of my concussion. But now, in the middle of the morning, the sun couldn’t pierce the darkness cloaked around Pain. The area where his face should have been was still scrawled out.

“I thought you were just a ghost in the forest. What are you doing here?” I asked. I needed answers, to let off some steam, and he was the only factor I couldn’t account for in this mess. Just who was he? What was he? A figment of my imagination? A ghost haunting me?

“How the hell should I know?” Pain shrugged.

“Is there anything you can just answer directly?”

“I can’t answer what I don’t know!”

“You’re really getting on my nerves. Why can’t you answer a single question?” I groaned, rifling through the car. The longer this back and forth went on, the higher the likelihood Barry would notice me talking to myself while I searched the car.

“Guess you gave me a fitting name if a simple conversation is enough to irritate you.”

“I don’t have time for this…”

“By the way, is this what you’re looking for?”

My eyes snapped back to Pain. He held a driver’s license between two wispy fingers, and I instantly recognized the picture—Alice.

“Where did you find that?” I asked in a hushed voice. I wasn’t ready to explain why I was talking to myself in the alley.

“It was in the bed of the truck.”

Of course. The one place I hadn’t searched yet.

“Give me that.”

I snatched the driver’s license from Pain’s grasp and stared down at it with a heavy heart. In the picture, Alice smiled up at me, and guilt corroded my strength. She was totally innocent in this. If only I hadn’t carelessly trusted that old woman at the diner…

“What’s going on?” Pain asked. “Isn’t that your wife’s? Why is it here?”

My hands tightened around the license. “She’s… She’s been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?”

“The kidnapper just called me. They said I have to meet them. No cops.”

Despite having a snarky answer to everything I said, Pain was silent. It left me unnerved. Even my shadowy companion who professed to know his way around trouble was at a loss for words.

“What are you going to do?” He finally asked.

I rubbed my arm, fidgeting. “What else am I supposed to do?” I sighed. “I don’t have a choice. I’m going to meet him tonight at Lovers’ Peak.”

“Just be careful, Alan.”

And then Pain stalked off, fading into nothingness.

Alone again in the lot, it was hard to not feel like the walls were closing in around me. I was in over my head. Morning hadn’t brought clarity; it had instead revealed just how screwed I was.

“C’mon Al! Hurry up!” Barry called out to me.

I pocketed the driver’s license and headed back for the fence. I climbed over and dropped back onto the sidewalk.

Barry shoved his arms into his pockets. “So, did you find whatever it is they left for you?”

“Yeah.” I showed him the license. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m parked up the street.”

Once inside the car and heading towards the national park, I breathed a little easier. We were on the way to making this right.

Circumstances in Bright Falls were dire, weird, and desperate, but I wasn’t alone. I had Barry in the driver’s seat, taking me up to the national forest where I’d rent a cabin and spend the next several hours before going out to meet the kidnapper.

My eyes glanced up at the rearview mirror to see a familiar shadowy figure sitting—not hovering—in the car. At some point during our trip, Pain had manifested in the back seat like he was coming along for the ride. So, I guess I had Pain too as an unlikely ally. For whatever reason, he was following me around Bright Falls and seemed interested in helping me like some kind of grumpy guardian angel.

I could trust Barry, at least, in the midst of this crisis. Pain, though? He hadn’t shown any sign of being against me, despite his gruff mannerisms. He’d done plenty to aid me, in fact. I owed him my life… but who was he, really? Why was he here? Why was he withholding information about himself? If I was supposed to know him, then why was he just a bunch of shadows and scribbles, redactions on a walking page?

Barry turned the radio down and glanced at me across the center console with a worry in his brow.

“So, I think you should bring me fully up to speed. How about you start from the beginning. What happened last week? Don’t spare any details. I’m your friend, Al. I want to save her just as much as you do.”

I swallowed thickly. “I… I don’t know…”

“Alan, you’re my best friend. I’ve been with you since we were kids. Whatever’s going on, whatever happened between you and Alice, you can tell me. We’ve already been through a lot.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised Barry would drop the “best friends for life” card. It was his ace up his sleeve. He knew exactly what he was doing, trying his best to reassure me.

Barry knew about my mother’s illness, how it was possibly genetic, how I was vulnerable to developing similar symptoms as I became older. He knew I struggled with staying grounded. If I told him about everything that happened last night, would he assume I was finally experiencing the mental break I’d feared all my young adult life? Or would he trust me to know truth from fiction?

Maybe I was worked up after Hartman’s taunts, the phone call, the crumbling state of my own psyche. Maybe I was desperate to wrap my head around what had happened last night, too. Maybe I just needed to take a chance on my best friend.

So I decided to tell Barry everything—even the facts which seemed out of this world. The manuscript pages. Stucky. The way light burned away the darkness cloaked around him.

“A shadow person? Light beating back darkness? Doesn’t that seem a bit uh… like something you’d write?”

“I think that’s precisely the point. I think I wrote the pages I found, but I don’t remember writing them. I don’t know how they got out there in the forest.”

“Uh huh…”

I glanced back at Pain in the mirror, swallowing thickly. I needed to tell Barry the full truth. If Pain was going to continue haunting me, then there was a high possibility Barry would catch me talking to him anyways. I needed to get ahead of Barry’s questions before he could even ask them. Barry and I had never kept secrets from each other. My best friend deserved to know.

“There’s… There’s something else you should know.”

“Alright.” Barry gripped the steering wheel tighter as he braced himself. “Go ahead, buddy.”

“There’s another shadow man following me around.”

Barry nodded slowly. “And he’s… the same as this Stucky?”

“No. He’s not trying to kill me. He helped me, actually. Saved my life.”

“Who exactly is this guy?”

“I don’t know. He seems to know who I am, though.” I chuckled to myself. “I call him Pain.”

“Pain?” Barry raised a brow. “Like pain and suffering?”

“I named him that because he’s been a pain in my ass.”

“Oh. Like someone else I know.” Barry smiled half-heartedly. A beat passed, and then he took a deep breath. “There’s just something I need to ask. Don’t take it the wrong way, Al... You haven’t been using again, have you?”

My face fell in shame. I understood why Barry had to ask, even if it hurt.

“I haven’t.”

Pain leaned closer from the back seat, his head turning back and forth between Barry and I. “What the fuck is he talking about? What does he mean?”

I couldn’t answer while Barry was here. Just because I had told him the truth about Pain’s existence didn’t mean I was about to start talking directly to him in Barry’s presence. Especially about something so personal. Displeased, Pain growled in frustration and disappeared, leaving me alone with Barry in the car.

“Okay,” Barry said, sighing heavily. “Really glad to hear that.”

“I made a promise,” I muttered. The least I could do was honor it. Maybe no one else would have believed me, but I knew the truth.

“So let me summarize what’s happened. You and Alice came here to Bright Falls on the ferry. You stopped at the diner. There was this old lady in the back. She’s in vintage funeral clothes. Looks like something out of a horror movie. She’s not the person you’re supposed to meet for a cabin, but you took her key anyway.”

I cringed. The way Barry described it, I sounded like an idiot who had been easily duped.

“Then you and Alice drive out to the lake, and you say there was an actual physical cabin on it. Diver’s Isle. But the sheriff says there isn’t one. Let’s go with your story. So you and Alice settle in, have a fight because she brought a typewriter to your serial killer cabin. You storm out, then the next thing you know, she’s gone, and you’re missing seven days worth of time. Am I following?”

“Yeah.”

“You got into a car accident and a shadow guy helps you get out. You call him Pain. You’re bad at nicknames.”

I couldn’t help but crack a smile, even if he sounded skeptical.

“You two go out into the forest to make it to Stucky’s gas station since your phone’s dead. You’re out in the woods and you find a handful of manuscript pages for a novel with your name on it but it’s one you don’t remember writing. The pages predict what’s about to happen next: something possessing the gas station owner, the guy you were supposed to get the cabin keys from.”

“...Yeah.”

“And you… killed him.”

“It was in self-defense Barry, I swear.”

Barry spared a glance at me while driving. I could tell from the furrow in his brow he was processing everything I’d said. It was a lot to take in.

There was one question I needed to ask him. The ugliest of them all.

“Do you… Do you think I killed her?”

Barry frowned. “You’ve been an asshole to a lot of people in the past, including me, unfortunately. I think there’s a few people you’ve wanted to punch over the years, but you’d never kill them.” He reached across the console and covered my hand to give it a squeeze. “And I know for a fact you’d never hurt Alice.”

Tears of relief welled in my eyes. Barry spoke with conviction. He meant every word. He trusted me.

“We’ll figure it out. I’m not leaving till I have my best buddy and his wife in one piece.”

I sniffled and smiled back at him. “Thanks, Barry. I’m really glad you’re here.”

Chapter Text

Barry handled the paperwork to allow us to rent a cabin for a day out in Elderwood National Park. He was always willing to handle the logistics. My eyes glazed over any time I spared a glance at a form.

The park’s visitor center was also a small museum sharing information about the local wildlife and plants. There was even a large skeleton of an animal which once roamed this area millions of years ago.

It was hard to appreciate any of it though when all I could think about was Alice in the hands of the kidnapper. I hated waiting, stewing in my own guilt and disgust. Why would someone want to harm my wife? She had never wronged anyone. The only reason which made any sense was money; someone wanted to hurt Alice to get us to pay up. If money wasn’t the reason, if all this was some plot to hurt me, then it was working.

I stepped out onto the building’s platform which overlooked the valley below and tall mountains on the horizon. A sign on the rail pointed in either direction for the two landmark peaks. The park ranger’s dog laid on its side with one of its paws wrapped in a white bandage.

This was going to be a long afternoon. The presence of the gun I’d found last night weighed heavily in my bag. Killing Stucky had been for self-defense, just as I had explained to Barry. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to use it against the kidnapper, but I would do anything to protect Alice.

Feeling antsy, I pushed off the railing to head back into the building to meet up with Barry. But as I turned around, Pain suddenly reappeared in front of me.

“Don’t startle me like that.” I side-stepped Pain, but he instantly teleported in front of me again. “What’s your problem?”

“Explain what he was talking about, back in the car.”

“About what?”

“Don’t play coy.” He advanced, pushing me back up against the railing with his presence. “He said you used. Is that true?”

I was cornered. I’d been able to ignore his shouted questions in the car to make him go away. But out here on the overlook, it was just us, and through the glass door, I noticed Barry was still occupied. I had nowhere to go, and I had a bad feeling Pain would pester me until I answered.

“Look I just… I don’t like talking about it.”

“Answer the question.”

Why did Pain care? Why was he pushing so hard to know? It was all over the tabloids.

“Fine.” I clutched the strap of my messenger bag in a fool-hardy attempt at self-comfort. “So I… I used cocaine a few times. What does it matter? I stopped.”

“Do you realize how dangerous that shit is? You could’ve died. What the hell could’ve been so horrible in your goddamn cushy life that you would be willing to throw it all away?”

Pain’s voice boomed. He was furious, and no one but me could hear his shouting. It made me shrink back, it made me want to run and hide with embarrassment. It was hard enough having to answer to Barry, my best friend, even if he had been compassionate but firm.

“I-I don’t know, okay?” I stammered. “I was just depressed, I guess.”

“Over what?” He sneered. “Books not selling fast enough?”

“Screw you.”

This time, I wouldn’t let Pain stop me from leaving. I didn’t have to listen to a ghost berate and belittle me over one mistake; I did that plenty on my own.

“No, I want to hear it, Wake. What was so wrong in your perfect life?”

My perfect life? What was so fucking perfect about me and my life? I stopped suddenly, swiveling on Pain. “The hell do you know about me and my life?”

“You were sitting pretty with check after check. Raking in all that money from your showpony.”

“Yeah? And where did it get me?”

“You had everything and it wasn’t good enough—”

“Fuck you! You want to know why I used? I just wanted to feel something, okay?” I shouted, causing the birds in nearby trees to fly off. Surely everyone could hear me in the immediate surroundings: Alan Wake, the mysterious writer losing his cool, arguing with himself, making a scene. “I was numb, Pain! I couldn’t feel anything. I was sick after my seizure. Does that make you happy to hear?”

Pain’s voice grew quiet. “Seizure? What seizure?”

Pins and needles rushed up my arms and legs. Why were we having this conversation? What did it matter? It was in the past. I had bigger things to worry about than answering to mistakes from nearly a year ago.

“Why do you care?”

The lines shifting over Pain’s face stilled. He reached for me and then retracted his hand, realizing yet again it was pointless.

“I always worry about you,” Pain said softly. “Even at my angriest, I never want you to hurt yourself.”

My shoulders relaxed a little. He sounded genuine. I had no reference to understand why he would feel this way, but it made me sad—was Pain just another person I had let down? Another person to fret over me, the unstable writer. Was there anyone out there who I hadn’t tremendously disappointed? Why did I repeatedly bring trouble to the few people who actually cared about me?

“I genuinely want to understand what happened, Alan. I’m not as familiar as you think.”

There was something about the way he asked that made me feel like I could open up about the experience. Like he cared.

“I…” My hands on the bag’s strap tightened. “I had a seizure a few months after publishing my sixth novel.”

Writing the sixth book had done something to me. This period of time was arguably my lowest, a constant creative struggle. I hadn’t seen the red flags until it was too late. I was hurtling towards calamity. My house of cards was built on shaky foundations. I should have taken precautions to prevent burn out, I should have taken my time with the book, but there had been so much pressure: from the public, my publisher, my friends and loved ones. Especially myself. I strove for perfection, and instead I had written perhaps my worst book of them all, no matter what fans or reviews claimed.

“The seizure messed me up. I lost large chunks of my memory. Retrograde amnesia, my doctor said. If I’m supposed to know who you are, then I guess I must have Iost my memory of you.”

“I’ve… I’ve gathered that now.”

My heart panged in my chest. “Well sorry. I didn’t forget on purpose.”

“I’m aware.” Pain sighed. “How did this lead to you taking drugs?”

I swallowed thickly. Was I really about to recount this to a ghost?

Except… Except Pain was more than a mere haunting shadow. He was speaking with me. Being far more patient than I deserved. The truth wasn’t pretty, but maybe he would understand.

Maybe I needed to talk with someone about this; after all, it’s what everyone said I should have done during my recovery period. I hadn’t done that, of course. I’d bottled everything up out of shame and regret.

“I struggled in the aftermath of the seizure. I tried to pretend everything was fine for a while, but it wasn’t. I was too afraid and too proud to tell anyone something was wrong.”

During the press tour for The Sudden Stop, I binge drank myself into a stupor day after day. The majority of my public appearances involved me being intoxicated to some extent. There were days spent completely blacked out when I missed an entire afternoon’s worth of events, and the tabloids crucified me for my reckless lifestyle. My fans noticed, turning on me. My publisher wasn’t happy, and there was talk of dropping my name from their list of authors. I was becoming more than a liability; I was a runaway train off its rails.

When it came time to get back to writing, to start on a new series, I couldn’t do it. My problems became a self-destructive cycle: frustration with writing turned to apathy which turned into feeling nothing which led to further depression… so on and so forth. My writer’s block was an ouroboros, and I was eating myself alive.

“I couldn’t write because I was so focused on trying to remember what I had forgotten. I still haven’t recovered.”

“Being unable to write isn’t an excuse to set yourself on fire.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Writing… Writing meant everything to me. Maybe you can’t understand, but it was more than just a career. It was part of my identity, part of who I was for years. Feeling cut off from it was total agony.”

I was trying to keep my anger in check, to remember where I was.

“How would you feel having something always on the tip of your tongue? Feeling like you’ve lost something pretty damn important. I was aware of it every single day. Everyone expected me to create my next big story, but I couldn’t do it. The anxiety was just so overwhelming it made me feel immobilized. I just…”

I didn’t like thinking about that time. I had been catatonic. Barely functioning.

“I hoped drugs would make me feel like I could write, like I could be a functioning person again.” I frowned. “But I was wrong. It didn’t do any of that. It just made me want more cocaine.”

Even saying the word made my skin crawl. It made me want to hyper-fixate on the word, to picture it in my mind. This many months clean, and I could still fantasize about the rush…

“Barry followed me one night when I went to go meet my dealer. He caught me before I could buy more.”

My best friend had seen my ugliness countless times, but catching me trying to buy drugs was one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life.

“I only used it a couple of times, but the damage was done. Getting clean took months. In the end, I didn’t feel any better. I just felt more depressed because I’d scared everyone who’s stupid enough to care about me.”

I scratched my arm and hung my head in shame. My heart ached so much. “I just wanted to stop hurting as much.”

Before trying drugs, I had been suicidal. I wasn’t just having the occasional bad day. No, every single day was a bad one. I had to go out in front of the world and tell everyone I was fine on the press tour, when I knew I wasn’t. Using had been my alternative to suicide, but to my loved ones the two were one in the same.

“I fucked up. Because that’s what I am. A constant fuckup.” I pressed a hand to my head as my wound throbbed. I turned away to lean against the railing. “It was fine when it was just my life I was ruining, but now?”

I swallowed thickly and could feel my psyche begin to unravel.

“Now Alice is missing. All because I fought with her over my fucking writing. I should have just humored her. I should have just tried. What kind of terrible husband yells at their wife when she’s just trying to help?”

“You’re not a bad husband.”

“You don’t know that. Everyone I love just ends up getting hurt because of me. If I’d just killed myself this would have never happened.”

Pain moved closer to me. “Don’t say that. Please.”

What did Pain care? He seemed to hate me… but maybe he’d gone through something similar. Maybe that was why he was haunting me, because the universe felt I needed to learn a lesson.

“I don’t know why I told you.”

I’d never told anyone about those feelings. I kept them locked away for years, but for some reason, I opened up to Pain like it was nothing.

“Alan,” Pain rasped, “I didn’t… I never wanted to see you suffer because of—”

And there it was. A stark reminder of why I didn’t, couldn’t, open up to anyone. I couldn’t stand seeing Alice and Barry fuss over me, I couldn’t stand how they treated me like glass, how they would never be able to fully trust me again. And now, foolishly, I had revealed something so personal to Pain. Would he treat me differently now?

“Can we please not talk about it anymore?” I blurted. “I need to focus on the present, on helping Alice.”

I’d had enough.

“Fine,” Pain conceded, and the conversation was over.

Chapter Text

Barry and I met back at the car. We had a long drive up to our cabin, so we drove with the windows down and Pat Maine’s radio station on low in the background.

The car ride was tense and silent between Barry and I. He was still unpacking everything I’d told him on the ride to the visitor center. He was worried for Alice, for me. Barry was a great fixer, but there were some miracles beyond him.

Pain was in the backseat again, watching me through the mirror with his strange, scratched out face. He hadn’t abandoned me despite hearing me admit my worst mistake.

It was becoming more and more clear we had history. He had a vested interest in me for reasons I couldn’t remember. Last night, I thought maybe I’d wronged him in some way, causing him to just haunt me for revenge. Yet back at the visitor center, he had seemed genuinely concerned. It made me anxious, knowing there was a Pain shaped hole in my memories, sensing its presence but being unable to fill in the void with something meaningful.

“So how exactly did you kill Stucky?” Barry asked while fiddling with a knob on the truck’s dashboard. “No offense, you’re not exactly an action hero.”

I looked away, staring out the window as the forest landscape flew past us. “I… I shot him.”

Barry paused. “...And when did you have time to purchase a gun before Alice went missing?”

“I didn’t. It just showed up while I was out there in the forest last night.”

“Okay… Right.” Barry let out a long bereaved sigh. “Do you really think you should be carrying a gun, Alan? Considering your situation… We can ditch it in the mountains.”

As a noir writer, I perfectly understood what Barry was implying. I was literally carrying the smoking gun, but it was worth the risk. I needed protection, a weapon, because Barry was right. No one would listen to me if I asked nicely. If the shadow monsters came back while I was out in the forest, I would need the gun and the flashlight.

“This guy has Alice, Barry. You don’t think he’s going to be armed, too?”

I was getting Alice back one way or another, but the thought of using the gun again made me sick to my stomach. In the heat of the moment against Stucky, I had nearly frozen, paralyzed by fear and something… something I couldn’t name, and yet it was there in the back of my skull, an ever-present reminder of something important missing.

“I’m aware.” He rubbed the side of his face and groaned. “Do you even have bullets?”

“Bought some while you were getting gas for the truck.”

He looked me over, assessing my haggard state. “And do you even know how to shoot?”

“Of course I do.”

“Great. Glad to hear it cowboy.”

I could tell Barry was being sarcastic. He didn’t believe I was ready for what was in store, but he was wrong. Yet, it wouldn’t hurt to practice more. My encounter with Stucky hadn’t gone smoothly; I’d used every single round to put Stucky down. It was embarrassing as much as it was damning.

Barry peered through the windshield and pointed to a spot up ahead, off to the side of the road. “Well we’re here. Home sweet temporary home.”

Our cabin was perched on an overlook with the forested valley below. Compared to the cabin on Diver’s Isle, this lodging was maintained, clean, and picturesque. This was the kind of place Alice and I should have been staying at, not a ramshackle hut on an island.

We pulled up at the base of the hill and climbed a set of stairs to reach the cabin. Barry stretched, yawned, and headed inside to make some calls. Business didn’t stop, even when he was on ‘vacation.’

I stayed outside, sitting on the porch steps to think. We had a long day ahead of us full of waiting. The kidnapper had said midnight, and it was only half-past noon.

“You’re right about needing to be armed if you’re going to confront this guy, but you can’t respond to danger the way you did last night.”

Pain stood above me, a tall hulking figure who didn’t cast a shadow onto me.

“I’m aware.” I rubbed at my tired eyes. “I’ll practice.”

“Had you ever actually shot a gun before last night?”

I shook my head. When writing my crime novels, I’d gone to the library and done research, but I’d never gone to a gun range to experience firing a weapon for myself.

Pain settled in beside me on the porch. “Let’s see what you’re working with.”

My stomach turned at the thought of drawing the gun. It was just a gun, an inanimate object, but as I stared down at it at the bottom of my messenger bag, I hesitated.

“You need to protect yourself. Don’t be scared.”

Pain was right. I took a deep breath and pulled the gun from the bag. I held it in my hands, turning the weapon over to show him. It wasn’t loaded, but it still weighed heavy in my palm.

“You’re using a side-loader, so this means you’re going to need to reload the bullets into the chamber one at a time. You’re going to have to get used to doing that quickly. You can’t be fumbling around while someone’s charging at you.”

Stucky hadn’t been my enemy. He’d been a victim of circumstances beyond my control, but he had still tried to kill me. I didn’t have a choice when I shot him. It was self-defense, and luckily I hadn’t needed more than six shots.

“It’ll be different when I confront the kidnapper,” I mumbled.

“No, it won’t. In fact, it’ll be much harder to stay focused. You’ll be pissed off and scared. Your wife’s life will be in your hands. Maybe he’ll be holding her at gunpoint, and you’ll have to be ready to shoot him. You really think you’re ready for that?”

I scoffed. “What choice do I have?”

“You could take a hint from your friend and practice, for starters. Familiarize yourself with the gun. Practice reloading.”

I turned the gun over in my hands and started practicing loading and unloading the gun. I slid each round in one at a time, first going slow, and then faster once I started getting the hang of it.

Pain was right, even if it stung my pride to admit. I had no idea how I’d react in a crisis situation like this. I was never good at controlling my anger, and the mere thought of the kidnapper pressing a barrel to Alice’s skull to order me around made my blood boil.

“Okay, good. Looks like you’ve got that down. Remember to stay calm when you’re reloading. You don’t want to drop any.”

It would be just my luck. I’d panic in the middle of reloading, and I’d lose all my bullets. I’d be dead before I had time to bend down and collect them again.

The silver caught my muddied reflection. I was fucked.

“Do you know how to shoot, Pain?”

Pain snorted. “Of course.”

“Can you teach me?”

The shifting shadows on his face stilled as he hesitated. I didn’t want to beg for his help, but if I had to, I would.

“Alright,” he said after a long beat passed. He gestured with a tilt of his head towards the nearby treeline. “We can use the trees for target practice. Bring the bullets you bought.”

As we headed over to the area we would use as a makeshift firing range, I emptied my mind of everything except my desire to practice. I needed to absorb whatever Pain could teach me if I wanted to have any chance of saving Alice.

He started by explaining the important fundamentals: the different parts of the gun and how to fire it. Some of the intricate particulars didn’t seem relevant, but I wasn’t about to question my already-prickly teacher.

When it came time to show me the correct firing position, Pain demonstrated despite being a silhouette. I tried to mimic Pain’s stance as best as I could, but he shook his head.

“No, shoulder-width apart, more like…”

And then, as if on instinct, he reached for me. Unlike all the previous times, however, his hand didn’t phase through me like a ghost.

We were both struck by this new occurrence, fixated upon the spot on my arm where his palm burned through three layers of my clothing. How was it possible for Pain to be able to touch me now, when last night he had phased through me? Since when were ghosts, or whatever Pain was, able to take on a physical form? Yet, he had been able to pick up Alice’s license…

Before I could question him, Pain moved behind me, and suddenly I could feel his whole body pressed into mine. My heart thudded against my ribcage, and my pulse pounded in my ears so loud I feared Pain could hear it too. Could Pain feel me too? Or was this new revelation one-sided?

“Spread your legs a little more,” he murmured into my ear, causing a questionable shiver to run down my spine.

Those words ignited something in me. A spark I didn’t know existed until now. It roared into a flame as his breath tickled my skin. I obeyed his request without question, biting my lip as he leaned closer into my frame. His arms came around my body to maneuver me into the correct position. His hands were over mine holding the gun, and I could feel them too—rough, calloused, so incredibly different from mine. This close, I could smell whiskey on his warm breath, the brush of his clothes shifting against my back. It was as if my pulse had become his, suddenly joined.

“With a wider stance, you’ll be able to keep your balance when the gun fires…”

I was trying to listen and pay attention, but something about Pain being this close to me was making my head spin. The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of trouble. My emotions were all over the place, but there was no logical explanation for why I was getting flustered with Pain behind me. It made no sense. I barely knew him, and I wasn’t…

Yet, some dark, twisted part of my subconscious came to life, screaming in my head to press back into him, seeking him out for something. What was I looking for? Warmth, comfort? No, surely not, but I couldn’t otherwise define what the hell was going on.

“…Are you following?”

Right, the lesson. I’d completely missed everything Pain had just said.

“Can you repeat that?” I breathed, swallowing heavily.

He sighed in my ear, causing my face to warm. “Focus, Alan. This is serious.”

With his stern reprimand, I pushed aside my strange, sudden feelings and tried to be a good student. After all, Pain didn’t have to do this for me. He explained how to aim, how to lead a target, and how important it was to be patient, even in the midst of a fight. Controlling my breaths was critical, too, but I found it difficult to do while standing so close to Pain who was practically embracing me.

“Alright, I think you’re ready to try shooting.”

I didn’t want to fuck this up. I didn’t want Pain’s lesson to go to waste, but no part of me felt confident.

“Just remember, when the gun fires, you’re going to feel it recoil. The shot will be loud. Don’t close your eyes or wince. Otherwise you risk missing your target. Aim for the second branch on the tree,” he directed.

And then Pain stepped back. I mourned his loss behind me, even if it was the natural next step in his lesson. Focus, I told myself over and over like a mantra. I took a deep breath, aimed, and fired a single round.

The gun went off with a bang, the power of the shot rippling up my arms. I stared down at my hand holding the gun in shock. It was different this time. Better, somehow. The weight on my chest was gone. I exhaled in relief.

Pain blinked in and out of existence, reappearing beside the tree he had chosen as our target. “Well, you hit the tree. Not exactly where I was thinking. But you did it. Not bad. It’s a start.” Pain chuckled. “Now do it again.”

We went through several drills. I’d purchased more than enough bullets to justify using them to practice, and we had all afternoon. I wanted to be ready. I was tired of being a victim of fate, feeling powerless as the people I loved were put into jeopardy because of my inaction. I wanted to be the hero for once, the kind of protagonist I’d write about.

And, if I was honest with myself, I was enjoying the lesson from Pain. He was a good teacher. Supportive. Maybe even a little playful. I wondered what else he could teach me.

When the sun began to sink over the western mountain range, we packed up the gear and considered the lesson complete.

“One last thing,” Pain added, “make sure you have a couple bullets and batteries in your innermost hoodie. You never know when you might lose your bag or have your stuff stolen from you. You’ll want to have something until you can get more supplies.”

It was sound advice. I didn’t want to be without my messenger bag, but anything could happen out in the woods.

“How do you know this much about surviving?” I asked.

“You wrote me this way.”

My brows shot up. “Me? What do you mean? Are you saying you’re… you’re one of my characters? How? I thought you were a ghost.”

I narrowed my gaze at him, wracking my brain to try and remember him with only a handful of context clues. Nothing came to mind.

“Which story are you from?”

Pain hesitated. He stood there in the dimming daylight at a loss for words. Clearly he hadn’t meant to admit this.

“...Don’t remember the titles,” he muttered, matter-of-fact. “Guess knowing all this is just part of my backstory.”

Curious, I pressed for more details. “Well, are you a main or side character?”

The lines on Pain’s face moved quicker, like he was panicking. “How should I know? Aren’t you the main character of your own life?”

I smiled half-heartedly. “People tend to call that being self-centered.” Which I was.

If Pain was aware he was a character in a book, then he must have been aware of more. If he came from my imagination, then surely he would have more information. Yet, for some reason, he didn’t want to tell me. The dramatic irony of my situation wasn’t lost on me; it was like the roles had reversed, with him knowing all the facts and me, the character, being left in the dark.

“How am I able to see you?”

“I don’t know…”

“If you’re just a character in my books, then you’re just a figment of my imagination. I shouldn’t have been able to touch you.”

“Alan, is this really—”

I reached out for him, cutting him off. When Pain tried to move away, I chased after him. I backed him up into the side of the cabin, cornering him as he had cornered me back at the visitor center. I splayed my fingers against where his chest should have been, and my eyes widened. I could feel him beneath the shadows cloaking his frame. The texture of his clothes: leather—the smooth fabric of his shirt, a button-up—and a tie, silken. Underneath all these layers, I could feel the impression of muscles. My wayward fingers explored, and Pain didn’t stop me. Instead, I heard the softest inhalation of his breath.

“You can’t be a hallucination,” I said, definitively. “You feel as real as anything else I can interact with. What’s changed?”

“How should I know?” Pain’s voice had dropped an octave. It was low, husky. “Why do you always care about the why? I’m here with you now. Why is that never enough?”

“Just what are you saying, Pain? Are you trying to tell me we’ve been in this situation before?”

Pain stared back at me, the darkness over his face more frustrating than ever before. I just wanted to understand what was going on, but every new clue seemed to only create more questions.

“You were in trouble and you called for me.”

How had I called for him? If I had forgotten him, how could I reach out to him for help? Had I done this without thinking? Nothing made sense.

Pain was blanketed in shadows. It wasn’t smoke or a cloud of dust I could just blow away to reveal the man underneath. Sunlight disappeared into the void of his silhouette like a black hole. And the shifting lines over his face… Well, I’d only used marks like those when I was trying to redact something or to remove an error while writing. Aggressively scribbling out lines of text was only reserved for things I genuinely hated, but surely I had no reason to hate Pain, right?

But there was one other possibility, one which made my stomach drop.

“Are you like this,” I asked, trying my best to be gentle, “because I…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I frowned. It was fair for Pain to be so curt. I deserved it for having done the same to him when talking about my own past. He had every right not to answer, even if I didn’t like it.

And yet, the words unspoken had said it all. For Pain to be this way, then the chances were high that I had killed him off in whatever narrative he was from. Writing my own fictional universe was like playing God; people lived, people died. He was here now as something of a ghost in my head because I’d turned him, a survivor, into a victim.

“You have to save Alice,” Pain said, calmer this time. “Let’s focus on that.”

But I couldn’t shake off my own guilt. It weighed on me like a lead blanket. Pain was yet another person I had let down, yet another person I had betrayed because of my actions. Worst of all, I couldn’t even pin down the specifics of his story with what little information I had. Was his narrative death honorable? Had he died saving someone he loved? Or had I killed him off for shock value and cheap thrills? Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing what I couldn’t remember.

As I moved to head inside to prepare for tonight, I touched his arm, needing something to ground me. “Pain, if… if I did kill you off, I’m so sorry.”

Some part of me hoped the darkness obfuscating Pain would recede with my apology, as if confessing my sins and seeking atonement would somehow absolve me of my guilt.

Instead, to my dismay, the shadows remained. This wasn’t a fairytale. I couldn’t transform the beast with a single uttered admission.

Pain covered my hand with his own shadowy one. “I appreciate that, but you have enough to worry about right now.”

It wasn’t outright forgiveness from Pain, but it was an olive branch. A chance to start over. Beyond the scope of the written word, we could be on equal footing as a man and his literary character.

When I glanced back at Pain again, my breath caught in my throat. The shadows coalescing around him had diminished, slightly, over the lower half of his face. I could see strong facial features—a sharp jaw, a dusting of light facial hair, a mouth, and the top of his neck. The sight made my heart pound. First his sudden physicality, and now this.

A path to answers emerged. I could uncover more about Pain by repairing our bond.

Chapter Text

When night fell over Elderwood National Park, it was time to head out. I’d waited around long enough, and I couldn’t stomach the thought of Alice being out there with the bastards who had taken her.

Yet as I packed my messenger bag with supplies, Barry gave one final plea in an effort to make me reconsider my crazy plan.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t call the cops? The FBI? Anyone?”

I shook my head. “What’s the point? The kidnappers called me while I was at the Sheriff’s Station. Clearly they’re not afraid of Sarah and the others.”

And from the way the other two cops had sounded on the radio, the kidnappers were right to not be afraid of those two stooges.

“If you’re hellbent about this, then watch your step. Rusty said there’s hunters out there who’ve been putting illegal bear traps all across the forest.” Barry shuffled his feet, fidgeting. “C’mon Al, are you sure I shouldn’t head out with you? I could watch your… your—”

A loud, powerful sneeze cut Barry off. His allergies were acting up thanks to Mother Nature and he was trying to put on a good face. His eyes and nose were a little more red than usual, and I couldn’t help but smile at how complimentary it was when paired with his jacket.

“This isn’t up for debate, Barry,” I said, patting his shoulder. “Trust me. You need to stay here. You’ll be safer.”

Barry was a damn good friend and braver than most people gave him credit for. Even though it upset him, I couldn’t risk another person I cared about getting hurt.

“Okay. Fine.” He sighed. “What can I do to help?”

I dug into my messenger bag and offered Barry the stack of manuscript pages I’d found so far. “Look these pages over and see what you can make of it. Try and figure out if this actually sounds like my writing.”

Barry took the pages, eager to dig into this mysterious novel I’d supposedly written. “Well, there’s no one more suited for the task, pal. I know your writing better than anyone else.”

“Thanks, Barry. If we’re not back by morning, call Sarah.”

“‘We’re’?”

“Pain and I. He’s coming with me too. I won’t be alone out there.”

Barry didn’t even blink. “Alright then. I’ll hold down the fort. Just be careful.” He spun around, and I didn’t understand what he was doing until he added, “Look after him, please? That’s my best friend right there.”

“I know,” Pain responded, as if Barry could hear him.

“Lock the door when we leave and keep the lights on,” I ordered.

Barry followed us to the porch, where he stood in the doorway. “I’ll be with you in spirit. Every step of the way, Al.”

I turned on the flashlight, comforted by its familiar steady beam, and headed off into the night.

▼

Whatever darkness had washed over Bright Falls last night returned in full force. Because danger lurked everywhere, Pain and I didn’t speak as we trekked through the forest. The woods didn’t feel any safer; in fact, they felt more treacherous despite being armed and better prepared than last time. Everywhere we went, I felt eyes on me. The forest whispered something I couldn’t quite make out, even as I strained to hear.

We found more manuscript pages along the way. They didn’t fill me with comfort. Each page was a snapshot of something which was happening concurrently or it was a premonition of something dreadful to come.

There was a page which described, in graphic detail, the imminent death of Rusty the park ranger at the visitor center. A terrible monster would sweep through the area, hungry and searching for an unnamed prey. If the page was to be believed, Rusty would be collateral damage. Doomed by the narrative.

But I couldn’t accept this outcome. I was heading back towards the park’s visitor center to reach Lover’s Peak anyways. I could do something useful instead of turning and running. Pain agreed.

But when I reached the park’s visitor center again, it had already been torn through by the same monster which had swept through Stucky’s garage.

I crept through the wreckage, searching with my flashlight for any sign of life. To my horror, the ruined walls were streaked with blood and gore. Whatever had ripped through the building had been relentless.

Suddenly, a man lunged at me from the shadows, causing me to crash through a crumbled section of the building. I landed hard on my back, and the man—a Taken, as I was beginning to call them—was above me, pinning me in place with his hulking form.

I’d lost my grip on the gun and flashlight in the fall, and both were just out of reach. I was scrambling, desperate to grab hold of them, but the Taken’s weight was too much.

A glint of silver in the moonlight caught my eye. The Taken held a hunting knife high above his head, his arm mangled beneath the shadows. Through the misty darkness, I could make out familiar features—this was Rusty, the park ranger. He’d been turned.

“Please don’t feed the animals!” He screamed, voice distorted.

The knife came down, moving too fast and too slow at the same time as I squirmed for my weapons.

“Alan!”

The knife didn’t land. Pain slammed into Rusty and shoved him off of me. I rushed for my gear, and once I had the flashlight in hand, I beamed Rusty.

He howled, “Fishing is only permitted for those visitors who purchase a fishing license!”

Rusty’s body contorted as the light burned away the darkness. He crumbled in upon himself, cowering, but I didn’t relent until it was all gone.

“Obey the park ranger’s instructions at all times…”

The air pulsed when the darkness cloaking Rusty was gone, but it wasn’t enough to banish whatever had possessed him. He moved fast, practically blinking in and out of existence as he charged at me again. I took a breath, aimed the gun, and fired, stopping Rusty dead in his tracks.

I’d shot him square in the chest.

Rusty collapsed to his knees, but as he fell forward, his entire body disappeared before it could touch the ground.

“Alan, are you okay?”

Pain’s voice didn’t register. My surroundings felt alive, crackling with too many sounds. As he moved to kneel beside me, I heard something shift behind me. I swiveled around in a mad panic and turned the flashlight’s beam onto a pile of moving rubble. I half-expected another Taken to appear crawling out from beneath the wreckage.

But instead, there was low whimpering. A furry paw poked out from under a jagged plank, and then the beginnings of a snout. It was Rusty’s golden retriever trying to escape from where a section of the building had collapsed onto it. The dog wasn’t Taken, but it was already injured, masterless now, and terrified over what had happened.

I hurried to its side to start pulling away the pieces of broken wood and twisted metal.

Once freed, the dog stood on wobbly legs and head-butted my hand, seeking comfort on this terrible night.

“Hey, you’re okay,” I said, scratching behind its ears.

It was as much a reassurance for the dog as it was for me; I’d survived the encounter with Not-Rusty, I’d managed to take down all the nameless park goers who had been twisted into Taken before this moment, but… but this death hit differently. This time, I’d killed someone I had interacted with directly. Someone completely innocent in everything. Someone who had a dog who depended upon him.

Just what the fuck was I doing? Why was this happening? Was this somehow the kidnapper’s doing? Hurting people, twisting them? Putting obstacles in my way to prevent me from saving Alice?

What if I reached Lover’s Peak and Alice had been turned into one of them?

No. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t imagine that.

But the damage was still done. How many more lives would I ruin with my presence in Bright Falls?

The dog nudged its way closer to me, whimpering and whining. Paired with my own spiraling thoughts, it made me upset. I buried my face into its warm fur and hugged the dog.

Pain reached out to pet the dog, but unfortunately when she didn’t react, he stopped and retracted his hand. His physicality was limited, largely connected to me. I suppose it made sense, if he really was one of my fictional characters. He may have been unable to provide the dog comfort, but his presence was a balm to my aching heart.

“I don’t know why you’re really here, Pain, but I’m glad you are.”

Pain glanced at me, and with the help of the moonlight, I could make out some of his features once again—but only so far as the lower half of his face. Still, it was enough to let me know there was a person underneath all that darkness, a man I had crafted and brought to life with my writing. Even if I didn’t know who he was exactly, deep in my heart I knew there was something special about him.

“Should we… Should we take the dog with us?”

“No, we can’t take her. She’s injured. She’ll be safer here,” Pain said.

I frowned. I wasn’t sure if I could leave her behind. What if more Taken appeared?

“Animals take care of themselves Alan. Trust me. She’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” I muttered, rubbing the dog’s head one last time.

I stood and ran a hand over my face. I caught Pain staring at me, and I couldn’t help but offer him a half-hearted smile in spite of everything. For being a tough guy, he had a soft spot for animals. I could admire that about him; it managed to soften some of his edges.

We still had a long walk before reaching Lover’s Peak, and time was ticking.

▼

In the end, the kidnapper had lied to me. He claimed to have Alice, but he hadn’t brought her to the mountain. Instead, he’d gone all this way to lead me on, risking my life just to tell me his ransom in person.

He wanted “the manuscript”—the pages I’d collected out in the forest. The only problem was the novel was incomplete and I had no idea how to find the missing pieces.

Pain and I came back to the cabin where Barry was staying only to discover more supernatural activity—a swarm of darkness-possessed ravens was attacking the building, throwing themselves at the windows, the door, the walls, all in an effort to breach the space to harm him. I’d never seen this many birds before, and it really was something out of a Hitchcock movie. For all their shrieks and talons, though, the light burned away the darkness draped over their feathers until they evaporated into thin air.

When silence fell upon the sleepy cabin, Barry poked his head out the door, glancing both ways to see if the coast was clear.

“Alright, Al,” he said, coming out onto the porch to greet me. “I wasn’t fully sure about everything you said yesterday, but consider me convinced now. What the hell were those things?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure myself, but I suspected it had something to do with the same monster taking the residents of Bright Falls.

“And I heard rustling out there, in the forest. It was like being watched. There was no way in hell I was going out there to investigate. I’ve read enough of your books to know better. I kept the lights on, just like you said.” Barry frowned. “You look like hell, Al. What happened out there?”

“The bastards didn’t bring Alice.” I let out a long exhale. “The park ranger, Rusty… He attacked me out there. He’s dead.”

I couldn’t manage much more. I was exhausted from hiking all over the mountain. I headed inside and collapsed onto the couch before the fireplace Barry had lit.

“He was just like that other guy, Stucky?”

“Yeah.”

“Is Pain still with you?”

“Uh huh.” I ran a hand over my jaw. “The kidnapper wants me to meet him at this mine and bring him the finished manuscript in exchange for Alice.”

“Yeah. About those pages… It’s definitely your writing. Maybe a little more brief and to the point, but it’s definitely you,” Barry said, scratching the back of his neck. “Was there even any proof she was okay?”

I was grateful Barry hadn’t used the word ‘alive.’ He didn’t want to think the worst either. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Now that I was back in the safety of the cabin, another headache was starting to develop at my brow, throbbing right by my injury.

Early morning sunlight peered through the long curtains Barry had closed shut over the windows. Another night in Bright Falls was coming to an end.

“I told the kidnapper I’d need a week to get what he wanted. He gave me two days instead.”

“Some spooky shit is going down here, and I bet it’s all connected. You stay here with Pain and I’ll go to town and try to gather more information. What’s happening, it isn’t just you. It isn’t just in your head, Al. If I’m seeing demon birds and moving shadows, then other people have to be, too.”

Barry came over to the couch and hugged me tight. “I’m sorry for doubting you, buddy. Won’t do it again.”

I sighed into his shoulder. “Thanks, Barry.”

More than anyone else in my life, Barry understood the gravity of my gratitude. He knew other kids had tormented me in school, making fun of my mom for being ill, calling her crazy, insane. Those same kids had said it was only a matter of time before I lost it too—and it was a fear I carried with me my whole life. The doubt I’d harbored for the past twenty-four hours eased. He believed me, and he really, really did.

Hands akimbo, Barry smiled confidently. “We’re going to solve this mystery. Whatever supernatural bullshit is doing this, they’ve messed with the wrong guys.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’re really on board with this now.”

“Believe me pal, most days, I’d rather be sipping a margarita on a beach and catching some sun rays. But that’s not where we’re at today. We’ve gotta split up to find clues. Two days isn’t much time.”

No kidding. I’d collected pages around Bright Falls, but this story was incomplete. I’d have to figure out a way to finish the story, otherwise the kidnapper might not be satisfied.

“You stay here. Try to fill in the gaps in this story. I’m going to head into town. Ask questions. Check out the local archives. We’ll figure it out.”

Barry left as the sun began to crest over the trees. With it being just the two of us now, Pain finally spoke.

“He seems like a great friend.”

“Yeah. Nothing stops him when he’s determined.”

“You never talked about him,” Pain admitted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I always assumed it was because you didn’t have anyone else on the other side.”

I was too tired to parse what Pain meant by ‘other side.’

“Barry’s been my best friend since we met as kids. We grew up on the same street. His parents practically raised me.”

“What about your own parents?”

I frowned. “I didn’t have a dad, and my mom was… very busy.” I dragged myself off the couch and rubbed the back of my sore neck. “I didn’t see her much.” I swallowed thickly and quickly diverted the conversation. “I bet if Barry could actually hear you, he’d figure out who you were instantly. He’s my agent, too. He’s read everything I’ve written.”

“He’s read everything?”

I shrugged. “Well, I guess the stuff I’ve published. Night Springs scripts, my books. That sort’ve thing.”

There were probably some scraps here and there I’d written. A few half-baked stories which would never see the light of day. I didn’t really write much else beyond my published works anymore.

“Are you going to rest before you get started writing?”

I shook my head. A long nap sounded like a great idea, but I didn’t really have the time.

“Alright then. If you need anything…”

Pain didn’t finish that sentence. We both knew there wasn’t much he could do with this task, but there was merit in being moral support. I’d need it.

“I appreciate the offer, but this is something I have to do on my own. Besides, you should get some rest too, Pain.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I’ll rest once you’re safe, Alan.”

Pain meant it as a warm sentiment, but it made me wonder what would happen to him once this crisis was over. Would he return to the fictional realm once I no longer needed him?

…Or maybe I was overthinking everything, as I tended to do. It was just a turn of phrase, the kind of thing people said as friendly reassurance, but the thought didn’t settle well. Pain had saved my life hours ago yet again, and his presence was comforting amidst all the chaos. He was looking after me, protecting me. I didn’t want to lose him.

“Well… I guess good luck then,” Pain said, “you know, with the writing.”

“Thanks.”

It was a shame I couldn’t remember him.

No longer able to put off my grim task with awkward banter, I searched the cabin for writing supplies. I found stationary paper and a pencil inside a nightstand drawer. It had been a long time since I had written by hand—since I was a teenager, no less—but it would have to suffice.

Even just the thought of writing made my stomach churn like I was going to be sick, but I couldn’t deflect anymore. I sat down at a desk with a single lamp on the second floor of the cabin and resigned myself to my fate.

The pencil in my hand was slippery, and I couldn’t get a good grip on it. I was sweating profusely even after stripping down to just my black t-shirt. Staring down at the paper was like staring at the sun, hurting my eyes and threatening to blind me.

Hours passed at a crawl, and all I had to show for my ‘effort’ was a blank page. I was stunned in disbelief. Why couldn’t I write? Was I truly so washed up and defeated I couldn’t write to save my wife?

When noon came, I surrendered and gave up.

Underneath all this frustration, I was once again reminded something was missing. A void in my mind, a locked door without a key. If I could just uncover what was beyond the threshold, if I could just understand what I had lost, maybe then I could write? But how could I rediscover what I couldn’t even define?

I was a failure.

Alice was doomed.

These thoughts circled in my head. I just wanted it to be over. I just wanted to save her, only to send her away so I could never hurt her again. This was all my fault.

I shoved the empty pages aside and threw the pencil at the wall, snapping it in half. I buried my face into my arms, dug my fingers into my hair, and screamed.

“This is so fucking ridiculous! Why would a kidnapper want a manuscript, of all the goddamn things?”

“I don’t know.” Pain sighed, suddenly appearing behind me. “You really can’t just… I don’t know, write something basic to get started?”

My anger flared to a boiling point. The chair screeched back and I turned on Pain, the only target in my vicinity, advancing on him as I yelled in his non-existent face.

“You think it’s so goddamn simple, don’t you?” I shoved him back. “You don’t think I tried that two years ago?”

When I tried to push him again, Pain grabbed me by the wrists to stop me. “Calm the fuck down! How the hell am I supposed to know your process.”

“I can’t fucking write!”

I struggled in Pain’s grip, and he relented, letting me go. I began pacing, growing more and more upset as seconds passed.

“Don’t you think I’m aware how fucked this is! My wife’s life is on the line and I can’t write, even at gunpoint. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

I dropped to my knees and curled in on myself in total despair. If the cabin could somehow swallow me whole, I wouldn’t fight it.

Pain knelt beside me and sighed. “It’s not your fault. It’s a strange ransom. Whatever’s going on, your writing has something to do with it. Clearly you were writing at some point, you just don’t remember when.”

I blinked wetly up at him. “Why couldn’t they have just taken me instead?”

He pushed back some strands of hair which had fallen into my face. “Because it’s more painful to see someone you love be tortured than to be the one experiencing it.”

I laid back against the hardwood floor and looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah.”

A heavy silence passed between us, but Pain kept brushing my hair back, keeping it out of my face. It was a comfort I hadn’t experienced in… well, I couldn’t remember when.

We stayed there like that for a while, until the silence stopped feeling tense and instead became companionable. Like Pain and I were sharing a mutual feeling we both understood. I drifted off to sleep, too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

Sometime later, I woke up laying on the couch unable to remember how I ended up there. My phone was buzzing in my pocket. It was Barry.

“Al? Guess what. That waitress from the diner, Rose, called. She found the rest of your manuscript. Can you believe it?”

“That’s great news, Barry,” I mumbled, stifling a yawn.

“I’m heading back to come get you so we can meet her at the trailer park.” Barry chuckled over the phone. “See, I told you everything would work out in the end.”

The call ended. Pain offered me his hand, and he helped me up off the floor. I should have felt relieved, but I was a cynic. Everyone had a price, and I dreaded what Rose, my so-called number one fan, would want in exchange for the manuscript.

Chapter Text

We wasted no time driving to the trailer park where Rose the waitress lived. Half a day had already passed since the kidnapper had stated his ransom. If Rose had manuscript pages, then I needed them one way or another.

During the drive, Barry explained everything he had uncovered while scouring the Bright Falls archives.

“This isn’t the first time weird shit’s gone down here. I found tons of newspaper articles talking about something strange in the seventies. They were all written by a Cynthia Weaver.”

The lantern lady. She had been at the Sheriff’s Station checking the lights to make sure they worked. She’d also been the one to warn me in the first place about the dark inside the diner.

“The articles mentioned this guy... Thomas Zane. There’s not much written about him, other than what Cynthia wrote. Not exactly an unbiased third party, this journalist. She kept going on and on about how he was this famous local poet and even a diver in his free time—you know you could learn a thing or two about staying fit.” He chuckled. “So I thought, why not check out the local library, right? See if he’s really all Cynthia made him out to be. But when I went there, the librarian looked at me like I was wearing a fish for a head. She said she knew her library inside and out and that she’d never heard of a Thomas Zane.”

Barry reached into his jacket and pulled out a copy of a newspaper clipping to hand to me. The article was indeed written by Cynthia, and the headline read, Beloved Poet Taken Too Soon.

“And here’s the weirdest thing, Al. According to Cynthia, Zane lived on the isle with his wife or girlfriend or whatever. Barbara. Something happened to her.” He cleared his throat. “So this means you and Cynthia are either both misremembering, or there really was a Diver’s Isle and something fishy’s going on. My money’s on the latter.”

I wasn’t particularly interested in poetry, but the name Thomas Zane was familiar. I swear I knew him, hell, I had a sense I’d met him before at some point. But when, where?

Then it dawned on me—that first afternoon in Bright Falls, at Bird Leg Cabin, I had found a shoebox with some of his books. That couldn’t have been a coincidence, not after what had happened to Alice.

Barry glanced at me in the passenger’s seat. “I take it you didn’t make any progress writing yourself.”

I folded my arms across my chest and slumped against the window. “No Barry, I didn’t.” He didn’t have to rub it in.

“Well then let’s hope Rose is legit.”

Barry parked on the outskirts of the trailer park, and we ran into a man who claimed to be in charge of the area and knew Rose personally. He led us to her trailer while sharing about Rose—nonsense I didn’t care about. I was here for one thing and one thing only, and if she didn’t have it, I had every intention of leaving.

“Here it is. Rose’s place. She’s a real sweet girl, so be nice to her please.”

As Barry and I walked up the steps to knock, the door swung open with Rose in the frame. She was dressed in her diner uniform, pink, white, and frilly. Her hair was up in a tight bun atop her head, and her eyes… were disconcerting. They were empty, vacant. Nothing like the star-struck woman I’d encountered the first day in Bright Falls.

“Oh. Mr. Wake. So glad you could come.”

Rose didn’t even step aside to usher us in. She walked away like some kind of zombie. Barry and I shared a skeptical look; he didn’t want to go in, but we had to.

“Rose,” I called after her, “you said over the phone you had the manuscript pages I need.”

If she was willing to hand them over, then I’d find a way to forgive whatever involvement she might have had in my wife’s kidnapping.

We found Rose in the middle of her trailer, her hands clasped in front of her diner apron. She had a forced smile on her face.

“Do take a seat Mr. Wake.”

She gestured to her bright pink couch pressed up against the side of the trailer.

One glance around the room, and I was struck by overwhelmingly cutesy-pink interior decoration. There were stuffed animals everywhere. It was all certainly a choice. Pain had followed after us into the trailer, and he leaned against the wall covered in peeling floral wallpaper. It would have been amusing seeing this stark contrast, but this wasn’t a visit with a friend, this was business.

“Rose, about the pages—”

“Please. Make yourself comfortable. I just brewed a pot of Bright Falls blend. World’s best coffee,” she said without emotion. “Surely you both would like some? It’s to die for.”

I glanced at Barry beside me, and he offered a half-shrug.

“I guess a cup couldn’t hurt, but I really need those pages, Rose.”

“Oh Mr. Wake. You really should relax. Put your feet up. Why hurry the foreplay.”

Rose left for a few minutes and returned with two cups of steaming hot coffee.

“Just how you like it, Mr. Wake.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral, even if on the inside I was grimacing. She handed us both a neon pink mug, and Barry and I took a sip. We shared a sigh and leaned back into the cushions. We’d been running ourselves ragged the past two days, but we didn’t have time to sit around and chat.

“So those manuscript pages…”

“You have been very busy, Mr. Wake. Don’t you think you should come back to me?”

“Pardon?”

“You left in such a hurry. We were having so much fun. The writer and his muse.”

“Rose, I don’t know what the fuck you’re—”

My hand holding the coffee mug lost sensation. I couldn’t keep my fingers curled into the handle, and the mug slipped from my fingers, shattering upon impact and spilling hot coffee everywhere.

My words slurred as I tried to apologize profusely. “Sorry—”

Rose smiled thinly. “Don’t worry about it, dear. It will all be better soon.”

Those words filled me with a sense of familiar dread, like I’d heard them before. I turned to Barry and saw the groggy expression on his face. We were both in danger.

Distantly, Pain was shouting, but I couldn’t make out his words; it was distant, echoey. He was right beside me, and I could feel him jostling me, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t react. I was limp and lifeless like a doll, my body slouching against the couch’s cushions.

I’d experienced this situation years ago—I’d been drugged, I’d been taken advantage of, and now Barry was in as much trouble as me.

“Hey, Al,” Barry warned, “I think…”

Before he could even finish his thought, Barry swayed and fell forward off the couch with his red puffer jacket cushioning him.

I tried to force my head upright, but whatever had been in the coffee cup was too powerful. I couldn’t fight the pull of darkness.

It turned out a cup could, in fact, hurt.

▼

She’s coming back. Turn the light on.

My eyes blew open, and the veiled woman from the diner hovered above me, her smile crooked. Her hands cupped my face, fingers boney and dry.

“Back to work, boy.”

When I woke up from my dream within a dream, I shot upright and scrambled to my feet, racing for the lightswitch on the wall. The dark room illuminated, but the light was so blaring it made me wince and shut my eyes tight. I leaned forward, pressing a hand to my chest to calm my thudding heart.

My head was killing me, throbbing like I’d had too many shots the previous night. When I opened my eyes again, I could barely see straight, everything was too blurry.

After blinking countless times, my vision cleared. Through the plastic white blinds, I noticed the sun had set again, bringing another day to its close. I was running out of time.

“She drugged your coffee.”

I swung my head to the side and sighed in relief when I saw Pain. He was standing with his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t look pleased—or at least as unhappy as he could, given his condition.

“I knew I shouldn’t have drank it.”

How gullible could I be? Trusting yet another person with a drink and ending up in a stranger’s bedroom. What if she had… My pulse quickened as I glanced down at myself, checking to see if any of my clothes were out of sorts.

“The waitress carried you here, but she didn’t touch you otherwise.”

I groaned. Could I stop getting into danger for just one second?

“Tucked you in like you were some kind of doll of hers. She said a few creepy things to you while you were knocked out.”

“Like… Like what?”

“She was talking about how you needed to return to her. How she’s waiting for you at the lake.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had no idea what any of that meant, but it didn’t stop goosebumps from forming on my arms.

“Where’s Barry?”

“He’s still in the other room, slumped over.”

“Thanks, Pain.”

“Don’t thank me,” he grumbled, “I didn’t do shit.”

I smiled sadly. “You mean you’re not my fallen guardian angel?”

Pain snorted. “In your dreams.” He tilted his head, gesturing to the wall behind me. “Just glad she didn’t hurt you, considering.”

“Considering what—”

When my gaze followed Pain’s focus, my jaw dropped. I was in what could only be described as a teenage girl’s bedroom—hot pink with glitter everywhere. The wall above the bed was littered with pictures of me, from headshots to full body cutouts from tabloids and magazines. Seated inside an Alex Casey lunchbox full of rose petals was a small effigy—a repurposed Ken doll made to look exactly like me down to dyed hair and even a suit. There was another full-sized cutout of myself holding The Sudden Stop and it practically hovered above the bed. Who the hell would be able to fall asleep with all this staring at them?

“What… What the fuck…”

“That’s what I said.”

I had met plenty of obsessed fans in the past during press tours, but this was something else. This was a shrine to me and my novels. This was the kind of fucked up fan adoration my nightmares were made of. There was being a fan of someone and then there was whatever this was. I half-expected to find a lock of my hair or a bottle of my sweat nestled atop this sacrificial altar.

“You must be a good writer to garner this much interest.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“All this merchandise, though?” Pain stroked his chin. “I’m pretty sure this broad has every newspaper clipping mentioning you. You’re popular.”

“I’m messy,” I countered. I fixed my clothes and ran a hand through my hair. “People love watching a trainwreck.”

“Is that really how you see yourself?”

“I didn’t plan on being like this. It just happened.” I sighed. “I’m well aware I’m a travesty.”

Pain shook his head. “It’s not all you are.”

I raised a brow at Pain, expecting more of an explanation, but he didn’t give me one. Instead, he pointed at the large cutout of me holding The Sudden Stop.

“Why do you look so angry in the cutout?”

“I wasn’t angry.” I rolled my eyes. “I was trying to look serious.”

“I like this picture more.”

It was a picture from an interview with a magazine. I’d been given the privilege of being the first author to ever make People Magazine’s Hot 100 list. For the photoshoot, I was told to pose in a way that was ‘comfortable’ to me, so I’d put on my best attempt at a smolder while dressed in a dark suit. Barry had said it made me look ‘drop dead sexy.’

Pain glanced back over his shoulder. “You always look great in a suit.”

I blushed, averting my gaze from my own picture staring back at me. How could Pain know that? But there was a strange fondness in his voice, a familiarity I couldn’t understand. More and more, it was becoming clear there was more to our story than I was aware of. Just what was the nature of our relationship?

I was so over this invasive shrine to me and my life, to people knowing things about me that I didn’t, so I grabbed my messenger back tossed carelessly onto the ground, left the bedroom, and didn’t look back.

In the other room, Barry was sprawled across the couch; apparently Rose had no interest in him. I tried to jostle him awake, but it was no use. He was out like a light.

“Alan Wake...”

Rose suddenly appeared behind me, her eyes glassy and dull. Her posture was wrong, half-slouched forward.

“You will return, writer,” Rose droned. Her lips barely moved as she spoke. “You will finish what we started.”

A chill ran down my spine. Dreadful familiarity washed over me. Some part of me understood the threat possessing Rose, but I couldn’t name it, I couldn’t define it beyond one simple word—inevitability.

“Don’t keep me waiting.”

A hush fell over the trailer, and this was the calm before the storm. When the beat passed, chaos erupted all around me.

“This is Agent Nightingale of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We have the place surrounded, Steinbeck!”

A fell wind rushed through the small trailer, and with it, color returned to Rose’s skin. She swayed on her feet, no longer able to keep herself upright. I caught her before she fell forward and lowered my stalker to the floor.

“Come out with your hands up or me and my men are busting down the door!” Nightingale shouted through his megaphone. “This is your last chance, Dickens!”

Red and blue flashing lights peered between the blinds over the window. Overhead, a helicopter circled the trailer park, its spotlight honed in on Rose’s home.

I glanced back at Barry. What was I going to do? I couldn’t leave him here, but I also couldn’t carry him.

“Go through the back window,” Pain suggested. “There’s a gap in their line.”

“But what about—”

“They don’t want him. They want you.”

As much as I hated it, he was right. Gritting my teeth, I pushed off the floor and squeezed through the back window. I landed in the dirt on my stomach.

“Get up. You need to move.”

“But where am I supposed to go?”

“Anywhere but here! You let them take you in, you think you’ll have any chance left of saving Alice?”

No, I wouldn’t. Sarah had already been suspicious of me because of the situation at the lake, and if the FBI was now involved… I was doomed. They were pinning Alice’s disappearance on me. I had no alibi, no proof explaining why I couldn’t remember the last week. All I had was some flimsy story about a kidnapper and a missing manuscript. Worst of all, bodies were piling up: Stucky, Rusty, all the countless Taken I’d encountered in the woods on my way to Lover’s Peak.

“Alright, you want to do this the hard way, Frost? So be it,” Nightingale’s voice boomed through the megaphone. “Bust down the door, boys!”

I heard a loud bang as the cops barged into Rose’s trailer. This was my chance to run before it was too late. I scrambled to my feet and bolted for the tree line.

“Hey! Over here!” Someone shouted. “He’s trying to make a break for it!”

A beam of light blasted my vision, causing me to see spots. I raised my hand over my face and saw a police officer pointing a flashlight and a gun at me.

“Stay right where you are, Wake! Hands up!”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Just go,” Pain urged. “Run and don’t stop!”

So I ran. Became a fugitive. A wanted man. If I didn’t look guilty of killing my spouse before, I did now.

A gun fired from somewhere behind me, but so long as I wasn’t hit, I didn’t care. I breached the forest, but the cloak of trees and darkness wasn’t enough. Helicopter blades chopped through the air above, droning out radio chatter and dogs barking as they sniffed out my trail. Beams of flashlights followed me into the forest.

I had no direction and only a handful of manuscript pages.

What the fuck was I going to do?

Chapter Text

“He’s gaining on you,” Pain urged. “You need to run faster.”

“I-I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. There’s no alternative. He catches you, you’re done. You think he’ll bring you in like an honest man? Fuck no. He was shooting at you. He wants to kill you.”

Pain’s advice wasn’t the kind of reassurance I needed at the moment, even if he wasn’t wrong. Nightingale had put a target on my back. Maybe I’d wronged him in some way in a past life; maybe he really believed I was a murderer.

Either way, I couldn’t let him catch me.

The muscles in my legs burned. I was no athlete, I was out of shape, and it was showing.

“I’ll just,” I couldn’t catch my breath, not even to mutter a handful of words, “I’ll just rest for a moment—”

“Hemingway! You think you’re real fucking clever, you think you can evade the law? There’s nowhere to hide. I’ll find you. I’ll sweep this entire forest if I have to.”

“Does it sound like he’s going to give you a chance? Move.”

It was easy for Pain to say. He could teleport from location to location, appearing ahead of me. At least he was able to watch my back in case Nightingale caught up.

The forest opened to a cliffside where a helicopter hovered in the air, its searchlight combing the tree line. Voices clamored on board, and then the spotlight shined directly on me.

“Alan Wake, drop your weapons. Hands where we can see ‘em,” another police officer barked through a megaphone.

I was caught, frozen in place. In my periphery, Pain shook his head, signaling for me to disobey their orders. But what was I supposed to do? I was a rat in a maze. I couldn’t run forever.

But the choice was out of my hands.

Something tall, dark, and tendriled, rose from the canopy of trees, reaching for the helicopter.

I had a front row seat to the carnage.

The helicopter’s pilot tried to continue flying, but the inky darkness covered the whirling blades, causing them to stall. The helicopter and everyone inside came crashing down into the cliffside, and the monster, entity, whatever the hell it was, hovered in the sky, taking its place. With the helicopter dispatched, it turned its attention on me.

“Run, Alan!”

Pain grabbed my arm and dragged me along, back into the shelter of the trees right as the darkness crashed onto the spot I’d once occupied.

“What the hell is that thing?” I shouted as I ran, breathless. “How could it do that?”

But Pain had no answers either.

A roar filled the night, bellowing so loud it made me stagger over a fallen log and clap my hands over my ears.

“Alan, you can’t stop now. Move!”

Trees crashed behind me as the monster pursued me through the forest. It was just my luck I was forced to flee from the cops and some kind of eldritch monstrosity.

I pushed my body forward, thinking of nothing else but my own survival. The darkness hunting me down was relentless, and I could sense it gaining, hungry to tear into me and rip me apart.

Up ahead, a light flickered. It was another one of those safe havens I’d encountered in the forest. I dragged my feet, one step at a time, hurrying as fast as I could.

“Alan, hurry,” Pain pleaded, tugging on my hand. “You gotta move faster. Just a few more steps.”

The monster was right behind me, its jaws opening as it intended to swallow me whole. I dove for the safe haven like a baseball player desperate to reach for home plate. I slammed into the dirt, groaning from the impact, but I was inside the brilliant circle of light.

I rolled onto my back, taking in sharp, deep breaths. My side ached from running faster than I ever had in my life, but I was safe.

Blinking, I peered beyond the safe haven. The thick darkness was pressed up against the impossible divide. So long as the light remained strong, it couldn’t penetrate further. It waited, curious to see if I would be so foolish as to leave the sanctuary prematurely or if the bulb would burst.

When nothing happened, the wall of darkness dissipated, leaving only still, calm forest. This deep into the woods, I could no longer hear the police searching for me. I hoped I’d lost them.

Without the threat of danger closing in around me, a bright piece of paper caught my attention from where it stuck out of the emergency box. I pushed myself off the ground, reached for it, and read in a frenzy.

The lake was not a lake. It was called by many names. A gateway to the underworld. A place beyond the veil of reality. Only a master of many worlds could freely navigate this domain without becoming lost in its labyrinth.

It was the home of the Dark Presence. A malevolent supernatural force, an entity born during a time before time. It needed a host, a vessel, to thrive and escape. It could wear the face of its victims to extend into the physical world. In the absence of one, it was smoke, darkness incarnate… Hungry as it searched to consume anything it deemed worthy.

The writer was worthy. And so the Dark Presence hunted him.

When I finished reading the words on the page, I realized I was holding my breath and gripping the page tight enough to make it crinkle at the edges. My head spun, my thoughts short-circuiting from exhaustion and fear. I glanced at Pain through the corner of my eye.

“Are… Are you possessed by it? Is that why I can’t see you?”

Pain tilted his head in confusion. I shoved the manuscript page into his hands, and he read it as quickly as I had.

“I don’t think I am, but I suppose I can’t honestly be certain, Alan. There’s some things beyond my control.” He sighed and scratched the back of his would-be head. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “No. It’s not. I think if you wanted to kill me, you've had countless opportunities to do it.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he deadpanned, and I couldn’t resist the tug of a small smile.

“There’s a thicket up ahead where you can crash for the night,” Pain said, pointing further along the path. “I think there’s another one of those supply caches you keep finding.”

I refrained from thanking the universe prematurely. With tonight’s track record, the cache would be covered in spiders or already ransacked, rendered empty. Still, my stomach growled and my head was killing me. I’d give anything for an energy bar and a bottle of water. I’d even take them with spiders; at least they’d be extra protein.

So with the promise of something, anything, I forced myself to begin the next leg of the night’s harrowing journey.

With the darkness dispelled thanks to the safe haven’s light, my surroundings had returned to normal. Crickets played their nocturnal symphonies, frogs accompanied with their croaks. Moonlight peered through the thick canopy, and in the gaps between branches, stars glimmered up above.

As we began to ascend a gentle hill, Pain suddenly appeared in front of me with his arm outstretched, causing me to bump into him. “Watch out,” he warned. “There’s bear traps around.”

And that’s when I saw it, right beneath his shadowy feet: the silver gleam of a bear trap’s teeth waiting for prey. I’d almost walked directly into it. Barry had mentioned how the forest was filled with these yesterday; hunters had been having a field day in these woods.

“Oh fuck,” I yelped, staggering backwards.

“Careful!” Pain grabbed my shirt and yanked me forward, pulling me into his arms. “They’re covered in grass and twigs. They blend in if you don’t know how to spot them.”

Now that I knew what to look for, my eyes widened in horror. There were dozens of shiny metal traps splayed wide open, buried under pathetic excuses for camouflage. I started to hyperventilate, struggling to catch my breath, to still my racing heart. What was I going to do? If one of those things clamped around my leg…

“Alan, calm down. Don’t panic—”

“But they’re everywhere!”

“Yeah. They are. Have been for the past hundred feet. Tried not to draw your attention to them until you nearly walked into one.”

I glanced over my shoulder, and Pain’s observation was right. I could see the shifted forest floor, the covered mounds. I’d entered a minefield without even realizing.

“The cache isn’t that far now.”

The traps were in my way. I was on an island. What if I was startled by something and fell into one of them? If one of those things grabbed me, I’d be trapped, and I’d die a slow, painful death with no one left to save Alice.

“Alan, listen to me, please,” Pain insisted, gripping my shoulders tight. “Take it slowly and you’ll get through this last stretch.”

Cautiously, I took a step. Then another. I moved on auto-pilot, barely able to breathe. I didn’t dare focus on anything other than navigating the sea of bear traps around me.

“That’s it. You’re doing great. Keep being brave. Just a little further—”

A tree branch snapped and fell near me, landing on a trio of traps, causing them to clamp their teeth like hungry piranhas.

“Oh fuck.”

“Alan?”

“I can’t do it!” I literally couldn’t. My body froze, with none of my limbs responding.

“You’re so close to reaching the cache. You can take a few more steps.”

“I can’t. I fucking can’t. I can’t do this anymore.”

I ran a hand through my hair, tugging painfully at the strands. My eyes had blown wide, and my pulse pounded in my ears. I was having a full-blown panic attack. I wanted to run. I wanted to make a break for it, to risk being eaten alive by the bear traps. I couldn’t stand another second inside this forest.

“Why is everything out to kill me? My life isn’t even worth that much. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just a writer. I don’t know how to save Alice. What am I supposed to do?” The world was starting to spin, tilting off balance. “I can’t do anything right. I’m so fucking useless…”

“You’re not. You’re going to make it out of this forest.”

“I’m losing my mind. I’m talking to a fictional character. There’s no one out here but me.”

“You’re perfectly sane. You’re just scared and overwhelmed.”

“You’re just a voice in my head.”

“I’m not just a voice in your head. I’m here with you.” Pain was in front of me again. He glanced over his shoulder and clenched his jaw. “Just follow me. I’ll guide you.”

Tears pricked at the edges of my eyes. “I-I can’t...”

“You can. Please. I promise it’s not much further,” Pain said, his voice suddenly near my ear. There it was again: his warm and familiar presence. “You can do this, baby, you just need to trust me. Take my hand.”

This time, Pain’s plea revived my adrenaline. I took his hand, gripping it tight. It was the only thing anchoring me to this realm. After one more deep breath, I began following him, traversing the maze of bear traps until we made it to the other side.

Pain held to his word; it wasn’t as far as I had feared. He had somehow guided me through the literal jaws of death, and I owed him my life. Again. When he tried to slip his hand from mine, I gripped tighter. Unwilling to let him go, I pulled him closer, bringing him in for an embrace. I clutched onto him, shaking with relief, and I sighed into his chest when his arms wrapped around my waist to hold me.

“Thanks, Pain,” I mumbled into his neck.

“I promised to keep you safe, didn’t I?”

Time seemed to slow as I listened to the sound of our breaths. We were so close, and resting my head on his shoulder, I could feel his pulse in his neck. Hearing the thrum of his heartbeat was the best anodyne to calm my anxiety. We were both alive, and I didn’t… I didn’t want to let him go. Why did I always have to let him go?

Pain cleared his throat and took a reluctant step back. The lower half of his face was inscrutable. The air between us had shifted back to the same strange tension I had discovered the afternoon he had taught me how to shoot.

“Can you hold my hand the rest of the way to the cache?” I asked, trying my best to not let my voice crack. I needed to be strong if I wanted to survive this never-ending night, but I also needed his grounding force to keep me steady.

“Alright, Alan,” he said without an ounce of judgment or resentment.

For the rest of our journey, he continued to hold my hand, our fingers intertwined. We came to a rushing river nestled among some tall trees. The area was covered by a canopy of branches and leaves. It would have been peaceful if not for the treacherous forest around this sanctuary. I was half-tempted to drop to my knees and directly drink from the river.

“The cache should be around here,” Pain said, reminding me.

I moved the flashlight’s beam around, searching for the reflective yellow spray paint. To my relief, I found an arrow pointing to a tree where sure enough, there was a steel crate hidden amongst the bushes.

“No one’s going to come through that area on foot, and the canopy’s too thick for any helicopter to spot you,” Pain explained as I let go of his hand at last to tear into the cache. “You’ve got your chance to rest.”

I could have cried with joy upon discovering what was inside the box. There was food, a couple bottles of water, and some flares. I’d found the jackpot as far as I was concerned. I settled beside a tree and took a long drink of the cool, refreshing water. It was like a balm on my raw throat, and I had to be careful not to drink too fast.

“You really are my guardian angel,” I said before taking a bite off the chocolate energy bar.

Pain half-smiled. “At one point you did describe me that way.”

“You keep saving my life. I just want to know who you are.”

I chewed the tough nougat filling of the bar as I wracked my brain for information. Why couldn’t anything just be straightforward? Why the need for smoke and mirrors? Fine, I’d killed off Pain in whatever story he was in. But what did that have to do with being unable to identify him?

“Are you a villain in one of my stories? Is that why you don’t want to tell me who you are? Because you’re secretly the bad guy?”

Pain snorted. “No, Alan, I’m definitely not.”

“I just… I just don’t know why my mind would redact you, then.”

“Clearly you had a good reason, Alan,” Pain sighed. “Maybe it’s best you stop looking for those answers and focus on what matters.”

Some part of me could agree with my shadowy companion. But the other part couldn’t stand the thought of an unanswered mystery; those were for readers, not me. The writer always needed to have the answer, to be three steps ahead.

“I just think I’d be able to focus more on everything else going on if I knew.” It was a terrible excuse, but maybe he would take pity. “Can’t you tell me anything?”

“I think it would mean more if you figured out who I am on your own.”

“We just… We just seem to have this…”

I was a writer, but I was at a loss for words. I kept coming back to one signature question: What was the nature of our relationship? He was my character, I was his creator, but talking with Pain felt natural. Like we’d done it for years. Maybe we had, through my stories. He felt so familiar, so close to my heart.

“A bond? I don’t know how else to describe it. If I didn’t want you around, I wouldn’t be interacting with you like you’re a friend. I wouldn’t be placing my life in your hands.”

“If I told you who I am, it wouldn't matter. It’ll just be a name without meaning. You won’t remember our history.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or stubborn. I was at a dead end, but there was one last card up my sleeve.

“You called me baby, Pain.”

“Yeah? Well we all say crazy things when we’re under duress.”

My chest ached from his admission. It felt like he had slammed the door on that particular train of thought. “You’re right, stupid of me to ask.”

Maybe I was just going crazy. Maybe Pain was nothing more than a manifestation of my fear, my will to survive. Maybe I was as unhinged as the tabloids seemed to think I was, especially if I was trying to make friends with my own fictional character.

But another part of me refused to believe it. Pain’s presence was like a security blanket, something I chose to cling to for dear life. I trusted him, and my trust hadn’t been misplaced.

“Look,” he started, conceding some ground. Maybe he couldn’t stand the sight of me pouting. He covered my hand resting at my side, his thumb gently brushing my skin. “I want you to remember who I am…”

I could sense a gigantic asterisk incoming. Nothing in my life could ever be easy.

“...but something’s going on here. So don’t force it. If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.”

Pain thought he was steering my curiosity away, but instead he was stoking the flame, pointing me in the right direction. I just needed to keep searching for clues. I couldn’t give up.

I would find out who Pain was, whether or not my brain, the universe, or whatever it was which had redacted him liked it. I already had a strong clue—he had admitted to being one of my characters, and I only had so many.

The food took the edge off my hunger, the water had helped quench my thirst, but nothing eased the strong ache in my lower body. When I tried to stand by leaning against the tree, my legs gave out from exhaustion. My sense of balance was off, and my vision swam as I tried to collect myself.

“You have a moment to catch your breath, so use it.”

“I need to save Alice,” I mumbled, sounding delirious.

“Just rest,” Pain urged, shoving me back to the mossy forest floor. “You keep going like this you’ll collapse.”

“I can’t sleep here. What if… What if Nightingale...”

“I’ll watch over you.”

I had nothing more than the gun, a flashlight. I wasn’t a light sleeper. If I fell asleep, I feared not waking up in time to meet the kidnapper.

A breeze rustled the branches above and caused my teeth to clatter from the cold. Even with my jackets, I was shivering. Now that I wasn’t running, the sweat I had worked up was freezing on my skin.

“It’s too cold...”

Pain sighed. He appeared at my side, sitting against the tree. He was somehow still physical despite being cloaked in dark, wispy shadows. He wrapped an arm around me, and I couldn’t believe how warm he was. It was like having a furnace next to me.

We sat side by side in companionable silence. My eyes were heavy, and I could barely keep my head up. I leaned into Pain, relieved to find his shoulder solid beneath my head.

“Warm… Feels good…”

“Rest. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

A few days ago, he had been nothing more than a formless, hulking shadow. Something had changed—was it because I knew he was one of my characters? Was the veil between the fictional and real worlds growing thinner?

The world had turned upside down. Nothing made sense anymore. I was too tired to question what the rules of reality were.

As I drifted off to the sound of the river and the forest at night, I thought of what Pain had called me—baby, said with a fondness I couldn’t name. Pain was important to me, and if calling me baby was any indication, then maybe I was important to him too…

Chapter Text

After a long morning spent walking through another stretch of forest, we reached the mining encampment where the kidnapper had wanted to meet to exchange an unfinished manuscript for Alice. The sun was high in the sky, and it was around noon. We had a long wait ahead of us, yet again. These midnight rendez-vous were getting pretty old.

The exhaustion and stress of my situation was taking a toll on my health. I had spent much of the walk trying to sift through my memories of the previous night. What I couldn’t forget, however, was the singular word Pain had called me while I was under duress.

Baby.

Of all the things to say, why had this one managed to snap me out of my spiral? There was much to think on, but I’d worry about it after I confronted the kidnapper and saved Alice. That’s what I did best, after all: pushing my problems further and further down the road, never confronting them.

We settled into an old weathered building which had been converted into a museum exhibit about the mine. I turned on the emergency radio I had found behind the counter and leaned back in a chair, hoping Pat Maine’s talk show antics would somehow make time tick by faster.

“…Now, y’know doc, after the wild night I had, I’ve been doing some thinking. Nearly being shot at by a neanderthal fed really shook some things loose. Maybe you could shed some light on this afternoon’s topic: soulmates.”

Of all the topics to discuss, why soulmates? Was there really nothing else going on in Bright Falls? You know, like all the shadow monsters in the forest? The bloodthirsty ravens?

“Oh well, Pat, I don’t know,” Doctor Nelson said, sounding unsure. “I’m not confident I’m qualified to talk at length about that…”

“Nonsense. You and Sherry have been married for years.”

“Well, sure. I just don’t know if I buy into the idea of soulmates.”

“Really? I always figured you were a hopeless romantic.”

Doc Nelson chuckled sheepishly. “I suppose you’ve got me there.”

“Before bringing you on for today’s show, doc, I did some light reading down at the local library,” Pat began. “The concept of soulmates is one which transcends cultures, history, mythology, and religion. In many Asian cultures, there’s this idea of the ‘red string of fate’; it’s a tether between two people from birth. It can get tangled and all twisted up, but it’ll never break.”

“So if you follow that idea, are you cheating on your soulmate if you’re with someone else before you meet them?”

“No, no, I think that’s where the tangled part comes into play. Sometimes you don’t immediately meet The One.”

“I admit, it took me a few rounds of heartbreak before I found Sherry.”

“Well, Phil Collins said it best by saying you can’t hurry love,” Pat teased.

“Boy was he right!”

“There was one book which caught my eye. The author explained how for much of the western world, the origin of soulmates comes from the Greek philosopher Plato. He proposed the idea that the god Zeus split humans in two to keep mankind humble. So we’d never be whole. We’d always be searching for our other half. Made us weaker in the eyes of the gods. Of course, some beliefs on soulmates are far less complex. Some people say you only see in greyscale until you meet your one true love.”

“That… doesn’t sound medically correct.”

“No, hah, but I think it’s a fitting metaphor. When you’re in love, the world’s suddenly much more colorful and bright.”

“I guess I could agree with that sentiment.” Doc Nelson paused over the line. “I think love’s where you look for it. And sometimes you do a lot of looking, sure, but the idea that there’s this one special person out there for you, and if you miss your chance, then it’s gone forever... I mean, don’t you think that idea of soulmates is kind of depressing? Or heck, even childish? There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”

“I’m not surprised you’d find a way to bring this back to fishing.”

“Well love is a lot like fishing. You need to be patient, if you’re looking. Sometimes you cast your line and you don’t get a bite all morning. Then, afternoon comes and it’s nonstop action.”

What kind of nonstop action was Doc Nelson getting in this analogy?

“A fisherman has a metaphor for everything, doesn’t he?” Pat laughed. “But what you’re saying, about the idea of soulmates being depressing, don’t you think you’re being a little bit harsh?”

“Well, no, I’m saying anyone seeking out love shouldn’t feel like it all comes down to a chance encounter. Something you could easily miss. I think love is something you can find unexpectedly, or maybe it’s something you find after years of searching. I don’t think that’s harsh. It’s not always about searching. Sometimes you have to work for it. Nothing good ever comes easily. Everyone deserves a chance, heck, even second chances, at happiness.”

“That’s a real sweet sentiment, Doc. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you know so much about romance with how happy you and your wife are.”

The two men shared a laugh over the air.

“Well folks, maybe we’ll pick up this conversation later with open lines. I’m curious to hear what all of you think out there: is there such a thing as true love, or heck, even love at first sight?” Pat sighed dreamily. “But for now, I think it’s time for some more tunes. Just for all you lovers out there, we’ll play some slower songs at KBF-FM.”

The talk show transitioned to music.

“Some people have it so easy…” I sighed, feeling bitter. I’d wanted a distraction from the ever-looming dread shadowing my every move, and instead I’d uncovered a whole new can of existential crisis worms.

“Not a fan of soulmates?” Pain asked, glancing away from the window he was leaning beside to keep watch for me.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

Of course happy people in love would think they were soulmates, especially those who had been together for decades like Doc Nelson and his wife. Nelson’s wife had probably never been kidnapped in the middle of a vacation. The worst argument him and his wife likely ever got into was probably over something inconsequential, like what color they’d paint their kitchen or the amount of throw pillows they’d have on their couch. Of course, happy couples like them wouldn’t fight for long; no, they would probably kiss and make up. They’d never go to bed angry. Nelson seemed like the kind of man who would do whatever his wife wanted, and he’d do it gladly. He was probably one of those ‘happy wife, happy life’ kind of guys.

For the rest of us, it wasn’t as straightforward.

Was Alice my soulmate? I wasn’t sure. Maybe naively, I had thought so when we first got married. I’d been young, full of confidence and optimism for my future, but I had been a child pretending to be a man. I’d let my success get to my head. Fame had turned me into a monster.

Reflecting on my relationship with Alice took me to a dark place. We had been drifting apart before this nightmare. I cared about her, I never wanted to see her suffer, but I’d hurt her anyways. I had been selfish, careless, and reckless with her heart. I had been so checked out for the last two years, I couldn’t understand why she had stayed. If I somehow managed to not fuck up saving her, I hoped she would leave me for good. She deserved someone who could give themselves wholly to her.

I didn’t want to think about it anymore. It was too depressing. I needed a new distraction.

“Is there someone special in your story, Pain?” I blurted out, immediately regretting my decision to open my mouth. Why exactly would I care to know? Pain was just a fictional character, an inconsequential one if I couldn’t even remember who he was.

Pain unfolded his arms and sighed as he took a moment to think about his answer. He glanced out the window as he said, “Yeah, I do. He’s my soulmate.”

Great, even my own fictional character had a soulmate. I’d stumbled away from one depressing train of thought straight into the arms of another. I turned from him, folding my arms across my chest.

“You brought it up,” he said, suddenly appearing in front of me. “Don’t you want to know more?”

“No,” I grumbled. “I don’t even believe in soulmates, honestly. It’s a gimmick to make lonely people feel lonelier.”

“You don’t really believe that. You wouldn’t have asked if you weren’t curious.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re right. Asking you was a weird question.”

Pain stared at me, his mouth a thin line. Every time he tried to speak, he kept starting and stopping, like he was trying to find the right words, as if he only had one shot at explaining something to me. In the few days he’d been following me around, he’d never behaved this way. Maybe the soulmates conversation had bothered him as much as it had bothered me. Maybe he missed his soulmate.

The lengthening silence was making me uncomfortable. The space within the mining museum felt tighter. It was claustrophobic, but when I tried to get up and leave the museum for some fresh air, Pain stopped me, gently grabbing me by the arm. I glanced back at him and froze. A strange spark passed between us again, just like the first time we had been able to touch.

“Don’t go,” he pleaded. “Just listen to me, Alan. I want to tell you.”

Why? Of all the times to share more about himself, this was the question he wanted to answer?

Bragging seemed out of character for him. Why would it be appropriate to tell me about someone I didn’t even know? For all I was aware, the person Pain was referring to could have been yet another fictional character I’d used and forgotten.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Yet as I tried to shift away from him, he cupped my chin and forced my eyes to meet his scribbled-out face.

“You need to.”

The desperation in his voice gave me pause. It rooted me in place, and so I relented.

“My soulmate, he’s special to me,” Pain said softly. “Deeply passionate. When he lets himself be happy, he’s beautiful. Being around him is like one endless adventure, but I like our quieter moments when he lets his walls down. We’ve gone through so much together. Through all the good and the bad, I’ve never stopped loving him. I wish he’d remember that.”

Pain spoke with such conviction and love, it brought fat tears to my eyes. I was struck by the depth of his devotion. He’d laid out all his cards onto the table, and he didn’t hesitate, he didn’t trip over himself when it came to talking about something as serious as this. He wasn’t afraid of his feelings; no, he believed in them wholeheartedly.

There was some raw, jagged place inside me which yearned to be filled with such warm sentiment. Listening to him, I could almost believe this declaration of unconditional love was for me.

But it wasn’t. These words weren’t mine to take comfort in. They were meant for someone else, not me.

Calling me baby in the forest had just been an accident. A slip of the tongue. He was just doing the right thing.

But there was some small part of me which wanted to pretend, desperately, that I was his baby. To lean into the cool palm against my cheek and to let him reel me in, to be comforted in his embrace. To be the man he was describing, someone worthy of love.

“I wish I could spare him from the harshness of the world, but I can’t. All I can do is try to keep him safe.”

Pain was a good man, and like Alice, he deserved someone who could look after him, who could tend to his heartache and sorrow with far more grace than I’d ever be able to muster. I could never be that person. All I did was continue to hurt the people I cared about over and over.

“He… He sounds great, Pain,” I mumbled. “I’m happy you have someone.”

The scratch marks over Pain’s shadowed face stilled. His fingers slipped from my cheek, his arm limply dropping back to his side. He took a half-step back, making me grimace. Had I said something wrong?

I could still only see the lower half of his face, but the frown he wore cut deep. He was in pain.

The world dropped from underneath my feet. I had said the wrong thing. I’d somehow managed to fuck up this tender moment—just like I did with everything.

“I’m sorry,” I said, stumbling over myself, “I wasn’t trying to…”

“It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. It was impossible not to worry. Pain was my friend, and I’d hurt him without even realizing it.

“You know, calling me Pain was fitting,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “because every day without him is agony.”

Then Pain walked away to go lean against one of the tall wooden pillars. Like the times before, it was like an invisible wall had gone up between us. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.

“Get some rest,” he dismissed. “You’re going to need it for tonight. I’ll wake you if something happens.”

Unwilling to face the sudden awkward tension between us, I found a place against the wall where I could pull my knees close to my chest in a futile attempt at self-comfort. The heartache hurt too much, so I leaned my head against my folded arms and sobbed silently until I drifted off.

▼

When I woke hours later, evening had fallen over the old mining encampment. The clock on my phone said it was only 11:24. I still had over half an hour before the kidnapper would show his face.

Pain had honored his word. He had kept watch over me while I slept during the afternoon. I’d been dead tired, so I was grateful Pain had let me sleep much longer than I expected.

From my seated position on the floor, I peered up at the nearly full moon which hung in the sky, casting light through a window.

I could have turned on the radio again to listen to something to distract myself, but I had no interest. I just wanted to get tonight over with, but time moved at a standstill.

The unspoken fracture between Pain and I was more apparent than ever as he stood opposite of me, his frame stock-still.

Underneath all those shadows, he was hurting. and I didn’t know how to comfort him. He’d been there from the beginning when I woke up in the car. The only times he had left my side were when Barry or someone else was around, unwilling to risk a conversation which would make me look otherwise insane. His loyalty had never wavered.

Losing ground in my battle to remember him made his features become more obscured in shadow again. It was a devastating setback, but one I could do little to fix.

I was overcome with a sudden unbearable urge to dig deep into the recesses of my head and turn over every stone in my memories to find the truth. I wanted to search and search until I’d clawed at every inch of my skull.

But I was given no opportunity to wonder. My phone rang, and I picked it up, my gut instinct already guessing what was about to happen.

The kidnapper wasn’t coming.

Chapter Text

The kidnapper’s behavior was bordering on farcical.

First Lover’s Peak, now Mirror Peak. I was becoming a goat with how much I was traversing these mountain ranges, fueled by vengeance and adrenaline. I had no real plan. I was going to give the kidnapper the manuscript pages I’d found, and if it wasn’t enough, I’d make him talk. I’d hold him at gunpoint until he told me where Alice was, how I could reach her. And if he still wouldn’t talk…

I was no action hero. I was stumbling in the dark, fumbling for some kind of leverage I could hold over the kidnapper. I’d written stories all my life, but real life was never as simple as fiction.

My phone buzzed. It was the kidnapper, telling me to meet him faster.

hury the fck up u piece of shit
dont u ever want 2 see ur bitch wife again

The text message made me see red. I gripped my phone so tight my knuckles turned white. He was telling me to hurry? He was the one jerking me around.

“Don’t let him get to you. He’s doing this on purpose to rile you up.”

Well it was working. I wanted to smash the phone against the nearest hard surface I could find, but doing so would serve no one. If the kidnapper couldn’t contact me, then I’d never be able to rescue Alice.

“There’s another manuscript page up ahead,” Pain noted.

I was getting so sick of everything. I was a hamster in a wheel, running in place and making no progress. What the fuck was the page going to tell me now? Was it going to actually do something useful, or was it just going to spout nonsense at me?

So when I came upon the page Pain had pointed out, I snatched it off the tree branch it was impaled upon and started reading, expecting more bullshit.

This time, however, it wasn’t bullshit. Reading the lines, I sobered immediately.

Mott had checked all of Stucky’s rental cabins. There had been no sign of the Wakes. It was dark when he’d found their car parked at the end of the road by Cauldron Lake.

It made no sense. They must have taken a wrong turn, but there was no sign of them, and the car had been there for hours already.

Frustrated, Mott stood on the rotten ruin of the footbridge that had once led to Diver’s Isle, before it sank beneath the waves years ago. The boss wouldn’t be happy.

For the first time since discovering the pages, the typed words directly contradicted information I already knew. The kidnapper—Mott—had taken Alice, hadn’t he? He’d recorded her screams over the phone. He’d tormented her. Ransomed her for these very pages I kept finding all over Bright Falls.

But now this page was offering an alternative story. A branching path I hadn’t expected. In the narrative, Mott had come to the lake, he’d found our car, but there had been no sign of us, of Alice. I didn’t like what this page was implying. If the kidnapper was lying this whole time, if he didn’t really have Alice… then who did?

My anger was reaching new levels. Between the kidnapper jerking me around, the manuscript pages telling tall tales, and then the discovery that there was someone else in Pain’s life…

Jealousy, now, in the middle of this mess?

Apparently rock bottom had further depths. A hidden trap door leading to a whole new low. My circumstances weren’t screwed up enough; on top of everything else, I needed to be green-eyed over Pain’s romantic subplot.

Where was this feeling coming from? Pain was just a fictional character. Clearly a beloved one given the fondness I felt towards him, but how could I be envious of a fictional character’s life when I’d written those story beats myself? Just what exactly could I be coveting? I couldn’t even remember who he was.

But the long trek through the forest was just long enough to give me time to self-reflect.

I envied his devotion, his loyalty. And I… I wanted to be the man he was devoted to, but I would never be him.

This notion was ridiculous. Pain and I had only really “known” each other for a few days. I wasn’t gay, first of all. Sure, we had bonded over this crisis, but we were just friends, right? Pain was helping me get through a terrible moment in my life, offering me guidance and comfort. Everything could be explained in simple, straightforward terms: I was just a creator spending time with his creation he’d somehow managed to forget.

But if I was being honest, and if I couldn’t be honest with myself then who else was left, I had developed some malaligned dependence upon Pain toeing the line between comraderie and affection. There was more to our history than he was willing to share, more to our story. No matter how much my messed up priorities wanted me to question my feelings, now wasn’t the time nor the place while I hunted down the bastard who had taken my wife.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Pain would never belong to me in the way some dark, selfish part of myself wanted him to be… because when he had admitted to being in love with someone else, it was impossible to not feel like the third wheel. Pain didn’t want to be with me, he wanted to be with the man he loved. Helping me was just temporary. He would leave when this was all over.

“Alan?” Pain called out to me, breaking my train of thought. “Are you okay?”

Apparently, I had abruptly stopped walking and now stood frozen in the middle of the path. I pulled my messenger bag’s strap closer to my chest and averted my gaze. These feelings were stupid, irrational. They were likely symptoms of my deteriorating emotional state. Seeking comfort while trying to save my missing wife. Even now, chasing after her kidnapper, I was so focused on myself and my own needs. Alice deserved better. Far, far better.

“I’m fine.” I wasn’t. I wanted to cry, and this was another stupid problem fueling my frustration. Why couldn’t I just toughen up in the face of adversity?

Pain frowned. He didn’t buy my response, but we were on a tight schedule if we wanted to meet the kidnapper yet again.

As we started walking once more, I stared at the back of his head, unable to shake my own guilt. Pain was only with me now because I’d summoned him here against his will. He should have been enjoying a happy life with his soulmate, not protecting a writer who couldn’t even defend himself. Unless… Unless I’d done something terrible in the narrative Pain was from.

“Pain?”

Pain glanced over his shoulder, and when he noticed a tear sliding down my cheek, he fully turned to look back at me.

“Did I… Did I do something to them, your soulmate?” I asked, swallowing thickly. “Did I hurt them? Is that why you aren’t with them now?”

Pain sighed. “I told you, Alan. I’m here because you called out to me.”

I gripped the strap of my bag tighter and looked down. “So I forced you to be here.”

“That’s not what I said.” Pain took a step closer. “No one forces me to do anything.”

“Then why aren’t you with him?”

“How do you know I’m not already?”

Stunned by the implication of only a handful of words, my heart stopped, my thoughts fried. I took a step back, and the heel of my boot tripped on a rock wedged in the dirt, causing me to stumble. Pain caught me, his grip firm, and as my eyes moved up his body, I realized the shadows had dissipated around him. I was seeing his torso clearly for the first time: a leather jacket, a grey shirt, a gaudy, awful yellow tie with peacocks on it hanging loosely around his neck, and then—

A bone-chilling wail pierced the night.

“Wait!” I heard from further up the path. “Listen lady, we didn’t know…”

It was the kidnapper, Mott. He was talking to a woman. Alice? What the fuck was that bastard doing to her? I slipped out of Casey’s hold and raced ahead with reckless abandon, following the path to a winding stairwell which led to the lookout. A plank groaned underfoot, and Mott shouted at me.

“Shit! Wake? Is that you?”

“Hey! Stay the fuck there! I’m coming!”

“No, no, no. You need to leave. Get away while you still can!”

Nothing could deter me from saving Alice. I was done playing the kidnapper’s shitty game.

“What do you want from me?” Mott said. “What do you expect me to do?”

Howling wind drowned out the kidnapper’s sobbing.

“I’m sorry, lady! Please! The boss didn’t know what he was dealin’ with! We didn’t know! I swear, we didn’t know!”

I raced forward, eager to discover for myself who the kidnapper was answering to and to see Alice again at last. My heart hammered in my chest, and I tried in vain to ignore the hairs rising on the back of my neck. I had a bad feeling about this.

“We don’t have his wife! She probably drowned, for fuck’s sake!” Mott screamed. “We just said we had her so he’d write for us…”

No, no, no. Alice is alive. She’s alive. She’s—

The stairwell ended and became a lookout over Cauldron Lake. The kidnapper knelt alone on the platform, speaking to no one. A single lantern dangling over the railing bathed him in light, but beyond the halo, something stirred in the darkness. It was as if… It was as if Mott was talking to something in the shadows.

What the fuck was happening? Was this guy just insane?

“Where’s Alice?” I shouted, raising the gun, stating my intentions for the last time. I wasn’t playing around anymore. I’d had enough.

But the kidnapper didn’t even address me. He didn’t care that I was pointing a gun at him; whatever voice in his head he’d been talking to, it must have been far more threatening. He shook and panted while tears streamed down his narrow face. Seeing the kidnapper rendered to a sniveling lackey made having a gun on him awkward, but I didn’t back down.

Mott turned slowly, and when he saw me, he scrambled away, his eyes wide as saucers.

“There! He’s here!” He cried out, pointing at me. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You wanted the writer. So take him!”

Before I could react to his threat, a woman appeared before me and vanished in an instant. Just a flash was enough to send a shiver down my spine, to quicken my breath, to make my blood run cold. It was the woman from the diner, the woman who had given Alice and I the fateful key to Diver’s Isle.

The shadows encroached over the lockout, gathering like a vortex until they formed into the same monster which had pursued me in the woods as I ran from Nightingale. It was the Dark Presence. It bellowed like a beast, its power nearly knocking me off my feet. It loomed over Mott first, a hungry predator salivating over its prey. It no longer had use for him anymore, and so it lunged.

“No, no! Please!”

But the Dark Presence cared little for Mott’s cries. It swept him off his feet and catapulted him, sucking him into the tempest of darkness hovering just beyond the lookout. He spun in the air, a vicious, dizzying spiral, but I couldn’t remain frozen in horror for long.

The same force which had taken him turned to appraise me. I reached into my bag for a flare and lit it, expecting to beat back the darkness with the blazing bright light. The Dark Presence recoiled, but my defiance only angered it. The vortex grew stronger, tugging on me, its force overwhelming. I lost my balance as it dragged me towards the crumbling lookout’s railing. Just as I was about to tumble over the edge, Pain grabbed my forearm to catch me.

Time slowed to a crawl. The howl of the tornado of darkness was muffled. The world narrowed to the long, calloused fingers holding me, and my vision followed up the familiar leather-clad arm, higher and higher until I reached his face—where a look of pure, unadulterated anguish stared back at me.

All his features were on display, unobstructed. Sandy brown hair with three tendrils dangling over his forehead. Blue eyes. Stubble on his chin. His lips were forming words, the same words over and over, but I couldn’t make them out.

Pain’s muffled words became more frantic, and he was trying so hard to keep his grip—but he was only a man, unable to stop the Dark Presence alone.

My hand slipped from his, and there was a single moment, a mere breath, when our fingers were poised like God and Adam. Fitting, for I was the one who had made him, who had bestowed him with the curse of self-awareness.

There was a name on the tip of my tongue. Even now, plummeting towards icy waters and certain death, I couldn’t put a name to a face. But I was grateful to have been able to see my guardian angel’s face unmarred by shadows before the end.

Time sped up right as my back slammed against the surface of Cauldron Lake, punching the air out of my lungs.

The water jostled free something inside my skull. Stolen moments of another man’s life flashed before my eyes in rapid succession—and Pain was there, with me. I was the one he showered with love, but this couldn’t be possible. I was undeserving, so I was certain these memories weren’t mine. And yet… amidst everything, there were glimpses of Barry, of Alice. Two more people I’d let down.

I’d failed all of them. Barry, my best friend. Alice, the wife I’d abandoned to the dark. The man in the memories, the man I’d spent the last several days calling Pain because he’d been a pain in my ass…

The flare’s light died out as I sank deeper and deeper. I was too weak to struggle and fight as my lips parted and water filled my lungs. I was so ready to surrender and admit defeat, but arms wrapped around my torso and pulled me towards the surface.

Fading in and out of consciousness, I couldn’t follow what was happening to me.

In one flash of awareness, I was lying on my back on the shore feeling air forced into my lungs. In another, I was strapped to a gurney while another man hovered over me. He was familiar, but his presence brought me no relief. He sported a bandage over the bridge of his nose and brushed the hair out of my face with cold, clammy fingers. He leaned close, whispering in my ear, urging me to relax. His image kept shifting, turning into Alice. She wanted me to let go, to stop fighting.

Through the blinding lights and spots in my vision, there was a familiar shadow, and I wanted to reach for him amidst the cacophony. I wanted him to take me away, for him to keep me safe. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so his voice only added to my confusion.

The edges of my vision darkened, the voices blurred together—at least until a needle pressed into the vein of my left arm.

Then, there was nothingness and silence.

Chapter Text

I woke up in an unfamiliar space—a bedroom with a single window and a desk with a… with another typewriter.

With sluggish movements, I sat upright, but when I bent my arm to clutch at my head, I winced. Glancing down, I realized I was stripped to just my t-shirt and the bend in my left arm was bandaged. My stomach dropped, my heart raced. I tore the bandage off and discovered my skin was discolored by bruises. From how disoriented I was, I could only assume I’d been injected with something.

Where was I? What had happened? The last thing I could remember was the lookout over Cauldron Lake. I had confronted the kidnapper. He didn’t have Alice, but the Dark Presence had been there. It had consumed Mott with ease, and then it had turned on me. The lookout crumbled, I lost my footing, a hand caught me, and then nothing.

If I had fallen into the lake from the lookout, then it was nothing short of a miracle that I was alive. I had a fresh bandage on my forehead, and even though nothing else felt broken, I was still exhausted. My body ached. This was the third time in less than two weeks that I’d lost consciousness and another chunk of memories. I was starting to become a walking amnesia trope I’d criticized other writers over. I was a living cliche.

I expected to find Pain here, watching over me from the shadows like he had last time at Rose’s trailer, but to my dismay, I was alone with nothing but my thoughts, the furniture, and the…

I turned my head slowly towards the desk, my hand dropping limply to my lap.

The typewriter was inanimate, but its presence filled the room to the brim, suffocating me inside of it. I rose from the bed and stood before it, a supplicant before an ominous altar. The paper tray was a maw, eager to feed on more than just empty sheets. It was taunting me for my inability to write.

I turned away, disgusted by the sight of it. As far as I was concerned, typewriters were monsters, creatures that didn’t obey my command like they once did. I’d lost all sense of how to tame them.

Ding!

The chime of a finished line caused me to turn around. I gasped, shocked to discover the keys were moving on their own. Yet instead of typing words onto the page, the ink from the well began to seep from the typewriter, sliding along the contour of the desk’s wooden grain and dripping onto the floor like blood.

I lunged for the glass door, desperate to flee, but as I tried the doorknob, it wouldn’t budge. I started banging on the door, shouting for help. I could sense the typewriter rising from the desk. It was crawling closer, the metal husk scraping the ground.

“Pain, where are you?” I called out.

Why wasn’t he here? He had been with me for the past several days, and now, of all times, he disappeared?

The typewriter advanced until it loomed above me, casting a long shadow. The clicking was so loud it deafened the sound of my fist pounding against the glass. The smell of ink was thick and humid in the air, coating my lungs with poison.

“Help! Please!” I begged, shaking the door handle in a frenzy, hoping it would give. “Pain, I need you!”

However, my savior wasn’t Pain this time. Instead, Emil Hartman, the so-called psychologist I had seen at the Sheriff’s Station, appeared in the hallway. Hartman was dressed in another corded sweater, sporting a bandaid over his nose where I had punched him during our first encounter. He saw me struggling and took his time approaching the locked room. Leisurely, he searched for the key which would open the door, well-aware I was freaking out inside my prison.

When the door swung open, I was of half-mind to tackle him and make a break for it… until I saw a rather bulky man dressed in all white come into view, following Hartman. He took a position behind his boss, standing with his hands clasped in front of him, like he was daring me to strike.

“Good afternoon, Alan,” Hartman greeted. He smiled, wrinkling his bandaged nose, but it wasn’t warm or friendly. Couldn’t he see the typewriter was right behind me? Couldn’t he see it was about to attack?

Yet Hartman simply stood there, observing me as if I was a frantic labrat waiting to be experimented upon.

Cautiously, I looked over my shoulder. The typewriter was where I had found it, unmoved atop the desk. I ran a hand over my jaw, eyes wide in shock. What was I thinking? The typewriter was just an inanimate object. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t hurt me.

When I turned my attention back to Hartman, his smile had grown teeth. He was pleased to stumble upon me having some kind of episode. Seeing his satisfaction filled me with overwhelming rage, but I couldn’t throw another punch at this snake oil salesman without having to take on his backup.

“Feeling better?” Hartman cooed. “Feeling calm?”

To further illustrate his smarmy disposition, Hartman moved his hands up and down, like he could lessen my frustration and disdain towards him with a simple placating gesture. I glanced back to the room, hoping to find Pain there to support me, but it was still empty. I was on my own with Hartman and his lackey.

“Yeah,” I sighed, shoulders sagging in defeat. “Sure.”

“That’s the spirit! Oh, you’re being very brave Alan. I understand you’re confused. I’d be more concerned if you weren’t suspicious of me. I don’t blame you for it, even if it’s misplaced fear.”

There was much in life I was afraid of, but I wasn’t ‘afraid’ of this asshole. I knew better than to pick a losing fight.

“Where am I?”

“Cauldron Lake Lodge, my clinic for struggling artists.”

Of course. I’d plummeted from the landing and plunged into the lake after confronting the kidnapper. Of all the people to find me, Emil Hartman had somehow rescued me.

“Why am I here?” I asked. “I never agreed to treatment.”

“On the contrary, Alan, you did over a week ago. I have the paperwork in my office.”

I blinked hard at Hartman. “I would never—”

“Your agent,” Hartman cleared his throat, “correction, your ‘lawyer’ as you call him, was your witness to admittance. He signed off on your treatment in lieu of, well...”

“Barry is my best friend. He wouldn’t.” My hands clenched into fists at my side. I wanted to punch Hartman. Again and again. “I don’t believe you.”

“I understand, Alan. This is still all very new to you. If you would just follow me, we can get you reacquainted with my clinic on the way to my office. We can go over anything you might’ve forgotten. A little walk and some fresh air will do you some good.”

Yeah. He deserved another punch. But with the orderly, I couldn’t risk it.

So with little other choice, I followed him. We headed for the first floor of the lodge, passing by the rooms of other patients. Hartman explained there were only a few people at the lodge today, the result of a fishing field trip. We took the elevator, and as much as I wanted to not listen to his bullshit, I couldn’t escape. I was lethargic, woozy. I had to regain my strength.

“Now, Alan, from past experience with you, I know I need to get right to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible after an episode, so I’m going to be quite clear with you.” He pressed a button on the panel to activate the elevator, and it began descending with a rather alarming groan. “This is the second time you’ve fled from treatment, Alan.”

The second time? No, that couldn’t be possible…

“I’ll remind you, Alan, you’re not in prison. There’s no need to try and escape. As I explained last time, you can leave whenever you want, but we would need to go through proper channels to discharge you first. We would need to bring Mr. Wheeler to the clinic to pick you up.”

I had no recollection of this other ‘escape’ attempt, let alone checking in to become a patient at this clinic in the first place. He was either lying through his teeth or the drugs he’d given me had wiped my memories. The thought was terrifying, insidious. I couldn’t process the possibility that there was truth in any of what he was asserting.

Whatever Hartman had injected me with, it made my mind foggy, my body tired. I could only imagine the injection had caused Pain to disappear. After all, he was just… he was just a manifestation from my mind, and if I couldn’t focus, then he couldn’t be here with me. The reminder of this reality was too painful to comprehend, so I tried to shove it aside with all my other problems.

Still, the absence of my shadowy companion was noticeable, clawing. In the last few days, Pain hadn’t left my side for long. Not having him here made me feel on edge and incredibly alone. I didn’t want to be left in Hartman’s company by myself for long, but what could I do with powerful drugs in my system?

“…so I’ll remind you, Alan, you checked yourself in after experiencing an extreme psychotic break following your wife’s death.”

“My wife isn’t dead,” I bit back with a glare.

Hartman sighed and shook his head in frustration. “You’re in a very vulnerable state until you understand and accept this fact.”

I gritted my teeth. I was “in a very vulnerable state” because I had woken up in a strange bed after being drugged. My friends weren’t here with me, and my wife was still missing. To top it all off, some asshole was telling me the events of the last several days weren’t real.

The elevator chimed, its doors opening. Hartman stepped out and continued offering his summary of what had happened to me.

“I’m sorry to always have to remind you of such a dreadful memory, but it’s the truth, Alan.” He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked through his clinic like he was a king observing his domain. “She drowned in the lake during your recent vacation here.”

Drowned? My stomach sank. No, no, no! That wasn’t… That wasn’t true, goddamnit! Someone had taken Alice, she had been kidnapped, stolen away in the dead of night…

“You couldn’t face the thought of Alice dead. As a result, you’re suffering from hallucinations. Paranoid delusions. Unusual thinking, an obsession over light and darkness—a feeling that everything revolves around you, your thoughts, and your desires.”

What was happening in Bright Falls was no delusion. Even Barry had seen the shadow people, the birds. Maybe he hadn’t seen Pain, but he believed he was real just as much as I did.

“Your mind has constructed an elaborate fantasy in which your writings are manipulating reality. You believe Alice has been kidnapped and supernatural forces of darkness—including people like myself—are trying to stop you.”

Hartman fished out another key to unlock a door leading to the outside patio.

“Does this sound familiar yet?” He asked over his shoulder.

“No, but you like hearing yourself talk, so I can’t stop you.”

“Well, I suppose this is a better start than last time.” Hartman chuckled. “Believe it or not, I am trying to treat you to the best of my ability. You’re not making this easy, but the course of true mental health treatment never runs smoothly, right?”

For butchering Shakespeare, I hated Hartman even more.

“Each time we go through this, my hope is you’ll come to understand what happened to Alice on your own and learn to cope with her death, but unfortunately we seem to always return to the same endpoint, Alan—with you wanting to kill yourself in the same manner as Alice. Each time you believe you can save her from drowning.”

My hand balled into a fist at my side. She didn’t drown. She was kidnapped.

“All of this conflict has been in your head. You’ve been making it up. Apart from the tragic accident with your wife, no one else has been harmed. Your delusions are just a manifestation of your subconscious mind trying to reconcile with the pain of your wife’s death. It is a common coping mechanism.”

I didn’t want to be here, listening to this. I didn’t want to waste my time dealing with psychobabble, but I needed to play along until an opportunity presented itself. Even if it made my skin crawl. What other choice did I have if I wanted to avoid being confined?

“Unless we fight the fantasy, it will return. I know the instinct is to resist me, but think about it: doesn’t this make far more sense? When your wife first contacted me, she mentioned you were a skeptic by nature, Alan, so even you can surely see the idea of a grand conspiracy working against you is far-fetched. Everything can be processed logically.”

We passed by the main area of the lodge’s patio where there was a large sundial with an inscription and metal Latin words embedded into the structure reading In Tenebras Cadere. My Latin was a little rusty, but I was pretty sure it translated as ‘to fall into darkness.’ If Hartman was trying to seem so innocent, this was a strange inscription to have on his gaudy sundial.

“Beautiful view, isn’t it?” Hartman said, drawing my attention away from the strange decorations. “Cauldron Lake is so inspiring.”

Now he was ham-fisting the whole “creativity for healing” shtick.

“I once had a dear, dear friend who sought solace in its waters.” He gestured to a plaque on the sundial, and I read it.

Beyond the shadow you settle for, there’s a miracle illuminated

- T.Z.

In memory of a dear friend and a poet.

T.Z.? Were those initials…

“Thomas Zane?”

“Why yes! Are you a fan of his works?”

“I haven’t read any.”

“That’s unfortunate, but not unexpected. Many of his works are no longer in print. Never fear, though! I would be happy to recite some of my favorites from memory after today’s session. Perhaps those poems will move you as they have moved me over the years.”

There was a strange glimmer in Hartman’s eyes. I’d never seen him this excited over anything. He was genuinely happy to be reminiscing about the poet Thomas Zane.

“I knew him in the seventies. He lived on the lake. Thomas and I were just the best of friends. We were so, so young. I was one of his biggest supporters, helping him with some of his earliest works. I was even one of his muses...” He sighed and muttered, “One of many, unfortunately.”

Hartman leaned against the railing and peered over the lake’s crystalline waters. I only knew what Barry had shared about the poet Thomas Zane, but I had a hard time picturing Hartman in his inner circle. The two seemed wholly incompatible. For one, Zane seemed to be actually helping me.

“In fact,” Hartman continued, tapping his chin in thought, “you remind me of him, Alan. You both share many similarities. He was quite the brooding artist. You even look quite similar. Though, I must admit, he took far better care of his appearance. He was far less… rough around the edges.” Hartman laughed. “Nothing that a little time spent in my company can’t rectify.”

Those words made my skin crawl, even if they sounded like an afterthought.

Hartman glanced to the horizon and his unsettling smile faded. His brows furrowed as he pushed off the railing of the deck.

“Hm. It seems there’s a storm coming. Strange. I don’t recall there being mention of that in the weather forecast.” He clasped his hands together and gestured towards double doors leading into the clinic. “Well, no matter. Let’s go inside.”

Chapter Text

Hartman guided me back inside his facility guised as a cozy “retreat” chalet. I might as well have been forced at gunpoint to follow with the orderly trailing us. Inside the day room of the lodge, there was a man ranting to himself about “unruly fans stifling his creativity” while huddling in front of the stone fireplace. An artist sat on a stool while he painted something quite… disturbing, to say the least. The canvas was nearly filled with black paint, but there were some streaks of white spiraling towards the center.

“As a reminder, you’re one of several patients under my care. We’re currently hosting artists from a diverse field of occupations—musicians, painters, even a video game designer. I encourage creativity as part of the recovery process here at Cauldron Lake Lodge. You and I have been working together to try and channel your writing as a positive force for your own good.”

I bristled at the idea of writing at Hartman’s behest. What did he know about writer’s block?

“After our session, you’ll be able to reintroduce yourself to the others and get your bearings once more.”

We were heading to his office at the end of a hallway which overwhelmingly stank of formaldehyde. Trophies of dead animals hung above, their lifeless eyes tracking my every movement, but I wasn’t afraid of them. They were prisoners put on display; their full lives had been all but reduced to victimhood as cheap decorations to satisfy Hartman’s desire to make himself seem more masculine.

“This treatment will work if you let it, Mr. Wake,” he said, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Right now we’re in control thanks to it. Every time you have a relapse, it gets more and more difficult to help you resurface from the dark depths of your imagination. Not surprising, considering your profession, but it makes it rather hard to keep you grounded in reality.”

Hartman opened the door to his office and let me step inside first. There were several cluttered bookshelves, a mahogany desk, and only two chairs: one for the patient and one for him, the psychologist. He had a view of the lake and Mirror Peak in the distance. I noticed my messenger bag hanging on a coat rack behind his desk.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware.” Hartman reached out and patted the side of the bag. “We’re keeping it here for your own safety. Please, take a seat.”

With a sigh, I sat down across from Hartman reluctantly. To my relief, Hartman dismissed the orderly, gesturing for him to wait outside.

“My hope is after all those nightmares, Alan, returning to my clinic under my care comes as a relief to you. If it doesn’t, ask yourself: Why? Is it because you believe I’m lying? Or because you don’t want to admit you’re unwell and that you have been for some time?”

I folded my arms across my chest like a moody teenager. I dug my nails into the palms of my hands and tried to focus on what little I could see past Hartman’s shoulder.

“It’s natural for you to think of me as your enemy. It’s part of your illness. After all, I’m the one trying to bring you out of the world you’ve constructed for yourself. I’m trying to rehabilitate you.”

Hartman clearly loved the sound of his own voice. He reminded me of the psychologists I’d encountered when I went to visit my mother at the psychiatric ward during college. They all claimed to have answers. They all professed to understand mental illness better than anyone else, but if any of that had been true, then my mother would have gotten better, and we could have lived a normal life.

“...But I can’t do it by myself, Alan. You need to work with me.”

Hartman was still talking?

“Now that we’re back on the same page—a little writer to writer humor—”

Hartman chuckled, but I didn’t. We were nothing alike.

He reached into his desk cabinet and retrieved a manila folder labeled with my name. He spread it open and retrieved a pair of glasses from another drawer. He rifled through the stack of papers and retrieved one in particular, offering it to me. I snatched it out of his hands and began to read, discovering that this was my “admittance form” to his clinic.

“As you can see, it was signed and dated by yourself and your agent, Barry Wheeler.”

There it was: my signature, right above Barry’s, and a date in late August. I’d supposedly signed off on three months of treatment. I crumpled the paper and threw it back at him.

“You clearly forged this.”

“Did I, Alan?” He smoothed out the wrinkles and placed the form back among the other papers of my file. “Or are you simply lashing out in fear?”

“I don’t want to be here,” I said, hating how my voice cracked. “I don’t care if you have twenty forms with my signature. I didn’t agree to this!”

“I hate to have to tell you this, Alan, but your loved ones are concerned about you. Your mental health is their top priority. They want you to get better.”

I swallowed thickly and pressed a hand to the side of my face, suddenly feeling sick.

“This is what your wife would have wanted—”

“Don’t fucking tell me what Alice wanted!”

Hartman’s mouth thinned into a line. He folded his arms atop his desk. His gaze flickered from me to over my shoulder, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. He was going to call for the orderly, and then… and then he’d drug me again, and then I’d lose even more of my memories, my sense of self. I’d never escape.

“Wait, wait!”

“Are you going to follow through with the treatment you agreed to, Alan?”

I hated how I shriveled in my chair. All my resolve shattered with just one look, the promise of a threat. Hartman had sucked all the air out of the room, leaving me helpless and uncertain of how to proceed. The thought of being indefinitely trapped here deflated whatever remained of my rebellion.

“Fine,” I mumbled. “Whatever.”

I just had to listen to him, surely? My mother had endured countless sessions with doctors. How bad… How bad could it be?

“Good. I’m very happy to hear that.”

I bit back my snarky retort. Just one therapy session. I could do this, even if I felt the presence of an invisible gun pressed against my back.

“I thought today it would be good to address the root of your delusions as a whole.”

Hartman shuffled through his notes as if he was looking for something in particular. Just what did this guy have on me? The thought left me uneasy.

“Let’s start at the beginning. You have a history of self-destructive habits, namely rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, hypersexuality—”

I blinked hard. “What does any of that have to do with Alice being missing?”

“She’s deceased, Alan,” he scolded bitterly. “Now, if I may? Can we continue?”

Hartman glanced back down to his file and continued his crusade.

“All of these factors have led in the past to an extremely reckless lifestyle in which you are always chasing the next high, the next biggest thrill.” He leaned back in his chair and took off the glasses he had just put on to assess me. “Do you consider yourself a thrill-seeker, Alan?”

If I wanted to get through this quickly, I would have to answer his questions.

“No.”

“Are you certain about that? Your history of substance abuse involves placing yourself in situations where binge-drinking is the social norm. According to my records, you have also used cocaine.”

I wouldn’t apologize for hitting the bottle, but using cocaine had been extremely dangerous. Barry’s brand of getting me clean hadn’t been pretty. Thinking about what I’d said to him during withdrawals made me cringe; sometimes I couldn’t believe how he still wanted to be my agent, let alone my friend.

“Then there is also another matter. Your history of sexual deviancy.”

I blinked again, lips parting in shock. “Excuse me?”

“You have been in several scandals with people other than your wife, Alan. You took three college girls back to a hotel for sex.”

“I never slept with any of them. They took advantage of me.”

Hartman nodded, but it wasn’t in agreement. “So you’ve led yourself to believe to spare your guilty conscience, Alan.”

“I have nothing to feel guilty over. I made a bad call going out alone that night. I was talking to fans of my books. They put something in my drink without my notice. I blacked out that night. The next day there were photos of me all over the internet I didn’t remember taking.”

He glanced back down at the papers, ignoring my explanation. “Then, years later, a paparazzo for The Hollywood Reporter overheard you cheating on your wife with a man inside a hotel corridor.”

A chill ran down my spine. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”

Hartman frowned. “Are you telling me Alan you did not pay an escort to play the role of your fictional character, Alex Casey?”

I stood up and slammed my hands against the desk. “I’ve never hired anyone for sex!”

“Yet your wife stated you and her hadn’t been intimate in years.”

“That’s none of your business! How would you even know that?”

Hartman sighed and gave me a condescending look. “Her and I discussed your marital history when she reached out to me for my help.”

I gawked. “What does any of this have to do with my wife being kidnapped?”

“Your wife drowned, Alan,” Hartman corrected, causing me to bristle. “And it has everything to do with your wife’s death. You’re clinging to your delusions as a result of profound guilt.”

“I have plenty to be guilty over,” I said, collapsing back into the chair and pointing a finger at him, “but get your facts about me straight. I’ll say it again: I have never paid anyone for sex, and if I ever did, it wouldn't be with a guy.”

“But it’s true, is it not? You and Alice hadn’t been physical in many years.”

I spluttered. “It’s… It’s not relevant—”

“It is,” Hartman asserted, brows narrowed.

It was like talking to a brick wall.

“What my wife and I do in our private time is no one’s business. A paparazzo’s going to say anything for a quick buck.”

Hartman remained unconvinced. His pen tapped against a calendar mat, and he was studying me with those squinty eyes shrinks always used in movies and tv shows.

“You never considered that your lack of physical interest in your wife may stem from closeted homosexual desire?”

Instead of answering him, I turned away, growing more and more incensed as the seconds passed. What was Hartman having trouble understanding? I wasn’t gay. I was not. I’d never messed around with a guy. A handful of strange dreams didn’t mean anything. People lost their teeth in dreams, did it mean they had poor dental hygiene? Everyone had intrusive thoughts; psychologists could say whatever nonsense they wanted to peddle their craft, but the occasional thought didn’t mean I was about to act on my subconscious and go sleep with a man.

I clenched my hands into fists. “I’m not gay.”

But even as I said it aloud, I couldn’t fully convince myself. It was like hearing someone else speak through me. My voice sounded wrong. To my horror, a sense of deja-vu washed over me, making my skin crawl. Had I said these words before to someone else in the past? If I had, why couldn’t I remember?

“But have you thought about it, Alan? Perhaps in the dead of night while your wife sleeps peacefully beside you. A happy life, marital bliss, but for some reason, you continue to feel unfulfilled. Something’s missing.” Hartman leaned his head into his palm as he studied me. “Did you ever imagine someone else in the space where she lay? Perhaps you wished it was another man in your bed?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What the hell is your deal? Are you some kind of sick pervert? I told you I’m not—”

“I’m simply painting a word picture, Alan. You’re quite familiar with those, aren’t you?”

“This ‘picture’ you’re trying to ‘paint’ is pointless because I’ve never...”

“Alan,” Hartman chided, “we’ve all had intrusive thoughts. We’ve all wondered whether life was greener on the other side. Remember, you can be honest with me. I’m here to help.”

I swallowed thickly, despising his attempt at offering backhanded comfort.

“Take a moment to reflect on your marriage, your life up until now. How does it look compared to what you imagined as a younger man? Was it what you hoped it would be? Or has it fallen short in recent years because of something you feared naming.”

I fidgeted in the chair, shifting uncomfortably. I ran my hand through my hair and tugged on the roots. My thoughts raced as I scoured through my past to try and uncover any signs of misconduct I might have overlooked.

My marriage to Alice had gone well, at first. My career as a writer had skyrocketed me to fame, at first. Everything in my life had gone according to plan until my seizure, my memory loss, and now this horrible, horrible trip. The past week had been a new low. The world continued to fall out from under me. Rock bottom just kept getting deeper and deeper. But none of these problems had anything to do with my relationships with men. Barry was my best friend, and even though I loved him, it was like a brother. There were few other men in my inner circle, so whatever Hartman was insinuating…

And then I ran straight into the obvious.

Pain was a man under all those shadows, and I had let him comfort me, offer his guidance, and show me a way forward when I was paralyzed by my own fears out in the forests of Bright Falls. He had held my hand when I was scared, and he had even offered his shoulder to sleep on when I was exhausted. Pain had called me baby, and whether or not it was a slip of the tongue or somehow meant for me, it had made me feel special in a way I couldn’t describe.

Before confronting the kidnapper one last time, I was questioning Pain so he would share more about his soulmate. I had been acting like I was some kind of jilted lover. I was territorial over him. Staking a claim I had no right to. The thought of Pain holding someone else in a moment of distress upset me; it made no rational sense, but I harbored the feeling all the same.

I missed Pain, I needed Pain. Yet unlike my time in the forest, I was alone, caught in a different monster’s den, struggling to remain calm. If he was here, Hartman wouldn’t be able to see him, but maybe Pain’s presence would extend further into this realm through sheer determination. Maybe Hartman would sense eyes on the back of his neck. Maybe I would have just felt stronger, my resolve reinforced by his support. Pain would have countered everything Hartman said.

But he wasn’t here to be my shield. Something was either keeping him from me, or worse, he had abandoned me at last. I had become used to the security Pain provided, and without it I was vulnerable.

But was I about to admit all these anxieties to a quack psychologist like Hartman?

No chance.

“I married my wife,” I said after collecting myself. “Are you telling me my memories of her are false? Are you trying to say I wasn’t in love with her?”

“I’m not saying you weren’t in love with your wife, Alan. I’m raising the possibility that you may have been suppressing other desires simultaneously.”

Hartman folded his arms across my file. I was a specimen inside a petri dish, and he was hellbent on testing every angle of his hypothesis until he uncovered the one truth he was looking for.

“We may no longer use the term in the psychiatric community, but I believe you have been experiencing ego-dystonic homosexual desire.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“I believe you have been experiencing unwanted sexual desire which has interfered with your self-perception of being heterosexual. The two are in constant conflict.”

Was I… Was I attracted to Pain? Could that have been why I yearned for his touch? Was that what I was craving now?

“You make such claims about how you perceive yourself, but the information I have states otherwise. I’ll remind you, a paparazzo overheard you talking to someone you called Alex Casey. This is the name shared by your fictional detective character from your novels, yes?”

I had no recollection of this incident; if something had happened while I was drunk or high while on tour, Barry would have handled it. He managed my damage control. All I had to do was deny whatever claims others made about me. So either Hartman was genuinely making shit up or the paparazzo had done it for money, like I had told him in the first place.

“You have very few men in your life, Alan. No father figure growing up. Perhaps you yearned for some connection with another man, but because you couldn’t confront your desires without reprisal, you projected your feelings onto the next best thing: your fictional detective. Maybe you wanted to roleplay having an affair with Detective Casey. After all, you had written about him for several years. You felt connected to him. Maybe you even admired him.”

“Just because I wrote about him doesn’t mean I wanted to fuck him.”

“Well, from my sources,” Hartman sat up straighter, “it sounded as though you wanted it the other way around.”

Hartman said it with enough mockery to make my face burn in shame. I couldn’t stand how it made me feel so exposed, so embarrassed, like he had somehow managed to turn me inside out.

Yet even underneath these disquieting feelings, there was a whisper of truth. Some part of me did enjoy the idea of being the receiving partner. When Alice and I had been intimate in the past, I’d never been particularly assertive or dominant. Despite all my wayward attempts at machismo, Alice had called the shots, and I’d let her take me as she desired.

“In fact,” Hartman spoke again, tearing through my spiral, “I’m rather certain you were in love with him.”

Writers were proud of their works, and perhaps they fell in love with their stories in a narcissistic sense, but self-aggrandizing wasn’t the same as romantic love.

There were times where I found it difficult to wrap my head around Casey’s narrative voice, there were moments when I imagined myself talking to him directly to understand him better, but it would never be more than that, surely?

Casey was just a fictional character. He wasn’t real. I appreciated his service to me as a character for six books, but I had moved on. Or, I’d at least tried to.

Besides, if I was romantically in love with him, why would I have…

Suddenly, the black holes in my memory caused by my seizure could no longer be ignored. A sinking feeling formed in my stomach. I stared off at nothing in particular as I lost awareness of my surroundings.

“Alan? Alan?” Hartman called out to me. “Are you starting to understand my train of thought?”

All my senses rushed back to my body with full force. Bile rose up my throat, and I wanted to vomit. My hands covered my face as I shook my head. No, no, no. What Hartman was suggesting was wrong. I would never hurt someone I loved, not like that. I was a bastard, a monster in my own right, but I would never kill the person I loved.

“You’re… You’re wrong,” I mumbled.

“No, Alan, I think I’m very much right. You were in love with a fictional character. To love a fantasy with this much fervor is a delusion. Kill your darlings is a writing technique coined by your idol, Stephen King. I imagine you may have taken it quite literally. Perhaps you were tired of sharing him with the world. Perhaps you were bored with him.” Hartman chuckled. “Crimes of passion have happened for far less.”

I raised my head to stare at Hartman in disbelief. There he sat, smug and superior. He was already gloating, as if my profound silence was all the confirmation he needed.

My pulse began pounding in my ears, and my face burned in shame and fury. The chair screeched against the hardwood floor as I stood up abruptly and came around to where he sat atop his false throne. I yanked him by the collar of his stupid baby vomit sweater and shook him.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

On the other side of the office door, the orderly moved to step inside, but Hartman raised a hand to stop him despite my thrashing.

“You killed your titular character, and your life immediately fell apart afterward. But is he truly dead?

“That’s how the series ended!”

“But is he dead merely on paper, yet alive in your head, somewhere?”

“Alice’s disappearance has nothing to do with Casey!”

“Are you so certain, Alan? I think Alex Casey is the source of your illness and your writer’s block.”

“He’s not…”

“Except he is, Alan. You have to understand, he isn’t real. You didn’t murder a real man, you killed a fictional character. You can write stories with him—or anyone else—again.”

“Shut up!”

I wanted him to stop talking. I wanted him to stop spewing lies. I had heard enough of this.

“You are hurting me, Alan. Please let me down, or I will be forced to call my orderly.”

I dropped Hartman, and he landed back onto his plush leather chair with a huff. Hartman brushed off his sweater as I staggered backward. I leaned against the wall, unable to steady my heavy breathing. Why was this happening? Why was he doing this to me?

“I question your self-perception, Alan. You wouldn’t feel such anger towards my assertion if you truly believed it did not hold water.”

Deep down, he was right. No matter how much I tried to deny it, I couldn’t. It made cold, calculated sense. To confront this truth was painful. My chest ached. The implications burrowed under everything Hartman had asserted… It scared me. If I was in love with Alex Casey, if I had killed him to hide the truth, if killing him had sent me spiraling into madness…

“If what you’re saying is true and Alice is dead,” saying these words made my stomach twist into knots, “then my feelings towards Alex Casey are irrelevant. Admitting anything out loud won’t bring her back.”

Hartman only chuckled, but it was bitter, vile. Go figure the psychologist didn’t like being checkmated. He sat up straighter and leered over his desk.

“What I’m trying to assess is the source of your psychosis and aggression. Repressed desire translating into outbursts of rage and frustration. Which you aimed at Alice, driving her to commit suicide. This shame fuels your continued delusion of victimhood.”

Alice would have never killed herself. She was too strong. She may have experienced pain and hurt caused by me, but she saw beauty in this world.

“I want to prevent you from harming others as well as yourself.”

“I’m not going to hurt myself.”

“I suppose we’ll see about that.”

He jotted down something onto his thick pad of yellow-lined paper.

“Sit down,” he ordered. “We aren’t finished yet.”

All my fight was spent. I just wanted this to be over. I just wanted to get away from him and his invasive questions. I resigned myself to taking a seat across from him again.

“Good.” Hartman smiled, and I resented him all the more. “Now, tell me, Alan, how do you feel about your writing today?”

I frowned. I couldn’t believe he was asking me about writing. “Indifferent.”

“No sudden interest to write?”

“My wife is dead, according to you,” I countered, despondent. “Why would I want to write?”

“Because I believe there’s opportunity in grief. I think if you can find a way to channel these feelings into your writing, you will be able to process them in a healthier manner.”

Why would I want to write about my wife’s death? If Alice really was gone—

No, she wasn’t. I closed my eyes and gripped the arms of the chair tighter. She wasn’t.

Whenever I lingered on Alice, all I could picture was her falling forever, reaching out for me, screaming my name. As much as I wanted to force the image from my mind, as much as I wanted to surrender to the idea of having already lost, I couldn’t.

If Alice was dead, I would surely be lucid enough to know, right? I was certain I could still sense her light in this world. She had to be out there, somewhere.

“Well, then. All things considered, I think we’ve had a rather productive session, don’t you think Alan? Take some time to rest and recuperate. When you feel ready to get back into the saddle, I hope you’ll feel inspired.”

Hartman called for the orderly and handed him the yellow piece of paper.

“Take him back to his room.”

And with that order, our “therapy” session was over.

Chapter Text

The orderly promptly escorted me back to my room, and I didn’t fight him. I spent the long walk through the clinic with an empty head, unprepared to address any of the anxieties Hartman had unearthed. I no longer had the strength to care about the fact that I was being held against my will inside his clinic. I was so tired, I just wanted to rest. A bed was a bed, even if it was inside a prison.

When we returned to my assigned room, I crashed onto the bed, groaning. The orderly said nothing, but I didn’t hear the sound of the lock turning as he left. Hartman must have believed I’d been so beaten into submission he didn’t feel the need to have the orderly lock me away.

I just wanted to turn back time, to get my old life back, the one where I was a nobody author writing crime novels no one gave a shit about. I just wanted to go back to those early days where everything made sense. I was so exhausted, so over being in the dark, that when a familiar shadowy figure appeared in the middle of the room bathed in sunlight, I could barely believe it. I hadn’t been sure if I would ever see him again.

“Pain?” I asked, uncertain if I could even trust what I was seeing.

“Alan?” Pain turned and rushed to my bedside. “Are you okay?”

I pushed off the bed and reached out for him, terrified my fingers would pass through him. When they didn’t, I grabbed a hold of Pain’s shirt and pulled him closer so I could burrow my head into his stomach.

“Where have you been?” I asked, my voice cracking as tears welled in my eyes. “I-I called out for you over and over, and you didn’t come.”

“Alan, I…”

“Don’t leave me again, please,” I begged him, my grip on his shirt tightening. “I need you. I can’t do this without you. Whatever I did to you, I’m so sorry.”

I was becoming more and more hysterical with every passing second. I was hyperventilating, with snot and tears staining his clothes. Why was everyone I cared about being taken from me?

“Alan, listen to me—”

“Please don’t go. I’ll do better next time. I’ll find a way to make it up to you. I’ll—”

“Alan, stop! Listen to me,” he said again, and this time it was firm enough to halt my negative spiral. “I didn’t leave you on purpose. You were fading in and out of consciousness, so I kept losing track of you.” He let out a grunt of frustration. “One minute I’m by your side on a beach, the next I’m gone. Then I’m back, and there’s some guy standing over you, and I’m watching him inject a needle into your arm.”

I shivered, imagining Hartman’s shadow covering my helpless body, his eyes wide with delight as I struggled, hopelessly until I couldn’t any longer. It was sickening.

“I couldn’t stop him. You must’ve fallen unconscious, because I was gone, and I haven’t been back here until now.”

Where did Pain go when I was unconscious? The thought of banishing Pain to some cold, dark void was as horrible to imagine as whatever Hartman had done to me. The loneliness he must have endured. The anxiety, the questions, the fear. I’d experienced that helplessness once already when I entered the cabin on Cauldron Lake to find the back door blown open, scratch marks in the wooden flooring, the railing broken, and Alice nowhere to be found.

He cupped my chin, tilting my head up so he could stare down at me. He gently wiped at my eyes, and I leaned into him, seeking out whatever phantom touch he could offer.

“I’m sorry for leaving your side. I wish I could stay with you always.”

“Thanks, Pain,” I mumbled, sniffling hard and wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

I fell back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling in a daze. Pain sat down on the edge of my bed, and neither of us said anything for several minutes.

The pendulum of my emotions swung back and forth, completely out of sync. How was it possible to feel so drained but terrified?

The universe seemed keen on doing everything in its power to keep Pain and I at arm’s length. Funny how it was putting me through the worst punishment of my life, yet it had sent me an angel guised in darkness. He was a blessing and a curse, a double-edged sword. His existence was a memory I’d forgotten to remember. Coming out of another traumatizing near-death experience had brought us ever closer, and yet his identity still remained a mystery.

When Pain broke the silence at last, it was to ask the next logical question.

“What is this place? Where are you now?”

“I’m in a clinic for insane artists.”

The hand on Pain’s thigh curled into a fist. “What do you mean? By who’s orders?”

“Emil Hartman. He was probably the man you saw over me. He wrote a book about troubled artists struggling to create. I guess Alice reached out to him. Organized this trip. I was supposed to spend time here and have sessions with him.”

“You’re telling me this wasn’t a romantic trip you planned with your wife?”

“I was under the impression it was. Maybe some part of it was supposed to be. But instead…”

“I see.” Pain glanced at the typewriter, and I grimaced.

“I think it’s some kind of exposure therapy. They do it with people who have phobias. Expose them to the things they’re afraid of. I guess he thinks my writer’s block is based on some fear of writing. If I’m forced to confront it, maybe I’ll write again.”

“They call that treatment?” Pain stroked his chin and studied me closely. “Does this mean Alice isn’t actually missing?”

I reached for the pillow and pulled it close to my chest, clutching it tight. “I don’t know anymore,” I mumbled. “The world’s either insane or I am. With all the gaps in my memory...”

Hartman’s drugs could have been making me sick, but I wasn’t so unfamiliar with psychology. People lost memories all the time due to trauma. The brain did whatever was necessary to survive.

“Maybe something happened to me. Maybe he’s right. Maybe who I think I am and the person I really am are two different people.”

“Don’t let him get into your head. What he’s doing to you is wrong. You’re in charge of your own destiny, Alan. Not him, not anyone else.”

I couldn’t help but smile in spite of the sadness I couldn’t shake. Somehow I was receiving better mental health advice from my fictional character instead of an actual trained psychiatrist. This was another sign I was in freefall. Without a doubt, it was only a matter of time before I crashed horrifically into the earth. The weightlessness had its moments along the way, at least.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Pain. Who I’m supposed to believe. I’m starting to understand why my mom was constantly in and out of the hospital. Not-knowing what’s real and what’s fake is miserable.”

Pain looked down at me, the redaction lines over his face moving strangely. “Your mom was in and out of hospitals?”

“Yeah. She was ill. She passed away when I was in college.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You never told me.”

I shrugged. “I don’t talk about it a lot.”

Growing up in a small town, people knew about my mother’s illness. It was impossible to hide. She was the subject of local gossip among the adults, and it trickled down to their kids. There were days where I was ashamed of her, where I wished I had normal parents like Barry. I’d been embarrassed when my mother had episodes out in public, talking to my father as if he was really there with us. I wanted her to get better, I hoped every single day for a miracle, but her illness was beyond my control.

“I loved my mother, and I miss her.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “But I’ve always been afraid of inheriting her illness. These last few days, I’ve been worrying about that a lot. Wondering if I already have, if it’s too late for me. If I’m just going to keep struggling until I can’t handle it any longer, just like her.”

My throat tightened. I had endured these fears for so long, and now I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I needed to tell someone, and confessing everything to Pain seemed to come so naturally.

“I hate how every time I think about her, it’s in this context. It’s not fair to her memory. My mom was more than just her illness.” I swallowed thickly, and when I spoke again, it was in a hushed whisper, “Is that what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to be remembered for these last few horrible days instead of a lifetime’s worth of writing?”

But who was I kidding? My stories weren’t even good. I was a fraud who’d just gotten lucky. My first manuscript had been discovered at the right time by the right publisher. And really, my success was thanks to Barry in the end. Whatever legacy I had created for myself was in shambles.

“You’re more than just your writing.”

“No, I’m not.” My nails dug into the pillow. “Honestly, I’m glad I can’t write anymore. My writing was terrible. I mean you saw the pages we’ve found from Departure.”

“Your writing is special, Alan.”

“And how, exactly, do you know that?”

“Because I lived it.”

The room fell quiet again. Pain turned his attention to the view outside where it was a perfect sunny day, great for recreation. If circumstances were different, a city boy like me might’ve been interested in going on a pleasant hike through the forest.

When Pain spoke again, he turned back to me, no longer interested in the view.

“‘Most days, the city was cold, harsh. A man could die of exposure out there on the streets and no one would blink an eye. Every day, people woke up, got dressed, and braved the urban jungle to join the never-ending rat race.’”

Immediately, I recognized the words Pain recited.

“Husbands kissed their spouses goodbye, wondering if it would be their last moment together. The city didn’t care if you had a sweetheart waiting for you back home, it didn’t care if you had a kid on the way, or folks to look after. If the Devil called your number, then it was curtains for you, and there was nothing you could do about it.

“‘We were all just trying to get by. Making the best of the shit hand we’d been dealt. I was no exception. It was my job to stop the city from turning good people into monsters, to stop the monsters from taking good people. When I failed, when I slipped up, when I got careless, I saw the misery and sorrow on their faces when I had to deliver the news. It was never easy. It never would be.

“‘But sometimes when it rained, it didn’t pour. I’d be out there on those gloomy streets, and I’d see a group of kids playing in the puddles and laughing. No care in the world. I’d see an old lady feeding a stray cat—an act of kindness, mercy, instead of an act of violence. Every day, I passed by a flower shop on the way home, and sometimes I’d go inside, just to be struck by the smell of flowers instead of smoke and grime.

“‘Sometimes life in the dark city was difficult, painful. But sometimes the sun would break through the clouds, and I would be reminded of how lucky I was to be alive. Living was a privilege, a gift.’”

When Pain finished his monologue, I was in total awe, struck by how different my words sounded coming from someone rather than my own internal voice. It was like hearing the prose for the first time, appreciating the flow and cadence independently from myself.

“How do you… That’s from The Things I Need.”

The fourth book in the Alex Casey series. How could Pain recite those lines? How could he repeat them with such familiarity, such intimacy, unless…

Sitting up, I leaned closer, peering at Pain. His shadowy form had shifted dramatically in a matter of moments. I could see more of his figure, the hint of leather beneath the darkness—I could even smell him too, the familiar scents making my heart flutter: smoke, whiskey, and spiced cologne.

And in turn, Pain was watching my every movement, studying me. When I drew closer, he didn’t move away. It was like he was inviting my investigation, daring me to unravel the mystery on my own.

“Are you… Are you him?” I whispered.

“Who, Alan?”

Pain would make me say it. The name on the tip of my tongue.

“Alex Casey.”

When Pain remained silent, my mind reeled with possibilities. Was his silence a confirmation, disappointment, or from uncertainty?

If he were Casey, how could it be possible? Hadn’t I killed him? But he wasn’t real, he was only fictional. But an idea could never really die…

“You can’t be Casey,” I argued. “You said at the mining depot you were in love with someone else. You can’t be him because Casey never loved anyone.”

Yet there were large gaps in my memory. Was it possible I had written a lover for Casey into the narrative?

Hartman’s accusation played in mind. He’d told me a paparazzo had overheard a conversation between myself and someone I had called Alex Casey. Had he really been a paid escort, or had I been talking to the man himself?

Could it have been possible I was jealous of my own character? Had I killed off Casey’s beloved and then him out of spite?

What was wrong with me? Was I truly so insane I had feelings for my fictional character? I had a wife, for goodness sake. Would I really have risked everything for a delusional chance at loving—

“Alan?”

Pain’s voice brought me back to reality.

“Tell me who he is,” I demanded, grabbing Pain by the shirt. “Tell me who your soulmate is right now.”

Pain sighed. “You still don’t remember.”

When he didn’t elaborate further, I slid off the bed, standing to my feet. My frustration was boiling over, my patience at its limit. I was so fucking done with this bad excuse for a mystery, I kicked the desk chair off its legs.

“Yeah I don’t fucking remember! And you know what, I am so sick and tired of everyone else knowing more about my life than I do! Maybe I would remember if someone took the time to explain!”

The gaping hole in my head was only growing wider and wider the more aware I became of its presence. The typewriter’s shine twinkled in the corner of my eye, and just seeing it pissed me off further. I reached for it, but then Pain came up behind me, grabbing my arm to stop me.

“Calm down! You tryin’ to cause a scene? Someone will hear you!”

“Get the fuck off of me!” I shrugged his arm off and snarled, “You think I give a damn about what Hartman could do to me? What hasn’t he done already? Maybe if he gives me another injection, I won’t have to listen to your cryptic bullshit.”

I wasn’t dealing with this anymore. I needed to be anywhere but here, so I headed for the door. If Hartman’s orderly tried to keep me here, then I’d fight him too. I didn’t care what happened.

Pain caught me right before I could reach the door, his arms coming around me from behind. I struggled and kicked, but Pain didn’t relent. If anyone stepped in front of the glass door, all they would have seen was me yelling at no one and having a meltdown.

“Let go of me, asshole!”

Despite my best efforts, Pain managed to overpower me. He shoved me up against the nearest wall, my chest smacking into it with a loud thud. When I tried to scramble for leverage against the wall, his hands grabbed my wrists and pinned me in place. I could do little more than squirm against his solid frame. He was too strong. He wouldn’t budge. He bore his weight onto me until I had no choice but to relent.

Our fight was over, but Pain still loomed over me, his panted breaths hot near my ear. I could feel every inch of him behind me. Pressed between his chest and the wall, I realized I was turned on, flush under the collar with my jeans suddenly tight. My mind thought back to all the accusations Hartman had made about me, about being caught in a torrid affair with my own fictional character by a lurking paparazzo.

Maybe… Maybe I had been attracted to Casey, to guys, to Pain if his aggression was enough to make me this flustered.

“Get off of me,” I said again, but there was no fight in my voice.

“I don’t want that bastard to touch you again,” he growled, his teeth close to my ear. “You’re going to calm down and listen to me.”

The noise wrenched from my mouth was a flagrant moan. The power of his voice, the possessiveness he lorded over me, it moved me to the core. I found myself arching into him, all but submitting without saying a word. I rocked my hips back, and for a moment, Pain was stunned, the breath punched out of his lungs. To my shock—sick pleasure?—I could feel him against my ass, growing hard too. I would tell him anything just to get him to sink those teeth into me, to have him lick anywhere across my body while he… While I let him do whatever the fuck he wanted to me.

It was maddening, alarming, how quickly I had let my anger transform into unchecked desire.

Maybe I had been jealous. Maybe I’d created an unintended love triangle in the midst of writing my crime novels. Maybe I was my own femme fatale: possessive over Casey, obsessed, green-eyed, willing to commit murder to keep my man. The fictional kind of murder only, right?

I ground my ass against him again, causing Pain to groan. Instead of drawing away, he snapped his hips back into me, and then he was rutting against me, like something inside him had been unchained at last. His lips fell to my neck, and he kissed me there, hungry and insistent. His hands released my wrists, arms moving to wrap around my frame. He squeezed me tighter, holding me in a vice as if he was afraid one of us could disappear in an instant. I arched my neck, giving him access to whatever he wanted. He could suck bruises into my skin, he could leave teeth marks. I didn’t care. I was done denying my true nature, I was ready to give in and surrender to this wildfire spreading across my body—all my shame would burn away in this cleansing fire.

The tip of his tongue darted out and traced the curve of my ear, and I melted. His hand fell to my crotch, stroking me through my jeans, making my cock press into the zipper. I was surely leaking into my underwear, leaving a damning stain, but I didn’t care so long as this electricity coursed through my veins. I whined, thrusting hopelessly into his palm, but it wasn’t enough. He laughed in my ear, his lips forming a smirk as I struggled helplessly. When his other hand let me go, it slipped under the hem of my shirt, bunching it as it slid higher and higher up my torso until his fingers could pinch and play with my hard nipple.

I gasped a name, but it wasn’t Alex Casey.

It was Pain.

This stirred sense back into my would-be lover, causing Pain to curse under his breath. He released me, staggering backwards. Surrendering to his own hunger, even for a moment, had crossed a line.

I slowly turned to face him, staring through half-lidded eyes. Something dark had coiled itself around my heart, and I knew with certainty I was capable of committing great acts of violence in the name of lust.

Oh, I had been right all along; there was a discrepancy between the man I thought I was and the sinister truth. I had always been this way, the villain of my own story. I had simply just blocked it from my mind because I couldn’t stand the idea of not being with him: Alex Casey. And now, with Pain, I wanted him, and he had the gall to make me beg for it.

“Why did you stop?” I asked between panted breaths.

“Because,” he bit back, “none of this means anything if you don’t remember me.”

“Why can’t you just tell me?” I asked, licking my lips. “Then we can get back to what we both want.”

Pain tried to speak, he tried to form the words, but he kept stopping short. When he couldn’t take it any longer, he snapped.

“Don’t you think I want you to remember who I am? Don’t you think I would have told you if I could!” He shouted. “Do you really fucking think I enjoy this? Because I don’t! You’ve shackled me! I can’t say anything because I always have to play by your goddamn rules!”

I narrowed my brows and stalked closer to him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The shadows covered half of his face, obscuring his eyes, but I could imagine the rage and frustration burning in them.

“Explain to me what’s going on,” I demanded.

Pain hesitated. There it was: the truth, right on the tip of that perfect tongue. Yet he couldn’t say it. Instead, he gritted his teeth and hissed, “God damn you, Alan.”

My face twisted into a scowl. “You still won’t tell me. After everything we’ve been through.”

“Alan, if you would just remember me—”

I laughed in his face. I couldn’t believe this. “Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought. You’re blaming me. Telling me it’s my own fault.” I shook my head. “Fine. If you won’t tell me, then I’ll find it out for myself. Hartman has a file with my name on it, and that fucker thinks he’s got everything on me, so let’s see if that’s true.”

“You can’t just… He’ll drug you again,” Pain countered, hoping to drive sense into me. “What if next time you forget everything?”

“Then I guess I won’t even realize I’m lost.” I headed for the door, expecting Pain to either disappear or follow. “I’m not going to confront him directly. I’m just breaking into his office.”

“What a great fucking plan,” Pain said, dripping with sarcasm.

“So be useful and keep watch then.”

My mind was made up. If the universe wasn’t going to play fair, then I wouldn’t either.

Chapter Text

Hartman thought he had broken me. He thought one lengthy “therapy” session would be enough to split me open, but it hadn’t. I was pissed off, tired of no one being able to answer my questions. I was done asking. Now I was going to figure out what was going on, and no one—not Hartman, not some orderly, and not Pain—would be able to stop me.

Because of Hartman’s arrogance, he hadn’t told the orderly to lock my door. Hell, the orderly wasn’t anywhere to be found in the second floor hallway. I saw him outside on the balcony taking a smoke break. Without my wardens, I could move around the lodge virtually undetected.

Downstairs, the few other remaining patients didn’t raise an alarm. The video game designer remained seated on the couch, scribbling away at a journal, without so much as raising his head. The artist painting in the sun room kept painting. The Anderson brothers played a board game and shot me a knowing wink. Well, one of them at least.

Hartman wasn’t in his office, so I could search around and figure out what was really going on without interference. He had pulled my file from the drawer in his desk, so I expected to find it there. However, when I started skimming through folders under ‘W’, I found nothing. When I searched through ‘A’, I still found nothing.

“Where the fuck did he put it?” I hissed, slamming the drawer shut.

“Be quiet! Are you trying to cause a scene?” Pain warned for the umpteenth time. “The orderly could cut his break short and show up at any moment.”

“Then help me look for it.”

Pain grumbled something under his breath, but he at least began aiding my search. He was more physical than ever before, and I liked to think it was because we were getting closer to the truth. Before confronting the kidnapper, we had become something of a dynamic duo. But something had happened upstairs. What we had shared inside my room at the lodge had been more than just two guys giving each other a hand during a crisis. Our fight had exploded into something raw but passionate. There was something burrowed underneath all of Pain’s concerns, all those comforting touches. He hadn’t pushed me away when I’d all but thrown myself at him. No, Pain had been all over me, his hands on my body, teasing me, pushing me, wanting me to surrender to him. But for all his desire, something had pulled him from the brink, bringing him back to his senses. There was something keeping us apart, and I was tired of being kept at arm’s length.

There was no point in denying who I was anymore. This internal struggle had been an ongoing battle, one which extended far back into my history, into the parts of my memory I couldn’t fully remember. I needed more of the pieces to this puzzle. Casey was inextricably connected to me, so he was my history.

Had I fallen in love with my fictional character, as Hartman claimed? How far had I fallen? Had I truly killed him just to silence those feelings once and for all? Who was Pain? Was he Alex Casey, or was he merely an echo of him?

Given how Hartman behaved, acting like he held all the cards close to his chest, I hoped I would find the smoking gun somewhere in the file with my name on it. If I found nothing, then this risk would have been for nothing.

Pain shuffled around Hartman’s office like this wasn’t the first time he had searched for clues behind enemy lines. This was another sign pointing toward his true identity. How many times had I written about Casey breaking into the offices of mob bosses and corrupt politicians to sniff out answers? Watching him in the corner of my eye while he investigated, the tell-tale signs were more apparent than ever before. Every writer gave their characters tics and common gestures, elements which made them distinct and unique. Detective Casey’s tic was he would always bite his lip when he was deep in thought. I had written this action so many times throughout his novels, it was almost a cliche. And as I studied Pain moving around Hartman’s office, I saw the same gesture.

The evidence was piling up that Pain was Alex Casey. If this was true, if he was my beloved fictional detective, then his cloak of darkness and pretending to be “one of my lesser known characters” act was becoming overly dramatic. I just needed tangible proof.

But even when I had the truth in my hand, even when Pain was caught red-handed at last and would be unable to deny it any longer, one question would still remain. If Pain was Alex Casey, and Alex Casey was dead, then how would it be possible for him to be here in Bright Falls with me? Why would he be here if I had killed him? Why would he help his murderer?

“Alan, look at this.”

Pain raised a pair of cassette tapes. I came to his side and noticed my name had been scribbled onto a piece of tape on each. A chill ran down my spine. So Hartman had recordings of me? How much had he invaded my life without my knowledge?

I took them from Pain and remembered seeing a tape deck on the desk by the window. I slid the tape labeled “Alan Wake: Tape 1” into the device, but just as I was about to press the play button, Pain stopped me with a hand on my wrist.

“Hold on, Alan. You play that, it’s going to make noise. We should take it back to your—”

“No, I’m listening to this now. I’m tired of waiting. If he’s been spying on me for years, I need to know what he’s heard.”

Pain hesitated, but then his hand drew away from mine. Even though I regretted its loss, I appreciated that he wasn’t going to fight me over this anymore.

So I pressed play.

A woman’s voice crackled to life as the tape began playing.

“Doctor Hartman, thank you so much for returning my call.”

It was Alice. When had she called Hartman? Why? How far back did her relationship with him go?

“Of course, Mrs. Wake. From what you described to my secretary, I suspect your husband may be experiencing a serious mental health crisis. Why don’t you start at the beginning and explain in more detail.”

“Alan’s always been very reclusive. Very absorbed in his writing. I used to admire his dedication. Envied it, really. He could just write for hours a day without interruption. Whenever I try to work on my own photography, it’s like I can’t focus, even when I want to. Alan though? It’s almost like he’s dreaming with his eyes open. He doesn’t even notice me standing beside him, watching. It’s scary. But Alan loves to write… so I never bother him.

“Somewhere between publishing his fourth and fifth book, Alan and I began having serious communication issues. He started pulling away from me.”

“Many men grow distant a few years into a marriage; the incident you describe seems inevitable for a man thrust quickly into the spotlight. I would characterize Alan’s personality as extremely narcissistic and attention seeking. I heard about his run in with those young women.”

“He said nothing happened, but he still remained distant. I honestly thought he was cheating on me for a while with someone else.”

“Were you distracted in some way? Work? Family?”

“Not any more than usual. He was working on his fourth book around that time. He hardly ever left his office, like I said. Very… focused.”

“But he was still uninterested in you, physically or emotionally?”

She sighed. “For the most part, yes. The last time we were intimate, it was around the time when he was finishing the fourth book. He was suddenly very interested in me. Very assertive. It was like he was trying to prove something to me. It felt out of character in a way. Usually I’m the one who initiates.”

“Typically a decline in sexual activity is a result of some form of depression.”

“He didn’t seem depressed. He was writing all the time. He had energy for his own projects.”

“Yet neglecting you.”

“Yes, but I understood—”

“Yet you still believed he was having an affair?”

“I don’t know. We went through this bizarre period of time where Alan seemed very disengaged, uninterested in anything other than writing. He suddenly started staying home more, when he had previously gone out often with his agent, Barry. Slept through the night, wrote all through the day. I guess I just figured he was inspired. He always called me his muse, but I never really felt like it.”

“You thought perhaps he was lying.”

“That’s too extreme. It just seemed disingenuous… performative? I wasn’t sure, but then there was another incident out in California while Alan was on one of his book tours…”

“Please go on, Mrs. Wake.”

“Well, I only read about it in a tabloid. Barry always fixed Alan’s problems, but I guess this one slipped through. Someone at their hotel overheard Alan allegedly flirting with someone else. The tabloid said this person had caught Alan in the midst of an affair. Alan became violent with this individual when confronted, but when I read further, the name of the person he was supposedly flirting with was named Alex Casey.”

“Alex Casey? I’ve heard that name before…”

“Yes, Casey is Alan’s detective character. The one he’s written about for six books. I figured he was probably drunk that night. Him and Barry always party hard on tour. The person must’ve heard Alan talking about his books.”

“Hmm. I see. And have you ever caught Alan talking out loud to his fictional character?”

“No. Alan never talks about Casey with me.”

Hartman chuckled. “You talk about a fictional man as if he’s the third party in your marriage.”

The call fell quiet.

“Mrs. Wake,” Hartman said, his tone even and full of faux-concern, “please be honest with me. I’m only trying to assess your husband’s situation.”

Another beat passed before Alice spoke again over the tape. “Well, sometimes I do feel as though Alan spends more time with Alex Casey than he does with me.”

“Metaphorically speaking, you mean.”

“Of course.”

“I see. Well, as a psychologist trained in helping troubled artists, I can admit I have encountered a handful of creative types who do grow overly attached to their fictional worlds.”

“I think Alan’s just proud of his writing and feels very connected to it.”

“That’s where I urge caution, Mrs. Wake. There is a distinct difference between enjoying one’s art and becoming obsessed to the point of delusion. You describe Alan growing more and more detached as he continued producing more books, as he continued developing Alex Casey as a character. Alan was shaping his fictional character to suit his story’s needs, but also, perhaps, his own.”

“Pardon?” Alice sounded incredulous over the phone. “What exactly are you implying, Doctor?”

“I’m saying it’s possible Alan formed an unhealthy attachment to his fictional character, one which may have transformed into romantic desire. You say Alan doesn’t share anything about his writing. This is a form of keeping secrets. This is an example of a communication breakdown between the two of you. Perhaps Alan wasn’t willing to share about his character Alex Casey because he was indeed having an affair, but with a manifestation in his head.”

“Wait, hold on. I don’t… I don’t know if I would jump to that conclusion. He’s just private about his writing. Sensitive. He’s gotten into arguments with his publisher over the direction of the Alex Casey novels. It’s not unusual for him to be protective over something that means so much to him…”

“Have you ever known of another author who didn’t feel comfortable sharing their writing with their own spouse, Mrs. Wake? You share your photography with Alan, no? Why couldn’t he share his writing with you?”

“I don’t know.” Alice sighed. “The one time I suggested Alan should write other stories, he became very angry with me. He said he needed to tell Alex Casey’s story. That he was the only one who could.”

“So he became defensive over his relationship with Casey.”

“It’s not that kind of relationship,” Alice insisted. “You can’t take what the tabloid said at face value. They’re just sharing second-hand rumors from someone trying to harm Alan’s image for money. The tabloids have printed wild headlines in the past about my husband. Alan being abducted by aliens, Alan being a secret serial killer so he can get the inside scoop on how to write about murder. All ridiculous theories. None of them are true.”

“I wholeheartedly disagree. The media’s impression of your husband may seem exaggerated, but it begs questions amidst a convergence of evidence. Think, Mrs. Wake. Why would the tabloid have received such a rumor if there wasn’t even a morsel of truth? Why was Alan with someone other than his agent that night? Why was he caught so close to his hotel room speaking with someone other than you in such an amorous tone of voice?”

Hartman paused and shifted directions. “Have there been any other strange incidents involving Alan and his writing?”

Another long, damning pause. The silence was deafening.

“A few months after the incident in California, Alan had a violent outburst after finishing his sixth novel.”

“I see. Please describe what happened.”

Alice sighed. “I was working in my red room when I heard a crash and shouting. Alan was tearing his office apart. He had locked himself in. I thought he was going to hurt himself, so I called Barry for help. Eventually Alan calmed down. I couldn’t believe what he’d done to his office. He had even broken his typewriter. I don’t mind letting people use my camera, but Alan and his typewriter? He never let anyone touch it, not even Barry. That thing was special to him…”

Alice paused.

“I didn’t know until a short time after, but Alan had just killed Casey in his story. He was very quiet and subdued for a while. He hardly ate, and he was sleeping all the time.”

“Well, if what this tabloid insinuated is true, Alan had just killed his secret lover.”

“That’s… But Casey’s just a character. How could he actually be in love with a fictional character? It’s just an idea. A story. It’s make-believe.”

“Fictional or otherwise, the delusion was very real to Alan.”

“I… I suppose.”

“I sense there’s more going on, Mrs. Wake. What else have you seen?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. He seemed very stressed in the years leading up to his writer’s block.” She paused to reflect and then added, “He had an old leather jacket he never wore. I think Barry bought it for him as a gag gift after the first book sold a million copies. You know my husband's style doesn’t exactly scream ‘biker’ or ‘bad boy’ despite what the tabloids might say. But then he started wearing it around the apartment. Writing with it on, wearing it to bed. Sometimes I’d catch him sniffing the leather.”

“Did Detective Casey wear a leather jacket in the books?”

“Well… yes. I guess I thought he was just trying to get into Casey’s state of mind. I’ve heard about actors doing it to get into character. I didn’t think much of it.”

“Mrs. Wake, have you considered the possibility Alan was fantasizing about wearing Alex Casey’s leather jacket? Women in committed relationships often wear their boyfriend’s clothes. I do believe there’s even a style of sweater called a ‘boyfriend cardigan’ for this very reason.”

The cassette tape kept turning inside the deck, but the call had fallen silent. I heard Alice shuffle and then sigh deeply.

“Did Alan continue wearing this jacket after Casey’s death in the novel?” Hartman probed.

“Yes. He would wear it to bed and start sobbing uncontrollably.” Alice’s voice wavered. “I’m so ashamed to admit, but the first time this happened, I got out of bed and walked away. I started sleeping in our guest bedroom. I hate myself for doing it, but I had no idea how to respond. How to comfort him. I’m a terrible wife, aren’t I?”

“Of course not. You were confronted with something incredibly disconcerting.”

“But I should have done something! I should have gone to him and asked what was wrong, but I was a coward! We stopped talking altogether, and I didn’t know how to start again. He needs help.”

“Believe me, Mrs. Wake, I completely understand. What you experienced is a normal reaction.”

“No, you don’t understand. Shortly after this started, Alan had a seizure. He was under so much stress, and I didn’t do anything to help him! He ended up in the hospital.”

Quiet sobbing came through the tape.

“Take your time, Mrs. Wake. I want to help you both.”

It took several minutes, but eventually Alice pulled herself together.

“The sad thing is, after his seizure, he was fine for a little while. It was almost like having my husband again... but it didn’t last.”

“How is your husband now?”
“He just came home after his latest tour. He’s been trying to start a new book, but it hasn’t been successful. I’ve tried to be supportive, I’ve tried to encourage him… but the writer’s block is killing him. Some days, he doesn’t bother writing. He just sleeps in bed all day. Others, he sits in his office for hours, trying to write, until he gives up and becomes very angry. I can’t keep track of his moods. He’s too volatile.”

“Has he hurt you?”

“No, of course not. He hasn’t—”

“But do you fear for your life?”

“Not mine. I fear for his. Barry caught him using cocaine a few weeks ago. He promised to stop, and I haven’t seen any of it around our apartment… but he’s constantly drinking. He stays out all night, and then the next morning my clients ask about his latest antics. I’ve lost a few contracts because of his behavior.”

“An extremely reckless lifestyle.”

“I know he’s frustrated because of his writer’s block.”

“It can be very destructive. Your husband went from writing prolifically to killing his fictional character to no longer being able to write as a result.”

There was a pause over the line.

“Do you really think this is because in his mind, Casey was real? And because he killed him off…?”

“I think your husband was experiencing a similar psychosis as his mother, based on what my secretary was able to find of her medical history.”

My blood ran cold. How could Hartman have gotten access to my mother’s medical history?

“Doctor, I often hear Alan mumble Casey’s name in his sleep. You don’t think… You don’t really think he might have actually fallen in love with Alex Casey?”

“Your husband may have created a fantasy for himself based on repressed homosexual desire. Such behaviors are quite common in men who grow up without strong father figures.”

“If Alan’s no longer in love with me, if he would rather be with a man, I don’t care. I just want him to be happy.”

“Mrs. Wake,” Hartman chided, “it’s perfectly normal for a woman to feel frustration over a husband’s failure to fulfill his marital promises. You want the man you married to come back.”

“It really isn’t even that! I would honestly rather he be happy, even if it’s not with me anymore. I just don’t know what’s wrong, so I don’t know how to help. I just… I just don’t want him to hurt himself.”

“Of course, Mrs. Wake, I understand.” Hartman paused. “Monitor him and call again if anything develops further. I’ll begin formulating a treatment plan.”

“Shouldn’t you meet him in person before that?”

“Mrs. Wake, I have seen these symptoms many times. I know the best way forward. Trust me.”

A sigh came over the line after a long bout of silence. “Alright... I’ll watch him. Thank you for your time.”

The call ended, the tape deck turned off, and I couldn’t breathe. In a frenzy, I replaced the first tape with the second and jammed my finger against the play button. The next recording came to life with Hartman speaking in that smug, awful voice of his.

“Mrs. Wake, thank you for returning my call. How are things between you and your husband?”

“Things are much worse at home. Alan has been having trouble sleeping. He’s been experiencing vivid nightmares. I’ve caught him sleepwalking at night. During the day, he just… sits and stares at the wall. I can barely get a reaction out of him anymore.”

“I see. It sounds as though his condition may be worsening.”

Hartman hummed in thought and then clapped his hands.

“Well, I have great news. My mental health resort has an open occupancy. Do you think you would be able to convince your husband to visit Bright Falls sometime soon? There are lovely activities you both can enjoy while he receives the best therapeutic care in the country.”

“I suppose I could.”

“My secretary will arrange everything and contact you within the upcoming week.”

“Are you sure about this? This is happening very fast…”

“Think of this trip as a second honeymoon. A romantic getaway. It will be good for him. You want him to get better, certainly?”

“Of course! Watching him like this is extremely painful.”

“Then come to Bright Falls as soon as you can.”

The tape cut out abruptly. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. Alice had confessed that this trip had been nothing more than an attempt to get me psychiatric help, but Hartman had manipulated her. Tricked her by stating he was capable of fixing me, even saving what was left of our relationship. He had promised so much, but instead of delivering on those promises, he had arranged for his lackey to kidnap Alice—only for her to be missing before Mott could snatch her away. But why? Was Hartman working for the Dark Presence? Or were his reasons his own? Was he trying to use Alice to get at me for something?

Hartman’s real motivations would remain unclear until I had answers.

“This whole fucking trip has been nothing more than a lie orchestrated by that bastard.”

But for all my anger, for all my embarrassment and shame, Hartman wasn’t the one to blame for my predicament. He hadn’t been the source of my writer’s block—I was.

This mess was all my fault.

I’d somehow fallen in love with a fictional character, and I’d killed him to cut off the source of my impossible desire. My inconsolable grief led to my writer’s block. I had isolated myself.

I was so certain Alice and Barry wouldn’t be able to understand, I’d robbed them of their chance to show me their own love and devotion.

Yet Alice had shown no judgment, no disdain. All along… all along she had just wanted to take care of me. Her love was so unfathomably profound.

Barry had accepted the idea that Pain was real, even if he couldn’t see him. He had even talked to Pain as if he were a person standing in the room with us. He’d trusted Pain to look after me out in the woods no less.

Neither Alice nor Barry had proposed the idea of treatment as a way to destroy my “fantasy” as Hartman described it. They wanted me to write again. Not for profit, not for fame. For my own sake. They just didn’t want me to hurt myself.

But in the end, I had. Rampant substance abuse was its own insidious form of self-harm, rendering me numb to the rest of the world. Volatile, unpredictable mood swings made me lash out at the two most important people in my life, and the resulting guilt had continued the cycle, driving me to hurt myself more and more because I believed I deserved it.

My catatonia had pushed Alice to the point of desperation, forcing her to seek out whatever help they could find, leaving her vulnerable to a fraud like Emil Hartman.

Now Alice was paying the price for my dishonesty. She was in danger because I’d been a fucking coward, because I’d—

“This is my fault,” Pain said.

Blinking wetly, I turned away from the tape deck, expecting Pain—no, Alex Casey—to still be at my side, but he had retreated to the other end of the office which was not illuminated by the sunlight pouring in through the windows. He was turned away from me.

“Casey,” calling him by his true name rolled off my tongue so perfectly, “how could you believe that?”

When he glanced back at me, part of his face remained cloaked in shadow. The scribbled lines on his face were more chaotic and distorted than ever before. They were an impossible shade of black, a swirling void where his familiar features should have been.

“Because I’m the one who put you on this path.”

Casey’s voice echoed, like he was fading. I’d never heard him sound so hopeless, so lost. He had been my guiding light for the last week, and now…

“I was selfish. You told me once you didn’t see yourself this way, but I pursued you all the same.” He scoffed. “You had a happy life on the other side with people who loved you, but I wanted you all for myself.”

The way Casey described it, he made it sound as though our previous relationship had been one-sided, as if I had no agency. He talked as if he had seduced me, manipulating me into something I didn’t want.

But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I may have forgotten my romance with Casey, but I hadn’t forgotten him as my character. Our history went as far back as my youth, to my first written stories. He had always been important to me.

Ever since the seizure, I was fully aware there were locked doors in my mind, and I knew now memories of Casey hid behind those thresholds. I knew there was more to this early history. So I clawed at stone walls, desperate for purchase to find a way back to my lost memories.

And now, over the course of the last few days, I had finally solved this mystery.

“You tried to keep your distance, you tried to hide your identity,” I explained, “but I fell for you all over again. This doesn’t fall solely on your shoulders.”

“It doesn’t matter. I should have known my place. I’m fictional. I’m not real. I’ll never be real.”

After surviving countless hardships throughout his novels, after somehow rising from the dead, Casey was at the end of his rope. He was giving up.

“You’re real to me. When I touched you, you were physical beneath my fingers. You were…”

“You can’t give your heart to someone who will never be real, Alan.”

My chest tightened. I had just figured out who my shadowy companion was after all this time, and now he was pulling away from me.

When I tried to move closer to Casey, he took a step back, and my heart broke all over again. I was losing ground with my resolve, I was so close to surrendering to my despair yet again, but I couldn’t, not when we were on the same page for the first time in years.

“Don’t pull away from me,” I pleaded, reaching for him. “Don’t leave me again.”

Distantly, I could hear Casey telling me to stop, to not do this, to let him go, but I didn’t listen. I pushed through the veil between worlds, closing the gap as I pressed a shy kiss to his lips. He grew still beneath me, as if he were holding his breath, but as I murmured his name yet again like a prayer, Casey’s body gradually relaxed. His arm snaked around my waist, slow, tentative, and he leaned into me, returning the kiss. He uttered my name, confessing everything unspoken between us, all his feelings which had been kept at bay until now.

In this shared breath, I remembered everything. Our first accidental encounter while he showered. Our first kiss in his office, when I had run from him because of my fears. The moonflower. Appearing on his doorstep, drenched by the rain to kiss him again. Our first time in bed together when we were both a little shy, nervous. The Getaway Lounge. The confidence I had shown when I had crawled into his lap and given myself over to him. Our first time making love, becoming joined in all ways. The first time he admitted to being in love with me. Our unabridged adventures across the dark city. Standing on the balcony overlooking Los Angeles, wishing it was our honeymoon. Laying in the grass, hand in hand at my high school reunion.

My spiral. The dominos falling, one by one, all leading towards my fatal decision to kill Alex Casey in The Sudden Stop. My futile attempt at writing him back to life…

I had never actually forgotten Alex Casey, my famed detective. I had spoken about him on talk shows and with fans, but I had forced myself to forget how important he was to me because I couldn’t cope with what I had done. The cognitive dissonance had been too much. Forgetting our intimate history had been a defense mechanism, a scorched earth policy.

No matter how painful these memories were, I wanted them now. I never wanted to lose them again. This was our story.

To endure the pain meant this love was real. Casey was wrong; I hadn’t given my heart to a fantasy, I’d given it to a man—the man I loved.

I could taste the salt of my tears on his lips. It didn’t matter if we were inside the office of a psychologist who insisted this was all a delusion. I was smiling against Casey, my fingers curling into his grey shirt. I would never let him go again.

When I pulled away, all of the shadows around him were gone. This time, a kiss had been enough to dispel the lingering darkness around Alex Casey. He looked the same as the first time I laid eyes on him—ruggedly handsome and mysterious.

“I hate seeing you cry,” Casey whispered, brushing my tears away.

These tears however were from happiness, not sorrow. I leaned into him, seeking out his warmth. Here in the shelter of my detective’s embrace, we were together again at last.

Chapter Text

Just as I was about to go in for another kiss, we heard a loud shout and a thud which took us by surprise. I expected Hartman or an orderly to step into the office, but instead, it was none other than Odin and Tor Anderson. They dragged the body of an unconscious orderly into the room, hiding him.

The men turned back to where I leaned against the bookshelf. They couldn’t see it, but Casey was still holding me, shielding me on instinct. I could already imagine how this scene must have looked from their perspective: a man practically curling himself around thin air with no one else in the room. My heart started to race. I expected them to point and laugh, but Odin gave me a strange smile instead, as if he was somehow in on whatever unspoken joke we were sharing.

“He was trying to interrupt you,” Odin explained, clearing his throat and brushing his hands against his long leather coat. “Couldn’t have that now, could we, kiddo?”

I blushed in embarrassment.

“You’re here at the lodge cause your wife’s missing, right?” He asked, peering at me with his good eye.

I glanced at Casey and respectfully disentangled myself from him. “Yeah. We were… Well Alice and I were staying at the cabin on the lake.”

“Figures,” Tor grumbled. “That bitch in the lake loves all you dumb angsty writer types.”

“Tor,” Odin scolded, glaring at his brother. “We wondered if something like this would ever happen again.”

“Again?” I raised a brow. “Like it had happened to Thomas Zane, the poet?”

Odin chuckled bitterly. “Yeah. Something like that.”

Compared to earlier when I had first seen them around the lodge, the Anderson brothers seemed far more lucid and aware. Had the Andersons’ eccentric behavior been an act for Hartman? A ruse to make him think they were off their rockers when they really weren’t? Or had the medicine Hartman given them worn off?

“Look, kiddo… I’ve been keeping this safe for a long time, wondering if this day would ever come.” He reached into a pocket inside his coat and offered a folded piece of paper to me. “Go to our farm. It’s not far from here. You’ll understand why when you’ve read that page.”

Maybe the Andersons were a little old and mysterious, but they made more sense than the asshole in the baby vomit sweater.

“And hey, some advice. When you’re at our place, try the moonshine,” Tor suggested. “It’ll clear up your head just right. Makes you remember what’s missing. From the shitshow in your skull, you seem like you could use some more remembering, kid.”

I tried to not be offended by whatever Tor was insinuating, because he was right. I had remembered everything missing up to the night Alice and I had arrived in Bright Falls. If I had any chance of understanding what was going on, of finding out what happened to Alice… then I needed to account for the week of lost memories.

With a new heading, it was time to get out of here. I regretted the interruption, but at least the Andersons were trying to be helpful in their own way. Picking up where Casey and I had left off would just have to wait. I’d spent enough time at the lodge already. I was thankful to find my messenger bag where I’d seen it before, hanging off Hartman’s coat rack. I tucked the manuscript page away for safekeeping and saw the familiar silver of my gun and the flashlight at the bottom of the bag.

As I moved to leave the office, Odin grabbed my arm and pulled me close so he could murmur something else to me. “Another thing—don’t underestimate it. Don’t give it a chance to take hold of you. You do that, you’re a goner. Doesn’t matter how much it hurts, losing the person you love. You don’t give into that shit ever again, you understand? So you made that mistake once. You’re only human. Next time, though?” He gripped me tighter. “Next time you fight it. Whatever it promises, it can’t give. You should see that by now.”

I blinked at Odin and nodded. He spoke as if he was intimately familiar with what I was facing. Whatever darkness haunted Bright Falls, it was insidious, invasive. Evil preyed on the weak-willed, and I… I needed to do better at resisting its call. Thankfully, I had Barry and Casey. I wasn’t alone in this descent into madness.

Odin released me and patted my shoulder. “Now go on. Get out of here. Quickly. You don’t have much time.”

A clap of thunder shook the lodge’s foundation, and then the power went out with a flash of lightning. An ominous low rumbling echoed outside. I dug into my bag and grabbed the flashlight to turn it on.

“Are you two really going to stay here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Tor explained. “We’ve got some unfinished business around here.”

“Don’t worry about us.”

With their reassurance, Casey and I left the Anderson brothers. I could sense they would be fine despite the powerful storm sweeping over the lodge.

With Casey at my side and a new manuscript page in my possession, I suddenly felt like I was in control of my situation again. My head was clear. Or, as Hartman would assert, I was ‘sinking back into the fantasy.’

But he was wrong. Darkness incarnate was barreling towards the lodge, eager to sink its teeth into me. Hartman had manipulated Alice, and he had tried to do the same to me, but I knew differently. This wasn’t a fantasy. This was real, this was happening.

With the power out, the lodge was eerie. The other remaining residents and orderlies had disappeared. It was as if they had never existed at all.

Loud banging drew my attention to a storage room with a chair propped against the handle. Casey cautioned me to be careful, but something compelled me to investigate.

“Hello? Is anyone out there? Hartman? I swear to God, I’m going to sue your quack ass to shreds. You’ll regret messing with me!”

Barry!

I shoved the chair out of the way and pried open the door to find my best friend hiding behind a cardboard cutout of me.

“Al! About time you showed up! You’ll never believe what that asshole did to me!”

“I can take a few guesses,” I teased.

“Yeah, yeah. Come here, buddy.”

We hugged. I was so relieved to have Barry back at my side. He was my rock, a familiar constant. Always there when I needed him most.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “What happened back at Rose’s place?”

“Well the cops didn’t hassle me too much, but that federal agent made a big fuss. That guy’s crazy. He had nothing on me, so he had to let me go. I promised to sue him the moment this shit was all over.”

I grinned. A typical Barry threat.

“I then get a call from Hartman. Told me you’re here. So I raced over here as fast as I could. I get here, and two ugly goons clobber me from behind and the next thing I know, I wake up and find I’ve been locked up.”

Barry took a step back and looked me up and down. “I was worried sick about you, y’know. You could’ve called to lemme know you were alright.”

“I didn’t…”

I trailed off. I had no excuse. After running from Rose’s trailer, I had a one-track mind: get as far away from Nightingale as possible. The next day, I had been so hyper-focused on my meeting with the kidnapper, I hadn’t thought to call my own best friend. Then I ended up here and had my phone taken from me with all my other belongings. No wonder Barry was on edge.

“I’m sorry, Barry. I should’ve let you know I was alright sooner.”

“I appreciate that, cause y’know, I came here to rescue you from that son of a bitch.” He poked me in the chest. “So do you feel rescued?”

“Yeah,” I said, cracking a smile. “I’m a real damsel in distress, Barry.”

“You kid, but it’s not an inaccurate assessment.”

We shared a laugh, and then I glanced at Casey.

“Barry, we don’t have a lot of time for me to explain, but Pain, I’ve figured out who he is. He’s Alex Casey.”

Barry’s lips parted in a silent gasp, and his brows shot into his big forehead. “Woah. Seriously?”

I nodded. “He’s been with me since I woke up from the car accident.”

“Damn.” Barry spun around, as if he were trying to locate Casey for himself.

“He’s to my left.”

“Tell him to hold out his hand,” Casey told me. “I want to shake it.”

“He wants to shake your hand.”

“Me? Why?”

I was a ghost whisperer, a medium bridging the two worlds together.

“You’ve taken care of him when I couldn’t,” Casey explained, talking to Barry even though he couldn’t hear him. “You’re a good man.”

Casey’s reason touched me. It was true, Barry had looked after me for years, since we were kids. I owed him so much for his kindness and love.

“Because you’re a good best friend,” I said in a quiet voice.

Barry smiled thoughtfully. He practically preened under the praise and appreciation. He extended his hand, and then Casey placed his own beside it. Interlocking fingers was unnecessary; this was as close to a cross-dimensional handshake as possible.

Barry drew his hand away and stared down at it. There was a familiar expression on his face I’d seen countless times on fans—starry-eyed wonder.

The proverbial Alan Wake-shaped elephant in the room watched us with soulless eyes from over Barry’s shoulder.

“By the way, why is that,” I pointed to the cardboard cutout of me, “here?”

“Oh. You mean this,” he half-turned and patted its shoulder. “I stole him from Rose to piss her off. That’ll teach her for what she did to us. Hartman’s lackeys brought it outta the car. I think he was going to do something horrible to it.”

“He can do whatever he wants to it. It’s just a cutout.”

“I’m not leaving him or you behind.”

“Barry, you can’t seriously be dragging that along.”

“I’m not leaving him with some stalker fan and certainly not with a psycho shrink.”

“On the contrary, you will be.”

Hartman.

I turned, and I pointed my flashlight at him. There Hartman stood, filling the space of the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back. The darkness behind him was so thick not even the light from my flashlight could pierce it.

“Let’s get you back to your room, Alan,” Hartman asserted, his voice no longer feigning warmth or compassion. “You need to rest and recover after your trying day.”

“I’m not letting you take him!” Barry snarled. “He’s not lawfully under your care. I don’t think you even have a degree in psychology!”

Hartman rolled his eyes. He gestured to Barry dismissively. “Do you not see, Alan, how destructive your relationship with Mr. Wheeler is? Your wife warned me about this. He makes false claims insisting you are not here for treatment, when he signed the papers admitting you in the first place. In fact, I asked your ‘friend’ to leave after I caught him trespassing. He refused, so my orderlies were forced to secure him here until the police arrived.”

Another loud rumble of thunder shook the lodge beneath our feet. Hartman pinched his brows and shook his head. “I do not wish to resort to assertiveness, Alan, but it is my directive as the doctor leading your care to look out for your best interest—your wife’s final wishes no less. We will be returning to your room. Now.”

Hartman took a step closer, and when he reached for me, Casey stepped in front of me in a vain attempt at shielding me from him.

“Get away from him!” Casey barked. “If you touch him again, I’ll kill you.”

The veins on his neck bulged, his eyes dark with fury. I’d written about Casey this way, I knew what he was capable of when pushed to his limits, driven by a basic instinct to protect, but this was different. Instead of protecting another fictional character, Casey was protecting me.

“Casey…”

Hartman’s eyes widened in delight, his grin malevolent. “Ah, so you do in fact see him!”

Casey glanced over his shoulder at me, his brows furrowed in confusion. “Can he… Can he see me?”

The question left me winded. Could Hartman see him, hear him? No, I was certain Hartman couldn’t, but he nonetheless reveled in this newfound truth. The gears turned in Hartman’s mind, the usefulness of this knowledge. He could now use this against me.

There was so much at stake. I had just regained my memories, Casey and I had just begun to reconcile our past, and now Hartman was threatening everything we had gained in only a few hours. If Hartman got his hands on me, if he somehow managed to steal away my memories through drugs, psychotherapy, or something far more sinister…

I didn’t want to think about it. I was done being afraid of him. I drew my gun, pointing it at Hartman. “Stay the fuck away from us.”

Hartman tsked softly, shaking his head. “Oh Alan, you’re falling back into the delusion… Think of Alice, please, think of what she would—”

“Shut up! I’m not listening to another one of your lies. You said I’m not a prisoner, so I’m leaving.”

Hartman’s lips thinned. He rubbed the bandage over his nose and tutted softly. “Fine, Alan. I suppose there’s no use prolonging this charade any further.”

Charade? What the hell was he talking about?

“I’ve let you play your little game long enough, but no longer. You will not be leaving, Alan. This is where you belong now. You will stay here. You will be the harbinger of its return, and you will do as it demands. You will write, and you will free him from his prison at last.”

I blinked slowly at Hartman. “What?”

Hartman scoffed. “Don’t play coy. You understand very clearly. Your little manuscript pages explain everything. You know the lake has power. You’ve witnessed it. You will create the work of art it needs, and in turn, it will give everything it has promised me.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You feed me all this bullshit, but you’re the one who’s crazy.”

“Oh, but I’m not, Alan. I’ve seen this before,” Hartman explained, sounding wistful, as if he were recalling fond memories. “Decades ago, my dearest Thomas Zane heard the lake’s whispers, and he answered its call with his poems, using me as his perfect muse…”

Hartman was surely deluding himself if he believed that; it hadn’t been T.Z. and E.H. carved into the stump on Diver’s Isle.

“We were inseparable, Tom and I. We were creating together in harmony, and right as we began to harness the lake’s power...” His face twisted into a sneer. “That harlot ruined everything by dying.”

A chill ran down my spine.

“I have waited, patiently, for the lake to choose its next vessel. It slumbered for all these years, and then you arrived, and it chose you. I will do anything it asks to have my Tom at last.”

I didn’t know much about Thomas Zane, but I knew enough to know that Zane would want nothing to do with this man. Zane had been helping me, trying his best to keep me safe from the Dark Presence. The flashlight, the gun, messages from the other side, so much of what I knew about the monster hunting me down was thanks to Zane.

“Oh Alan, don’t you see how simple it is?” Hartman laughed, but it was unhinged. “Lower your weapon and listen to me: all you need to do is write.”

“You’re insane, Hartman,” Barry accused over my shoulder. “Like genuinely off your rocker insane. My best bud’s the one with the gun, so back the hell off.”

“We could work together, Alan. We could create anything. We could free your wife. Yes. With your ability and my expertise, we could trick the darkness—”

The lodge shook violently as if struck by an earthquake. The items on the storage shelves rattled, the window of the supply room cracked. A roar echoed through the lodge, and we were all struck by the sight of something barreling towards the window at a relentless speed. It was a menacing dark cloud, thick and impenetrable. It pressed against the glass and covered it entirely as if it intended to consume the whole building. The Dark Presence was here, and it was corroding the metal frame, the wood of the building. The inky substance seeped through the cracks, searching, hungry for whatever it was which brought it here.

“What the fuck is that!?” Barry screamed.

The lodge’s wall and roof gave way. The storm roared, and the vortex loomed above, perched to strike.

“At last! You’re here!” Hartman shouted over the howling wind, dropping to his knees. “Yes, take him! Take him as your vessel! Anything for Tom!”

Casey grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the exit. “Run, Alan!”

Casey’s voice stirred me to action, and Barry followed. We had no interest in sticking around to watch what happened next. We ran as fast as we could and didn’t look back, consumed by sheer terror as we heard a long scream—one of ecstasy, not agony. The shriek pierced the night, chilling me to the bone, but I couldn’t pity Hartman. He deserved whatever horrific fate he had surrendered himself to. He had lured Alice and I out here to use me as bait for the Dark Presence. Sure enough, he had gazed into the abyss and it had stared back.

The air crackled with electricity. The Dark Presence finished with Hartman. He had been a mere plaything. A means to an end. I was its true prey, and it was turning its gaze back to me—the vessel, the harbinger, the object of its endless hunger. It would chase me just as it had done countless times before, starting with tearing the lodge apart, seeking me out.

I followed Barry through the collapsing building, dodging falling rubble and debris as the building collapsed all around us. We reached the main entrance and headed out into the storm.

Outside, it was pouring torrential rain. Never in my life had I experienced a storm like this. The lodge’s courtyard was already flooded up to my ankle.

“The car’s still here,” Barry shouted over the pelting rain.

We trudged through the floodwaters towards the truck. I could only hope the Andersons had accomplished whatever it was they had wanted and had gotten out before the arrival of the Dark Presence.

The truck was parked beside the opening to a hedge maze. We piled inside, relieved to be out of the bad weather. Barry tossed the cutout into the back seat like a total lunatic. I would have felt bad for Casey, having to sit next to it, but my stoic detective had bigger things to worry about.

I gawked at Barry. “You can’t be serious.”

“Does this look like the face of a comedian?” Barry wagged a finger in my face and then shoved the keys into the ignition. “Don’t answer that.”

Barry put the car into drive and tore off into the dark, stormy night. The visibility beyond the headlights was practically nonexistent, and the slick roads were making the tires skid.

“Drive us to the Anderson Farm.”

“Those old guys in the band? The Old Gods of Asgard? Why?” Barry asked, his eyes flashing back and forth between the road and me. “I don’t think now’s the time for an autograph, Alan. Shit is literally—” He corrected himself before I could, “figuratively hitting the fan.”

“I think the Anderson brothers know what we’re dealing with. They said I’d find something that could help me remember what happened during those seven days I’m missing.”

“What about Alice? Did you ever figure out where she was before Hartman got his grubby little hands on you?”

“The kidnapper never had her. He was working for Hartman.”

“Fuck. Seriously?”

“He just wanted to get at me. He wanted my writing.”

“Yeah, after that bad excuse for a villain monologue, that’s pretty obvious now.”

“The storm, the Dark Presence, whatever that fucking thing is, it wants me. I think it’s using Alice as collateral, but I’m not completely certain.”

Barry glanced at me over the center console, his expression crestfallen. Him and Alice hadn’t always gotten along, but Barry would never want Alice to suffer this kind of fate.

“Damn.” He swallowed thickly. “I really, really hope whatever these Andersons have is useful.”

“You and me both.”

“Because face it, pal, we’re running out of options. I’m of half the mind to drive in the opposite direction to get us the hell out of here.”

But he wouldn’t, because no matter how much he and Alice didn’t see eye to eye, he cared about her. He would never leave her behind.

“I just want you safe, Alan. You’re my best friend. My only friend, if we’re being completely honest. And I’ve seen enough movies to know how this shit’s going to go. I’m afraid.” Barry hesitated, and when he spoke again, his voice was hushed, like he was scared his words had power. “What if the storm gets you? What if it takes you away, too?”

“I’m scared too, but I have to save—”

“Look out!” Casey interrupted, reaching for the steering wheel over Barry’s shoulder.

Barry’s eyes widened as he stared at his arm where Casey’s own came over it. “Holy shit? Al—”

The car swerved violently, but it was too late. An avalanche of boulders poured down the mountainside. Large rocks crashed into the side of the car, flinging us past the guard rail.

My head slammed against something hard, and the world plunged into darkness yet again.

When I came to, I was laying flat on my stomach nestled in underbrush. Two voices were calling my name, almost like an echo.

“Alan? God damn it Alan, talk to me!”

“Barry…?”

“Are you okay up there?”

I rolled onto my back and groaned. Somehow, everything hurt at once. Casey knelt at my side, his form filling my vision as he checked me over. He was stoic, features unreadable, but something in the back of my mind told me he wasn’t happy.

“I’m fine,” I called back to Barry. I wasn’t a doctor, so I couldn’t make any real assessment, but I wasn’t bleeding and nothing felt broken.

How the fuck were we alive? Maybe I could understand Barry surviving the crash since this was his first car accident since arriving in Bright Falls, but this was now my second.

“Where are you?” I called out to Barry, too exhausted to push myself off the dirt.

“I’m down here by the wreck.”

“You hurt?”

“No. Thankfully I brought my airbag jacket for this trip.”

I chuckled despite everything.

“What about you?” He called back.

My head was throbbing in the exact location of my previous injury, and when I tried to sit up, the world spun for a moment. Casey’s arm wrapped around my shoulder to hold me steady, so the vertigo passed.

“I’m okay.”

“Thank God. Well good news, your cutout survived the crash, too!”

“Great,” I grumbled.

“I found your gun and flashlight down here, so I’m not a total sitting duck.”

Lightning crashed, with thunder rumbling after. The storm was still chasing us.

“I see the farm down here. I think we’re going to have to split up.”

I didn’t like the idea of Barry alone out here, but he was the safer one between us. So long as he had the gun and the flashlight, he would be alright.

Me, though? I would have to find a way down to Barry and avoid any Taken in the woods. Without my bag, all I had was a spare flare in my coat.

“Alright, fine Barry, but be careful!”

“You too, buddy.” Barry paused and then asked one more question before leaving. “Is… Is Casey still with you?”

Casey and I shared a look.

“He is.”

“Watch after Alan, will you?”

There was no point in answering Barry, so Casey just scowled as he stared at me.

“Don’t give me that look,” I said as he helped me stand. “I didn’t get us into another car accident on purpose.”

Casey’s sigh could move mountains with the way it reverberated. He was totally displeased that I was up on my feet, walking around yet again after another near-fatal accident, but what choice did we have?

Within that long pause, Casey’s expression softened. He stared at me with unspoken longing in his eyes. There was still so much we needed to discuss about us, our relationship, and our history, but the middle of the forest wasn’t the place to have the conversation.

“We need to get moving,” he reminded me, always having to be the responsible one between us.

The storm was worsening by the minute, and all we had to navigate the forest was a general direction of which way to go. We were on our own. Untangling our problems would have to wait.

Chapter Text

Barry had it easier. The crash had flung him to the base of the mountain, taking my cutout with him. I had no choice but to take the long way down the mountainside if I wanted to reach the Anderson Farm and learn more about what was causing all this.

The way forward quickly became treacherous as night fell. The sky lit up as lightning ripped overhead, hitting a tall tree in the distance. Thunder shook the forest, and another round of heavy rain fell. The pungent smell of ozone coated my lungs with every strike. With every footfall, my boots sank deeper into the ground. The wind pushed against my body so hard it was difficult to stay upright, and every drop of rain felt like the tip of a knife against my bare face.

Continuing on the trek to the Anderson farm was starting to seem like suicide. The longer I stayed out in the elements, the more I risked getting caught in a flash flood or slipping to my death with one wrong step. Every warning I’d heard in the past about seeking shelter in the middle of a thunderstorm blared like a siren in my head.

“Alan,” Casey shouted over the howling wind and whipping rain, “there’s one of those towers!”

I pushed my drenched hair out of my eyes as I followed Casey’s pointing finger. A tall, foreboding tower stood ahead, with two red radio tower lights flickering, struggling to stay lit. In this terrible weather, it was practically an oasis in the desert, a safe haven. We couldn’t keep progressing forward. Barry and the truth about what was going on would have to wait.

We climbed up the slick metal stairs to reach the cabin at the top right as a bolt of lightning struck a tree near us. I almost stumbled down the flight of stairs in terror, but Casey caught me.

“You’re almost there,” he reassured me, his tone the same one he had used to help me navigate the gauntlet of bear traps. “You can do this, Alan.”

I ascended those last few steps and breathed a heavy sigh of relief once I was inside the safety of the tower. My outer tweed jacket was soaked through, clinging to my body, but the parka had kept me dry. My hair was wet because my hood hadn’t been able to stay on with the powerful gusts.

Thankfully, the firewatch tower was outfitted with the essentials—an emergency radio, a lantern, and a first aid kit. The only furniture was a desk, chair, and a bed for the lonely steward who had to spend long shifts out here diligently watching as the first line of defense against wildfires. I grabbed a towel out of the emergency kit and tried to dry my hair.

I collapsed into the chair and groaned. Tonight was going to be long if the weather didn’t let up, if the Dark Presence couldn’t take a hint. I turned on the radio, cycling through the stations to find KBF-FM to hear a weather report even if it was pointless. This storm wasn’t natural, but Pat Maine didn’t know that. Thankfully, the channel came through clearly despite the storm.

“…Folks,” Maine said through the radio, “I know I reported skies would be clear till morning, but a strange storm has suddenly rolled in. I’m sorry we didn’t report on it sooner. The National Weather Service has listed a strong wind advisory and a flash flood warning—that means we’re already seeing reports of roads flooded. I recommend we all hunker down and stay inside. Make some coffee, pull out a blanket. It’s going to be a rough one. Make sure you look after little ones and pets.

“With that said folks, rest assured I’ll be spending the night here at KBF-FM holding down the fort. The show must go on. We’ll keep you updated on the conditions as we receive information here at the studio.

“On stormy nights like this, I prefer to listen to slow jazz. The kind you’d hear in noir movies or at a swanky cabaret. So without further ado, here’s one of my favorites from Mr. Miles Davis…”

Jazz music filled the firewatch tower, reminding me of the old records my mother used to play around the house. The familiar music helped ease some of my anxiety, transporting me all too briefly to another place, another time. I could almost pretend I was back in my childhood home, working on some writing in the middle of the night while the music played downstairs…

At least until a wayward torn branch crashed into one of the clear lookout windows.

Beyond the tower, the harsh storm pulverized Bright Falls. Tall trees swayed wildly from the wind. Lighting tore through the night, illuminating the forest all around. Thunder rumbled through the foundations of the tower, vibrating through the metal support beams. Torrential rain smacked against the windows so hard I feared the panels could crack and shatter.

We were lucky to be inside, but being this high up, I worried the weather could make the tower topple.

“I hope Barry made it to the farmhouse,” I said, rubbing my sore neck.

“Your friend’s tough. Don’t worry about him,” Casey said without missing a beat.

Somehow, despite the car accident, Barry had raced across the field with the stupid cutout like it was no big deal. Adrenaline worked wonders.

Stalling out inside the firewatch tower was making my body lose all its forward momentum. When I tried to straighten my posture while seated at the desk, my body resisted with a sharp spike of pain. I hissed through my teeth, and my hand flew to my forearm where I winced.

“You said you were fine.” Casey sighed. “Let me take a look.”

Casey slipped an arm under mine so I could lean against him for support. The damp towel slung around my neck dropped to the floor. We moved slowly as he guided me to the low lying bed. All the joints in my body ached, and I let out a soft grunt when he deposited me.

There, he stood between my legs and began pulling off each of my layers. The tweed jacket came first—what was supposed to make me look “smart and professional.” The green parka was next, and it was meant to keep me warm with the brisk Washington weather.

“Why are you wearing so many jackets?” Casey snorted. “No wonder you’re having trouble running.”

I shot Casey a weak glare. Those layers had likely prevented exposure out here in the Washington forests. Nevermind the fact that they made me feel… safe. Alice had once compared all these clothes to being bundled in a security blanket.

There were much more important problems I should have been focusing on, but it was hard to keep my composure as Casey leaned close. His familiar scent was rich and intoxicating. It was inescapable; every shallow breath I took was filled with him. He smelled of rain and leather, and I could drown in him if I let myself.

I was forced to crane my neck if I wanted to meet his gaze. It took me back to another time when I was in a similar position, looking up at him through my lashes with the steady flow of a trumpet, a bass, a saxophone all harmonizing in the background. If I wanted, I could untuck his shirt, slip my hands under to splay my fingers along the plane of his abdomen. I could close my eyes and lean closer to mouth at the front of his trousers…

“Alan, are you alright?”

I flinched away and blinked up at him. “W-What?”

“Are you alright?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “I’m okay.”

Casey ran his fingers through my hair, and even though he was innocently searching for abrasions or bumps, I couldn’t help but gasp from the touch and arch into him. He was calm and collected, perfectly playing doctor as if he was unaffected by our close proximity. If only Casey would grip my hair a little tighter, if only he’d shove me down a little lower so I could…

The sound of a zipper brought me back to my senses. Casey had pushed my hoodie off my shoulders, revealing the black t-shirt underneath. There was only one more layer left between his hands and my bare skin.

My body hummed with anticipation, the ache in my arms and shoulder suddenly long forgotten. I could feel my face burning as Casey raised my arms and tugged my shirt over my head. Goosebumps formed over my skin, but it was from more than just the chilly air. I missed having Casey’s eyes on me, even as my stomach twisted itself into knots. It may have been irresponsible, selfish, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he still found me attractive.

His rough fingers grazed over my arm, causing me to gasp. It had been the first time in years since I’d felt his bare touch there…

“How bad is it?” I asked, licking my lips as I tried to focus on the task at hand.

“It’s not too bad, Alan. Just a few scrapes.” His fingers trailed down to the bend in my arm where several black and yellow bruises had formed—injection sites, courtesy of Hartman and his orderlies. The sight of them made Casey’s face darken. He hadn’t been able to stop this from happening to me. “I’ll check the first aid kit and see if there’s any painkillers.”

Just as Casey turned to walk away, a strong gust rattled the tower, causing me to reach for his leather sleeve, forcing him to remain still. When he glanced back at me, his eyes softened.

“I’m not going anywhere, Alan. We’ll be alright.”

The violent weather left me frightened. I was more terrified than I had let on, suddenly wishing I could burrow under the covers and forget where we were, but I couldn’t. The odds were stacked against us. There had been too many close calls in the last few days. The Dark Presence was out there hunting me down with brutal diligence. It had all the time in the world to wait.

“I’m just going to grab the first aid kit,” he reassured, patting my hand. “I’ll be right back.”

The world felt colder without him near, the shadows inching closer. We were alone out here without my gun and flashlight. All we had was a single lantern and a pair of emergency flares to defend against the darkness. I rubbed my tired eyes, pressing firmly to ease my headache. To say I was being pushed to my limits was an understatement. I was so far beyond any normal breaking point, but I had to soldier on.

While Casey rifled through the first aid kit in search of those painkillers he’d promised, my eyes raked down his body. He was still dressed in his leather jacket, and the rain made the smell so potent, so heady. I wanted to steal it off of him and wrap myself in it.

My emotions were scattered, my priorities out of sorts. The aches in my body were dull, ever-present. At least fantasizing about Casey and wondering where our relationship really stood served as a suitable distraction.

Our kiss at Hartman’s lodge had been powerful enough to bring back my memories of our history in full. But was it enough to smooth over the edges of our complicated past? There were still so many questions left unanswered—how was Casey at my side again? Why had my mind redacted him like an error on paper? Why did he claim I had shackled him? Was he aware of what happened to me during those seven days I still hadn’t been able to account for?

Those questions would need answers, eventually.

Casey returned to me with the pain killers. He handed me two pills, and I took them. Then, with the rest of the first-aid kit’s contents, he tended to the scrape on my arm by using a cleaning solution which made me hiss through my teeth from the sting. He wrapped a small bandage around it so it wouldn’t become further inflamed by my clothes.

When Casey was finished, the right thing to do would have been to reach for my shirt to get dressed again. Instead, I remained still, selfishly enjoying the sensation of having his eyes on my barren torso and his hands on my shoulders. If I wasn’t such a coward, I would have told him what I needed: relief from this trying journey, a chance to let go of my burdens, to surrender myself to him as I should have done years ago. I had spent so much time unable to remember my past, and now all I wanted to do was forget everything which had happened to me to focus on him, on us.

We were caught in a standoff, waiting for the other to make the first move. Should it have been me? I was the one who had broken off our relationship in the past; perhaps I should have been the one to initiate our new beginning. Or maybe it needed to be Casey. After all, he was the man I’d wronged; should it have been up to him to decide when it was time to move forward?

“Alan…”

“Casey…”

We both shared a brief chuckle. It was hard to not feel like I was years younger, inexperienced in life and love. I was nervous, uncertain of how to bridge the gap between this moment and what I wanted. We had a whole night of waiting out the storm ahead of us. I craved him, hoping that physical intimacy could somehow solve all of our problems like it had done years ago.

“You can go first, Casey,” I said, staring into his eyes.

I wanted to hear what Casey had to say, even if I feared he would let me down gently. Casey was nothing if not practical, realistic. His focus had always been on looking after me, making sure I was safe and out of harm’s way. Not to mention, Casey and I hadn’t resolved much of anything between us. One kiss, no matter how powerful, couldn’t mend a broken heart, and I had done more than break Casey’s.

But instead, Casey captured my mouth and kissed me. He came to sit beside me on the low bed so he could hold my head in place while his tongue met mine. We shared a gasp as sparks passed, and then his mouth trailed along my jaw, sliding to my neck, making me shudder against him. His lips left fire everywhere they grazed, and I was desperate to arch into his every caress.

My hand was already tugging on his shirt, keen to untuck it so I could slip my hands underneath to feel his stomach. Casey shrugged off his jacket as I worked on his tie, pushing the tail through the loop. I was so incredibly fond of this silly tie; I couldn’t believe it was somehow still here after everything.

“Do you still like this?” I asked, gesturing to his peacock print tie.

His lips quirked into a half-smile. “It’s grown on me.”

When my hands reached for the buttons of his shirt, Casey’s hand stopped me.

“Are you sure about this, Alan?”

I scoffed and nodded. Of course I was. Couldn’t he see how eager I was, how much I longed for him? I’d wanted him since the cinders of our relationship had been rekindled inside of Hartman’s lodge when he pressed me into the wall and gave me a taste of his pent-up desire.

My fingers shook with anticipation, my eyes fell half-lidded. I couldn’t wait to touch him. I was so ready to dive back into him, to gaze upon Casey in all his glory and to feel him tremble beneath my fingertips.

Yet when I undid the final button and nudged the shirt open, my eyes fell to the scar on his chest and my own heart stopped.

I was a fool. A damn fool.

My hand tentatively reached out, but right as I was about to contact the damaged flesh, I flinched and recoiled. Casey clasped his fingers around mine and brought them to his chest so I could touch the scar. The skin was smooth, ridged around the ring where the bullet had pierced. It was like a brand. One I had brandished him with like he wasn’t a man, like he was something I could use, abuse, and discard when I no longer...

“Breathe, Alan,” Casey whispered, bestowing gentle compassion I didn’t deserve. “It’s alright.”

My heart was in my throat, painfully thudding so hard I feared I would vomit. “Does it… Does it still hurt?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

His reassurance didn’t ease my shame. In fact, it managed to incinerate my resolve. My vision blurred from tears—I somehow had more to shed.

I’d done this to him. I’d killed my beloved Alex Casey. Nothing made sense. How could Casey ever forgive me for this? How could he ever trust me again?

Casey leaned into me, letting his forehead rest against mine. “I don’t want you to cry every time you see this.”

But how could I not? Everywhere across his body, I found reminders of what I had done to him. Six novels worth of violence. Staring at his hand covering mine, I was struck by the rope scars around his wrists. Years before killing him in an alley, I had nearly destroyed Casey before we had even become lovers.

What were we even doing? Why was Casey here? Why had he woken me from the teetering car? Any sane person who had experienced this level of suffering wouldn’t be able to turn the other cheek no matter how benevolent.

Now I understood why my mind had forgotten those memories, why I had redacted Casey from my mind. My guilt was unbearable. I wanted to turn and run out into the storm to let it consume me, but Casey’s hand tightened around mine. He kept me here, he made me face my terrible choices.

“I just don’t understand,” I uttered, closing my eyes as a hot tear slid down my cheek. “How can you even stand looking at me after everything I’ve done?”

Casey cupped my face in his hands and kissed away the tears. It was too much, having him be so tender to a villain like me. One wrong move and I was certain I would shatter.

“Because I love you.”

“Casey…” I shook my head in frustration. “How can you say that?”

“Because over the last few days, I’ve gotten to know you again. I’ve seen you’re still the man I love.” He smoothed a hand over my hair. “Listen to me, Alan, please. I love you. Nothing is going to change that.”

I blinked wetly. His love was unconditional, profound. I would never be able to understand it, but maybe I didn’t have to.

“I tried to save you,” I gasped through my sobbing. “I tried to fix what I’d done, and when I couldn’t…”

It destroyed me.

“I’ve already forgiven you.”

My knee-jerk reaction was to debate him, to question how any one man could genuinely forgive such a heinous act. He kissed my forehead, stopping me before I could go down that road.

I leaned back and stroked his chest, touching the scar. I could feel his heartbeat under the pads of my fingers. Against all odds, he was alive despite every mistake I had made for the sake of a goddamn story.

“You’re only torturing yourself, and that’s the last thing I want.” His blue eyes pierced mine. “You promised me years ago you’d give me the things I want, and I want you to forgive yourself. You’re not going to go back on that promise now, are you Alan?” He combed his fingers through my hair and dropped his voice several octaves to whisper into my skin, “You’re going to give me what I want, aren’t you, baby?”

My lips parted in a gasp. My fingers trembled against his bare chest, and I shuddered as those sinful words sank deep. Casey had checkmated me, turning my own writing against me—and it struck a resounding, toe-curling chord.

During our first fateful meeting “in person” when we had caught each other off-guard, I had sworn to make up for the third book’s bloody cliffhanger and all the damage I’d done to him. I’d been so sure I could take care of Casey’s needs, that I could make him happy in the face of difficult circumstances. At the time, I wanted to prove I knew him better than anyone else.

By the end of the fourth book, The Things That I Want, Casey had fallen in love with me. I’d been secretly harboring a deep, profound attraction to him for years, and despite all my denial, all my shame, I eventually gave into this yearning. What I wanted all along wasn’t a tangible item, and it wasn’t something abstract like fame. No, in the end, all I wanted was Alex Casey, my detective.

And I would give him whatever he wanted, whatever he needed.

The lantern light caught his eyes and reflected everything—his love, his compassion, his barely-restrained desire. He was patient with me, but I had no interest in his patience any longer.

If there was any hope of moving on from my worst mistake, then I needed to confront the lingering consequences. I needed to be brave; I could face this pain.

My hand wandered to his knee. Casey relaxed beneath my palm, exhaling softly. Maybe he sensed it too, the rare opportunity presented to us. The firewatch tower could be our sanctuary. A chance to reconnect, to rediscover one another.

We shared a look, and it spoke volumes.

Casey’s arm around my waist held me tighter, pulling me into his lap. He splayed a possessive hand over the small of my back which threatened to slip past my waist. He was so warm against me, his body a furnace to beat back the cold.

“Do you know how hard it’s been, trying to keep my distance?” Casey murmured near my ear, his hot breath rippling down my spine. “Having to keep the guy I love at arm’s length?”

My breath caught in my throat as my cheeks burned. His voice had lowered, his words velvet as he whispered them against the sensitive skin of my neck. I couldn’t help but melt into his embrace, sighing softly.

“How do you think I felt? I was falling for you all over again, and you were nothing but a guy cloaked in shadows.”

All of my longing and need bubbled to the surface. We turned at the same time, and Casey stole my breath with a kiss. He held me tight as his tongue stroked mine. I surrendered to him, moaning into his mouth.

“Casey,” I uttered, drawing away. Little did he know, I was so close to groveling. Having had a taste of him again, I was starved for more, yearning to make up for years of lost time in a single night. There was no telling if we would have another chance.

Cupping my chin, his thumb caressing my bottom lip as he gazed into my eyes. “Say it again.”

“C-Casey...”

Dropping my hand to the front of his trousers, he was hard for me. He groaned as I traced the outline of his length, and then his teeth skimmed my ear.

“Again.”

“Fuck,” I sighed, “I need you, Alex.”

I could have chanted those sacred words to a fever pitch, anything to summon Casey’s desire in full force. I would repeat them over and over if it meant he would fuck me into oblivion.

Casey slid out from under me and moved off the bed. Standing half-naked before me, he was imposing but angelic in all his dark splendor. He could have been carved from marble; his body was my perfect display of what I found attractive in a man—my man.

I couldn’t restrain myself any longer, and I shifted close to lap and lick at his chest, lingering on each of his scars. My nose brushed along the slope of his abdomen, and I mouthed at the outline of his cock beneath his belt. His scent invaded my lungs, filling me with a sense of urgency and hunger. I wanted him in my mouth, down my throat—

“Slow down,” he breathed, pulling my head away with a hand in my hair. “We have all night.”

All night. Even if the storm let up, even if it became safe to trek back into the forest to reach the Anderson Farm, Casey and I wouldn’t be leaving until morning.

Casey began to remove the rest of my clothes, first by taking off the impractical boots I wore. I sighed when they came off with a tug. When he began massaging my feet, I moaned and fell back against the mattress. I was somehow so exhausted and yet so wired. I’d been trudging around for days without real relief.

My jeans were soaked from the downpour, so as damp skin became revealed inch by inch, I began shivering from the cold air. I shamelessly reached for Casey’s discarded leather jacket and buried my face into warm fabric, moaning into it. The jacket smelled just like him, making my head spin.

Casey draped my clothes over the back of the chair to dry and chuckled.

“Enjoying yourself?” He teased as he returned to the space between my legs which hung over the side of the bed.

I hid my smile and blush inside the collar of his jacket. I gripped it tight and gave him a sly wink. “I love this.”

“Yeah?” he asked, bending down to press kisses into me, starting from my ankle and moving all the way up my leg. His tongue traced the edge of my underwear, causing me to laugh from the ticklish sensation. His eyes flashed up to meet mine. “Looks better when you wear it.”

It felt good to be able to smile and laugh in his presence again. It had been so long since I could let my guard down and give myself over to quiet moments of joy. Funny, then, that this was all because an eldritch monster was chasing us down outside our limited halo of safety.

The lighter mood was complimented by the continued presence of low jazz in the background. The song was something slow and mysterious, with a lone saxophone. I could imagine the scene in my mind—two star-crossed lovers meeting for a stolen rendez-vous in the dead of night. We weren’t in the dark city, but the music could almost transport us there.

The atmosphere took the edge off the remnants of my anxiety as Casey peeled the last layer of clothes from my body, including the jacket. In some ways, this was another first time for us. It was the start of our new beginning, putting us on the path towards whatever our future would hold. I couldn’t be afraid anymore. I would never willingly leave his side ever again.

Naked before him, his half-lidded eyes raked over me. From the tent in his trousers, the sight of me spread atop the bed, eager and waiting, was having an effect on him. When he cupped my thighs once more, I bit my lip to suppress my gasp. He was so close to where I wanted him most, but Casey didn’t move. He was drinking me in, admiring the little tremors my body made. He wanted me to squirm atop the bed for his own pleasure, but I had plans of my own.

“My turn,” I said, nudging him to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Let me see you.”

I dropped to my knees before him. This was a familiar, comforting place to be. I loved being situated between his legs, completely at his mercy. Now more than ever, I wanted him to be the one in control, for him to guide me.

Casey was trying to put on an air of being the calm, cool detective. To anyone else, he might have easily come across this way, but I recognized the little tells. His hands were at his sides, his long fingers resting on the mattress. His eyes followed my every movement as I undid his belt.

Anticipation coursed through my veins. His remaining clothes needed to be off his body as fast as humanly possible, and yet I also wanted to unravel him with the utmost tenderness.

Slowly, his clothes joined mine as I removed them. Then, at last, I could gaze up at him with fondness, reverence.

Alex Casey was no bulky action star, but he had an athletic build, the body I had molded for him in my mind. His cock jutted out between his legs, long and leaking, and it looked as perfect as I now remembered. It made my mouth water. He was incredibly handsome and somehow all mine.

I was a supplicant before a god. Casey deserved my worship. He was more than a pristine, motionless statue atop my pedestal; he was alive, marked by the experiences I had put him through. I was nothing without Casey, and it had taken me a tragedy and two years of agony to realize my error in judgment. I knelt before his altar; it didn’t matter if he had already professed to have forgiven me. I bent down to mimic what he had done to me, kissing along his inner leg, moving higher and higher until I buried my face into his lap. I breathed deep, moaning from the smell of him.

My fingers circled his cock to hold it still, and I licked a stripe along its length. When I closed my lips around the head, it was to pray for his benevolence. When I teased at his slit to lap at his precum, it was to ask for his grace. When my eyes fluttered closed and I whined around him, it was to beg for his divine love.

Above me, Casey sighed and relaxed, his hand brushing through my hair. He murmured my name as I teased him with the tip of my tongue, and he cursed as I took him deeper, letting him breach into my throat. Then, he threaded his fingers into my hair, guiding my head and bringing me up and down onto his length. I let him, for I was his vessel to fill, his servant to command. I wanted him to use me, to fuck my throat raw. I wanted there to be no question of who I belonged to, not any longer.

How foolish I’d been, being in denial for years. I’d ripped my life apart because I’d been afraid of my desires, and yet here I was indulging them without protest. I ached for Alex Casey. I would never make the mistake of letting him believe he was lesser in my eyes ever again. There could be no more room for doubt in my heart.

When his rocking movements grew quicker, hastier, Casey moaned and arched into me, his hand gripping my hair tight as he gave one final thrust. The muscles in his thighs trembled, but he held himself back, restraining his desire to spill down my throat. He pulled me off his cock, and his thumb wiped away a trail of drool sliding along my chin. My eyes were heavy, my lips swollen and red. I didn’t dare speak, lest the spell tethering him to me would be broken.

“Come here,” he ordered, beckoning me to join him once again on the bed.

I was all too eager to obey, so I crawled into his lap, straddling his thighs. He kissed me, replacing his cock with his tongue, tasting himself. He reached for his discarded jacket lying on the bed and retrieved a small bottle of lube from the pocket, as if he’d already known it would be there.

“Where did you find that?” I asked, leaning back. Had he been carrying that this whole time?

“First aid kit.”

“Seriously?”

I couldn’t help but wonder if my writing had something to do with it. Had the firewatch been written into the manuscript for me to discover just like the gun and the flashlight? To some degree, it made sense if Departure was trying to be a real story; the tired hero would need an evening of rare respite, and he’d need to be prepared.

…Or maybe firewatch stewards got bored and lonely, and the narrative had nothing to do with it.

Whatever the circumstances, I was glad.

Casey poured a large amount into his palm, and then he reached down between us and began to stroke the heads of our cocks together. The friction was so mind-bogglingly good. He leaned in and closed his lips around my nipple, sucking hard.

Outside, a streak of lighting burst across the window, illuminating my face in bright light. Thunder followed, rattling the tower. I clung to Casey tighter, my fingers digging into his shoulders. The darkness seemed to press into the window as it sought me out, but the Dark Presence could do little more than watch. It couldn’t have us; it couldn’t have me. I was safe inside the shelter of Casey’s arms, and this fact riled the monster beyond.

“Lie back,” Casey whispered into my ear over the sound of the rain.

I slid out of his lap and lay on my stomach atop the bed, folding my arms under the pillow. Casey moved in behind me, his body covering mine entirely. He kissed down my spine, his stubble making me shiver as he trailed lower and lower. Then, his slick fingers rubbed along my entrance, and I gasped as he pushed one inside to stretch me open.

Casey was tender, gentle, taking his time. He was an expert, knowing exactly how much pressure to apply, how to rub my walls to turn me into a writhing, whimpering mess. My cock was smashed between my body and the bed. Even as I rose my hips off the bed to invite him to go deeper, Casey had no interest in rushing.

It had been so long since I’d experienced this. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be touched there, tended to by a lover who knew me better than I knew myself. I trusted Casey with my body. He had looked after me as a shadowy specter, saving my life countless times because he had vowed to protect me. I had always pictured Alex Casey as the hero, the protagonist, but now… now he had solidified himself as my hero, my savior, and I was still as madly in love with him as I had been years ago.

On my hands and knees, I rocked back into him, greedy for more. I ground against his cock, shuddering from the familiar slide and slip of his length along my entrance. I wanted him to fuck me so bad, and as I half-turned to look back at him with my hair in my eyes, I saw that same passion.

We shared the same unspoken longing. I rolled onto my back and wrapped a leg around his waist to draw him closer. This was where he belonged, perched over me, ready to give me everything I asked of him. Skin to skin, his body was so warm. I could feel every inch of him from his chest to where our thighs brushed together. I was in total awe of him, and my reverence made him blush bashfully.

“What is it, Alan?” He asked, his voice husky.

“I just… I just can’t believe you’re here, with me.” I smiled up at him with fresh tears in my eyes. “That you’re alive. That you want to be with me after all this time… after everything.”

Casey took my hand, kissed the back of it. We shared a smile.

In one breath, I was terrified of what lay beyond the firewatch tower. In another, I was happier than I’d ever been in years. Experiencing a volatile mixture of emotions wasn’t new for me; I practically lived on a rollercoaster, enjoying high highs and suffering low lows.

I surged up to kiss him, throwing my arms around his neck. I could taste the salt from my tears, and Casey kissed those away too. I was spread open for him, waiting to be joined again. To others, it might have sounded cliche, but I couldn’t be whole until I had him fully.

“Please, Alex,” I whispered, staring at him through my lashes.

So when Casey sunk into me, I cried out in relief. He moved in and out slowly, taking his time so I could readjust to the size of him. Our eyes didn’t stray from one another, and when he was fully sheathed inside me at last, Casey leaned down and kissed me, swallowing our moans of ecstasy.

Then Casey started to rock inside me again. These were slow, tender movements which made my toes curl with every shift, every slide of his body over mine. I tried to savor these shared breaths, to memorize the sound of each soft sigh he made.

No one else could strip me until I was bare the way Alex Casey could. No one else could understand who I was at the very core of my being.

Perhaps some would say it was because I had never allowed anyone else to try to get as close. With everyone else, I wore masks; I put on a performance. The famous author, the difficult best friend, the failed husband. I loved those closest to me, but there had always been expectations—some that I could never live up to. This intimacy just came so naturally with Casey. It was like breathing, and I had unwittingly suffocated myself because of my fears.

Two years later, it was time to accept who I was and to let it change me for the better. I wanted to revel in this transformation with my beloved Casey. He was being gentle, but I was ready for more.

“Let go,” I pleaded.

Casey gritted his teeth and uttered my name in satisfied disbelief. He gripped my thighs tight, and on his next thrust, he threw his weight into me so hard the mattress groaned in protest. His pace turned brutal, relentless. His hair fell into his eyes, and his mouth fell open as he grunted. Casey was mesmerized, transfixed; his whole world had narrowed to me and me alone. The heat was all-consuming. My body squeezed around him tight, hungry and all-encompassing.

I had missed this.

Fuck, I had missed this.

“More,” I moaned, my body arching off the bed to meet him.

He sucked bruises into my neck and pinched my nipples between his teeth. His fingers dug into my thighs, and when he folded me in half, he pushed deeper, hitting that spot over and over which made me bite my lip and grip him harder. I’d already endured so much, I could take a little more. I welcomed the pain; it was a much-needed reminder that I was alive, that I was here in the moment with Casey where I belonged.

A deluge of rain slammed against the window. Casey was poised over my body and sweat slid along the contour of his face as he drove into me. He was so sexy when driven by the throes of passion, his face flush from exertion.

I could feel the pressure building. My fingers dug into his back, clutching onto him, unwilling to let him draw away, and my head fell back against the thread-bare pillow. Each thrust punched the air out of my lungs, and his weight pinned me to the bed, leaving me to take everything he had to give.

“You’re mine,” he growled, dragging his fingers through my thick hair. He tugged back, forcing me to bend my neck so he could suck on the knot in my throat. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

Casey was everywhere, his body moving perfectly in tandem with mine. I could feel him shaking, right on the cusp of his climax. I was there with him, we were so close. When he wrapped a hand around my neglected cock, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

My eyes screwed shut as I came, moaning and rising off the bed to meet his final thrust. I could feel hot tears slide down my face and cum spurting onto my chest as I struggled to catch my breath.

When I managed to recover my senses, I opened my eyes to meet Casey’s. He was panting, his parted lips hovering just above mine. He was still coming down from his own high, his thighs twitching against my ass as he filled me. When he let go of my legs, I wrapped a weak one around his waist, keen to savor the full feeling for just a little while longer.

Cupping his cheek, I kissed him softly, letting our warm, slick foreheads press together. I loved him, my detective.

When Casey pulled out, I could feel his cum slipping down my thigh onto the bed. I was so sensitive, with every movement sending ripples through my body. I had no idea how I’d be able to reach the Anderson Farm. If I somehow made it, I’d have no reasonable excuse for Barry as to why I was walking so gingerly.

I rolled out from under Casey to lay on my side, and Casey moved in behind me, understanding what I needed without a word. I didn’t want to lose his presence; I wanted to stay close like this forever. Safe in his arms, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

Jazz played in the background, and this time the song had lyrics. A woman sang of a lost lover, a time long gone. We both fell under its spell, enveloped in the sultry music.

I tilted my body into him so we could kiss with our hands intertwined over my chest.

The storm outside had calmed, turning into a light, pleasant rain. However, we had no intention of leaving our safe haven. He had promised me all night, and when we were ready again, I rocked back into him, uttering his name like a plea.

And so Casey took care of me, as I always trusted him to. He made love to me again, and this time, it felt like a conversation shared between our bodies, like we were airing the full extent of our grief at last. All our ugliness, all our hope. Casey kissed me sweetly, his hands caressing my body, exploring what he had missed after all this time apart.

After another climax, Casey held me close, his head resting against mine.

“I love you,” he murmured, and it was like he had sewn the final stitch to mend my broken heart.

When I had made the fatal mistake of choosing to kill off my darling Alex Casey, I thought it was because the goddess of love had turned her back on us.

How wrong I had been.

Not many lovers throughout history had been blessed with a second chance to make things right. It sounded ridiculous, wrong in some way, but I was grateful.

I would never make the mistake of leaving his side again. The universe would have to tear me violently away from Alex Casey.

Just as I was about to confess the contents of my heart once more, just as I was about to tell Casey how much I loved him, Pat Maine came over the radio again. I couldn’t help but sob-laugh in my wrecked state.

“Of all the times,” I muttered, sniffling.

“Don’t blame him,” Casey said with a small smile. He wiped my wet eyes with the barest brush of his knuckle. “He doesn’t know.”

My head rested against Casey’s chest. It wouldn’t be safe to continue our trek to the farm until morning, so I allowed myself to relax and drift off with Casey taking vigil over me.

Pat Maine’s voice filled the firewatch tower once more.

“Folks, it’s five minutes to midnight, and I think the worst of the storm’s passed. I hope you spent this time bundled up, safe and sound. Can you believe another day’s already come and gone?”

Pat laughed and then let out a long sigh right as another jazz song began quietly playing in the background.

“This next song goes out to a certain someone. He knows who he is. I hope he’s doing okay out there. You know, I’m rooting for you. I think we all are…”

Chapter Text

The next morning, I woke to the sound of birdsong. Warm sunlight poured into the firewatch tower’s windows.

This was the best night of rest I’d had in what felt like years. It was rare for me to wake up naturally, feeling recharged and satisfied. I stretched my muscles, sprawling out atop the bed and bumping into a solid frame beside me.

It was Casey.

The sight of him took my breath away. When I had eventually fallen asleep last night, it had been in his arms, safe and watched over. We had waited out the storm together, and even though there was so much love between us, I had still drifted off with a tendril of fear in my heart: Would he still be there come morning, or would the forces working against us force us apart as it had done throughout the course of our history?

But here he was, resting on his back with his arm draped over the pillow, bare naked with nothing but the threadbare sheet covering him from the waist down. Prisms of sunlight played across his chest, and his sandy brown hair turned golden in the light.

This was profound, a marvel, a miracle. I almost couldn’t believe it. My hand reached out but hesitated, afraid to discover he was nothing more than a mirage.

But Casey caught my hand, intertwining his fingers with my own. He was solid, warm. He wasn’t some hallucination as Hartman had proposed. To me, he was real. He would always be real.

“Alex,” I started, words escaping me, “I…”

He rolled onto his side, leaning over me. My leg draped over his, drawing him closer beneath the sheet so our bodies lay flush, skin to skin.

“This is the first dawn I’ve shared with you,” Casey said, his thumb stroking my cheek. “I’ve never seen you like this—beneath me in the morning light.”

Supernatural forces allowed Casey and I to meet within the fictional world, but our time together often began at sunset and later. The mysteries of his novels took place in seedy back alleys, smoky cabarets, and the labyrinth of subway tunnels.

“You were always gone by morning.”

Leaving behind an empty space in his bed, in his heart.

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to. It was just…”

Imagining Casey alone every morning made my chest ache. This thought was a reminder of the divide between our worlds and the guilt I used to carry. I’d treated my relationship with Casey like he was a shameful secret. Of course, who was I kidding? There had never been much of a secret. Alice had sensed something had been amiss; I hadn’t been brave enough to tell her the truth.

“I know, Alan.” He brought my hand to his lips to kiss my fingertips. “I understand.”

We had survived last night’s storm. This morning would always remain memorable to me. No matter how difficult the coming days became, I would always be able to touch upon this vision of Alex Casey and remember how much he loved me.

“What are you like in the morning?” I asked, shifting our conversation. “Don’t tell me you’re a morning person.”

Casey’s upper lip quirked into a grin. “Not exactly, but there’s always work to do.”

It was always fascinating to imagine Casey’s world continuing forward even without my narrative input. It was almost like another universe, alive and shaped by forces beyond my control.

“What about you?” He asked, propping his head up on the pillow.

“I’m usually pretty groggy in the morning,” I said with a small smile. “I wouldn’t consider myself awake until I’ve had a cup of coffee.”

“I would have made it for you—whatever you needed.”

I could picture it: Casey and I seated at a kitchen table in our apartment. He would be reading the paper, and I would be going over something from Barry. We would talk over bacon, eggs, and hot, dark coffee. When it was time for him to go to work as a private eye, he would give me a long kiss goodbye, one which would make it hard for me to let him slip from my fingers. The day would pass, time would magically fly by, and then he would come home to me, eager to tell me stories I could use as inspiration for my novels. We’d have a wonderful night tangled in bed together. We would fall asleep in each other’s arms, and then we’d do it all over again the next day…

I buried my face into his neck and pulled him closer to my frame. “I wish we could stay here forever.”

“Me too.”

Yet we couldn’t. The firewatch tower’s sanctuary was temporary. This safe haven was a double-edged sword. Barry and the truth the Andersons had promised was out there waiting for me.

As much as I craved this crazy, bittersweet dream, it was just that: a dream. My life was a far cry from domestic bliss. No, I had screwed it all up on my own and was now paying the price for my mistakes.

Reluctantly, Casey and I slipped out of bed and got dressed. We packed up my gear and climbed down the winding metal stairs.

At the bottom, I gave one forlorn glance up at the tower, grateful for the opportunity it had provided us last night. This was a turning point in my life. There was a before and an after with the firewatch tower.

I’d written a few sex scenes of my own in my stories, and I firmly believed they needed to transform the characters, to serve as a stepping stone on the path of development. This wasn’t a novel, but I felt closer to Casey than ever before. We were transformed by the conversation our bodies had enjoyed.

Casey and I shared a look. I could sense the same trepidation I carried. Then, he held out his hand, another offering. I took it with a gentle squeeze. I didn’t know where this journey would take me, but I would not be embarking upon it alone.

Hand in hand, we picked up where we had left off last night and continued our trek to the Anderson Farm.

With the early morning sun blanketing the forest in light, there was no threat of the Dark Presence or the Taken. We could have been enjoying a pleasant hike despite the occasional twinge in my lower back. The further we went away from the firewatch tower, however, the more my fears and worries gradually bubbled back to the surface.

“What’s on your mind?” Casey asked. He could read me like a book. There was no point in holding back.

I tilted my head towards him. “Do you… Do you think I should tell Barry? About us?”

Casey squeezed our joined hands. “It’s your decision, Alan.”

Barry had been my best friend for three decades. Years ago, he had been the goofball next door, and he had been the one to reach out and make friends with a far more shy version of myself. He had never turned his back on me, even in the face of terrible rumors about my mom. Barry could have become friends with anyone else—he was extroverted and funny enough—but he chose to stay with me, the outcast.

We grew up, and his loyalty persisted. We marched on through life together, going to the same college and eventually moving to New York and becoming roommates. He became my literary agent, and in hindsight, I had Barry to thank for keeping my writing career afloat. We had gone through so much, but he had protected me from the press and my worst tendencies. People made the mistake of thinking Barry and I were codependent, but they had it wrong. I was the one who depended on Barry.

Yet despite this history, I was terrified of admitting the truth about my relationship with Casey to Barry. To anyone. Barry believed me when I said I had a shadowy companion I’d named Pain, he believed me when I told him Pain was actually Casey, but this was taking it a step further. I would be admitting to years of history with Casey which went beyond the typewritten page.

I wasn’t naive, this would all be difficult to accept, even with literal shadows haunting Bright Falls. This was the definition of a leap of faith, and I was too anxious to consider the alternative. I didn’t want to live in a world where I had to choose between my best friend and the man I loved.

“Al! Al! Over here!”

Abruptly, we stopped walking, and I dropped Casey’s hand. Barry stood just off the side of the road further ahead. He waved his arms to flag me down, but it would be impossible to miss him, especially with the cutout right beside him. The two of them could have been hitchhiker's looking for a ride.

A part of me wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction. Cowardice wasn’t a new sin for me, and I hated myself for it. Seeing the relief on Barry’s face filled me with guilt; he was so happy to see I had survived the storm until morning.

“Conquer the unknown or be ruled by your fear forever.”

I couldn’t roll my eyes any harder at Casey. Of course I had to make my protagonist so perfectly three-dimensional and profound. Yet, he was right. This was a loose plot thread which needed to be tied before I risked it all to save Alice.

So I took that first step towards Barry. I held my head high despite the uncertainty coursing through my veins.

“I want to tell him, but how? How do I do it?” I asked Casey in a panic. “How do I tell him?”

“You’re asking this now?”

I was getting closer, I was running out of time.

“I’m not sure, Alan. I guess you’ll know when the time’s right.”

I followed the dirt path leading to Barry. I wouldn’t blurt it out immediately. I’d wait. All I could hope was that when the moment presented itself, I would be brave enough to tell him.

Barry folded his arms across his chest. “About time you showed up! Were you abducted by aliens last night? What happened to you guys?”

I turned my head away from Barry in a weak attempt to hide the blush on my face.

“Storm waylaid us.”

“Yeah. Guess that makes sense. It was real nasty, wasn’t it? Alan and I had to hunker down inside the barn.”

I shot a glare at the cutout.

“Hey, I’m safe by the way, thanks for asking pal.”

“That was my next question.”

“Uh huh.” Barry scratched his chin and tilted his head, gesturing to the Anderson farm. “Luckily I had your gun and flashlight to keep me safe.”

He pulled my messenger over his head and handed it back to me. I refrained from sighing in relief once it was securely slung over my shoulder once again. I was glad Barry had something to defend himself with, but I didn’t want to be without my belongings ever again. The manuscript pages, the gun, the flashlight, they were all too important.

“I scoped the place out last night. No one’s come or gone. Seems like a pretty typical farm. Pumpkins, scarecrows, tractors, a grain silo. The usual.” He shrugged. “What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?”

“I don’t know.” I retrieved the page Odin had given me and handed it to Barry for him to read over. “What do you make of this?”

He read through the page, nodding to himself. He had no trouble buying into the premise of two rockstars giving me directions. I guess this was our new normal.

“Sounds like the old guys just put you on the world’s worst scavenger hunt for some sort of clue.”

I thought over the hurried conversation with the Andersons after they had interrupted Casey and I. They had been cryptic, obtuse. Whether that was part of the greater narrative or because of their old age, I couldn’t tell.

“Let’s just look around and see what we find.”

With no real heading, we began combing through the Anderson farm. It felt strange searching their property, but they had given me blanket permission to find the smoking gun which would somehow bring everything into focus.

The Andersons had a big farm, and we spent half a day looking through barns and sheds hoping to find something which would make everything click. I had nothing to go on besides their winks and nudges. Not even Casey’s detective insights made headway.

When afternoon daylight began fading into the purple and orange hues of dusk, we had searched through band memorabilia and farm equipment with no leads.

We had one last place to check: their actual home. It was nestled between a pumpkin patch and a greenhouse full of definitely illegal plants. There was a porch around the outer rim of the two-story house which had seen better days. The wooden paneling was weather beaten, the white paint stained and chipping. We found a note taped to the front door from the Andersons themselves inviting us to make ourselves comfortable. I had no idea how they could have beaten us here to leave this behind given the storm, but I was starting to think this had been a wild goose chase with no rhyme or reason.

“Guess even some rockstars prefer keeping it simple,” Barry said as we stepped into their humble home.

I fumbled around for a lightswitch on the wall, and when I found it, none of the lights came on. The power must have gone out from the storm or been turned off by the electric company.

So much for comfortable.

I turned on my flashlight and scanned the room, the beam crossing the living area to scope our surroundings. It was a typical living space, if older in aesthetic design. There was a shrine to the Old Gods of Asgard in the corner with an array of tour posters, photos, and platinum albums. Records of their hit singles hung on the wall: Children of the Elder God, Take Control, The Poet and the Muse, and a handful of others.

“I’m starving,” Barry lamented. “Maybe we take a break and see if their fridge is still cool?”

My stomach growled on cue. I hadn’t eaten anything since a spare cache granola bar I’d found inside Barry’s truck, and now my hunger was starting to hit me with full force.

When we checked the fridge, the food, thankfully, hadn’t spoiled despite the outage. We made ourselves a pair of sandwiches and kicked back on their living room couches with our feet propped up.

We were so far from the town of Bright Falls (and if I was being honest, civilization altogether), so as night fell outside, the home became dark. Luckily, Barry had found a lantern in the kitchen, so we ventured into the basement to try the breaker panel. We reset the switch, and thankfully the lights came back on with brilliant force. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about Taken through the night.

We headed back upstairs and collapsed once more onto the couches with a mutual sigh. Casey stood watch by the window, ever vigilant while Barry and I took a load off. Barry placed the lantern beside a record player on the coffee table in case the power went out again.

“So those guys really didn’t mention anything else at the lodge, huh?” Barry asked, rubbing his eyes in frustration.

“No. They said I’d find what I was looking for here.” I shrugged. “I guess there was one other thing. They mentioned I should try their moonshine.”

“No shit, really?” Barry patted his jacket looking for his pocket. “I found a page while I was holed up in the barn. It talked about how they brew their moonshine with water from the lake cause it has mystical power or something.”

When he found it, I snatched it out of his grip with a groan.

“You didn’t think this was important to share a little sooner?” I snapped.

“Come on, Al. How was I supposed to know a page intimately detailing how two old guys make booze was a big deal?”

“It’s typewritten,” I countered.

“Well you didn’t warn me to keep an eye out for anything related to moonshine!”

“C’mon Barry, I definitely—”

“You didn’t,” Casey said, thinking this was the appropriate moment to chime in.

“No, I definitely did tell him in the car.”

“Wait, wait. Is Casey backing me up?”

“Yes,” Casey said to Barry, as if he could hear him.

“No, of course not,” I corrected. “He’s misremembering, just like you are.”

“No, no. He’s on my side! Admit it Al! At long last, I finally have some backup against you!”

I deadpanned. “That’s not how this works.”

“It absolutely is.” Barry laughed like a maniac. He wrapped an arm around the cardboard cutout and leaned close. “Between him, Casey, and me that’s three votes for ‘ya didn’t tell your boy Barry about the moonshine.’”

I shook my head and slumped back into the cushions. To think, I’d been afraid of sounding like a crazy person.

“Fine, Barry. Maybe I didn’t tell you,” I conceded, folding my arms across my chest. “The point is, we need to focus and find where they keep their moonshine.”

Barry pulled the cutout in front of his face and began moving it as if it were talking.

“‘Ohh, I’m Alan Wake!’” He teased. “‘I’m always right about everything, even when I’m wrong! And if I don’t get my way, I’ll sulk all day long! I’m always intense and moody! It makes me very attractive and mysterious!’”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t sound like that.”

“You do,” Barry and Casey said at the same time.

I scowled at them both. Barry had no idea he’d just said the same thing at the same time as Casey. And Casey? It just made him laugh.

“You want me to do my imitation of Barry Wheeler?” I threatened, but it had no teeth.

Barry snorted. “Go for it bud, I’d love to hear it.”

Of course, Barry had me right where he wanted. With the spotlight on me, I couldn’t come up with a single joke.

“We need to focus,” I grumbled instead. “If the Dark Presence comes from the lake then the water must be imbued with some kind of supernatural power.”

Finding the Anderson brothers’ stash of moonshine wasn’t hard; the potent smell led us to their pantry. Several bottles lined their shelves, so we brought a few bottles back with us to the living room.

It seemed strange to be crashing at someone else's home to drink and relax without them being here, but the brothers had urged me. Tor had emphasized the significance of their homebrew, and it didn’t feel like the ravings of an old rock star trying to get me to fall off the wagon.

“Are you sure about this?” Casey asked as he settled in beside me on the couch.

“They seemed pretty serious. You heard them.” I smiled at him half-heartedly. “What, your favorite whiskey didn’t give you powerful visions?”

He draped an arm over the back of the couch and toyed with the hair at the nape of my neck. “Not quite.”

Barry noticed I wasn’t talking to him. He was holding one of the glass bottles against his knee.

“Is Casey worried?”

I nodded. Some part of me was a little concerned too. The cork in the bottles did little to suppress the smell of the Anderson’s moonshine. This wasn’t some cozy, farmer’s market craft brew. This might as well have been the kind of back alley alcohol people made during Prohibition.

“Well don’t worry, Casey. I’m not about to let him drink alone. He’s not putting the lampshade on his head under my watch.”

Casey chuckled. “Yeah, that makes me feel so much better.”

Chapter Text

Compared to Barry, I was more of a lightweight when it came to alcohol. The Andersons had given me no clue as to how much moonshine I would have to consume, but the thought of having to drink the entire bottle worried me. Drinking straight whiskey had never been my poison of choice; I’d given that honor to Casey because I’d been dumb and young and thought drinking whiskey was cool. I had certainly tried in the past, but it wasn’t for me. If the Andersons expected me to drink an entire bottle on my own, let alone more, I was in for a bad morning tomorrow.

Seated on opposite couches with a coffee table between us, Barry supplied three shot glasses he had taken from the kitchen. I poured Barry and I a shot of the Anderson moonshine.

“Hey, what about Casey?” Barry asked when he reached for his full glass. “Don’t you think he’d want to try it?”

To my surprise, Barry had thought of Casey while I hadn’t at all. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind of giving Casey a drink. I had assumed it wouldn’t even be possible.

My cheeks flushed and I shifted on the couch to meet Casey’s gaze beside me. “Do you… Do you want to try?”

Casey shook his head. “I think it’s more important someone watches over you two.”

A tight knot formed in my stomach. I couldn’t believe my own carelessness. For someone who wanted to consider his fictional character as real, I wasn’t doing a great job making him a tangible part of my own reality.

“I’m good, Alan,” he said, as if he could hear my spiraling thoughts. His hand stroked my knee in reassurance, smoothing over my blunder. “Moonshine’s not for me.”

I couldn’t blame him for being reluctant. For all I knew, this could have been bathtub gin. The fact that the Andersons used the lake’s water as an ingredient was worrisome too. Something evil stirred in the Cauldron Lake. What exactly were they messing with? I was nervous about their moonshine, but they had helped me escape Hartman’s Lodge. I could only hope they had my best interests in mind.

Barry and I each took our respective glasses and raised them. The smell made my nose wrinkle, but thankfully it didn’t make me gag. Barry was totally unphased. He tapped my glass against his to toast and shot me a worrying grin over the rim like he was excited to try this backyard concoction. I was just grateful we weren’t getting drunk on an empty stomach, for what little it would do.

We drank, throwing back our heads like we were in college. The booze tasted bitter and burned down my throat. Fuck, the Andersons hadn’t even bothered to make their moonshine taste unique or interesting. There was no woodsy, special flavoring to give it that farmer’s market feel. If the Cauldron Lake water was supposed to be their “secret ingredient” it did a hell of a lot of nothing for the flavor. No, that wasn’t true. It tasted like death.

I tried to give the alcohol a moment to settle. Maybe it needed a second or two before the “magic of the lake” kicked in. Yet as the grandfather clock in the corner ticked on, nothing unusual happened. The drink hadn’t suddenly bestowed mystical power or imparted some psychic vision as I had hoped.

Nothing in life was ever easy. One drink surely wouldn’t be enough.

So a second shot regrettably became a third. The powerful liquor made my chest warm and my head light, and as we drank more and more, the first contact between my tongue and the liquid felt less like a sucker punch. Soon we gave up on the shot glasses altogether, choosing instead to pass the bottle back and forth. The moonshine had a quick effect on us both, and I couldn’t help but gradually slump against Casey, my body becoming more relaxed.

“Y’know, I’ve heard of the Old Gods,” Barry said, his words slurring a little more together, “but I’ve never actually listened to any of their music.”

“Woooow,” I said, snickering. “And you call yourself a rock fan. What a poser.”

“Well fuck you, bud.” Barry slid off the couch and smirked. “Just for that, we’re listening to their entire catalog all night long, and you’re gonna dance in front of Casey like a total loser.”

“Tch. As if.”

He went to their collection and brought back several records. Just as he promised, we started listening to them one after another. The Old Gods were a powerful trio. Odin Anderson was the lead vocalist, Tor played the drums, and another member named “Fat” Bob Balder shredded on the guitar. Their songs were full of lengthy solos and poetic lyrics. Odin had a pair of powerful lungs from the way his voice could carry a note.

With each passing song, Barry and I got progressively more drunk. He had joked about me getting so inspired I could dance, but he was the one headbanging and doing air-guitar every time Bob stole the show with a lengthy, intense solo. We didn’t know the lyrics to any of the songs, but this slight hiccup didn’t stand in our way of trying to sing along.

This was quite the impromptu concert, but it wasn’t exactly triggering some awesome revelation. When Take Control ended, Barry picked up the next record and read its name aloud.

“The Poet and the Muse. Some title.” He pointed at the record’s cover. It featured a picture of a moonlit lake with dark mountains silhouetted in the distance. “Looks a little familiar, huh? They mention anything about this?”

“Nope,” I said, popping the word. I took another swig of moonshine and lazily gestured for him to hurry up. “Play it already.”

“Relax,” Barry teased. “You get so impatient when you drink.”

I rolled my eyes at Barry while he placed the record on the turntable. Once again, it crackled to life yet again with a new song which was nothing like the others before it. All it took was the first stanza to realize this was more than just a moody rock ballad with an interesting name.

The song was about Tom the poet, who I could only assume referred to Thomas Zane, the man we had only heard rumors about. The muse in question was his beloved. Their love had been beautiful, a deep well of inspiration for Zane, but something had happened—something which sounded eerily close to what had happened to Alice and I. Zane had tried to save her, but he had failed, ultimately, cursing Diver’s Isle to be haunted forevermore.

Listening to the record, it dawned on me that there was a strange parallel between the events described in the song and what had played out in the last two weeks. The potent alcohol in the moonshine paired with the lyrics made my chest tight, bringing tears to my eyes.

Was this why the brothers had directed me to their home?

History may have appeared to be repeating itself, but it was not a one-for-one recreation, for Alice… Alice was not my muse. I loved her, but to call her my muse was a bold faced lie, one I couldn’t tell anymore.

No, my muse was sitting next to me, listening to the song along with Barry and I. He had played the perfect chaperone, watching Barry and I drink, but now his arm was slung around my shoulder, holding me close. Had Casey come to the same conclusions?

There was no doubt in my mind: Alex Casey was my muse. No supernatural force had taken him from me; I’d done that all on my own.

I swallowed thickly as the guitar solo played again. The music enveloped me, filling me with a strange sense of regret.

When the song came to an end, I was on the brink of sobbing. Across the coffee table, Barry noticed my soured mood. He sat up, rubbing the side of his face where there was an imprint of the couch’s upholstery. “Alan? You okay bud?”

Sitting across from Barry, I dug my fingers into the denim of my jeans. I had no easy way to explain how I was feeling. The song’s lyrics had been like a bucket of freezing water dumped over my head, sobering me. In fact, the moonshine was starting to have a completely different effect. When people joked about alcohol being liquid courage, they meant the loss of inhibition. I’d lost my inhibition, but I had somehow not lost my clarity.

This was the moment. This was the time to come clean to Barry. There was a possibility I might never have another opportunity to tell my best friend the truth about the nature of my relationship with Alex Casey. The three of us were alone and out of harm’s way.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

“Jeez, Al.” Barry frowned. “Song got to you too, huh? You know you can tell me anything, right?”

I nodded, agreeing with him even though deep down I had kept so much from him. We used to be such close, inseparable friends, but even he had noticed me pulling away from him in recent years. So long as I kept secrets, the divide between us as friends would only widen.

“Back at the lodge,” I started, trying to keep my voice steady, “I found tape recordings of phone calls Hartman had with Alice. They talked about me.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “She mentioned how she wanted this trip to be,” he used air quotes, “therapeutic. I didn’t know she meant that literally.” He sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t know. I thought this was just a second honeymoon.”

I wrung my hands. “I’m not mad at her. I was in a bad place. I wasn’t making life easy. I was angry at the world, at myself. She was desperate.”

“Yeah, I wanted it too. You getting help,” he admitted. “Nothing like what Hartman did to you, of course. I just wished you’d talk to someone, even if it wasn’t me or Alice. Y’know, like an unbiased third party. Just… something.”

Barry trailed off, thinking to himself. The last two years had been difficult for him too. I could only imagine how frustrated he must have felt, struggling to keep me from hurting myself when that was all I wanted to do.

“No one more than me got how delicate of a situation you were in, Al. You were under a ton of stress with the sixth book and—”

“That’s the thing, Barry. The Sudden Stop… I hadn’t planned on ending it where I did until the day I wrote it.”

He raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

I hesitated over the words. I could sense Casey’s gaze burning me, and it didn’t matter how many times he told me he had forgiven me, my shame was a lead blanket draped over my shoulders.

Barry, thankfully, came to the conclusion on his own.

“You mean killing Casey wasn’t planned?”

“No,” I murmured, my lips dry. “It was done in the heat of the moment.”

“What pushed you towards that decision?”

Casey’s hand squeezed my shoulder. He could sense how this was affecting me, even with the moonshine’s confidence.

“I was scared because something happened,” I admitted, hanging my head. “Do you… Do you remember our last trip to LA to meet the movie producer?”

“Of course. You didn’t like the guy. He was a real piece of work.”

“Yeah. After, we went out for drinks, and then later that night, I dropped you off at your room, and then…”

I could still picture that terrible moment with stunning clarity. One moment I was with Casey, flirting, joking around, the next I was alone and standing off against a man who wanted to expose what he saw as a profane display of mental illness to the world.

“And then a paparazzo caught you talking to yourself and you punched him. I remember. I took care of it.”

Barry referred to it as if it wasn’t a big deal, as if it hadn’t been a bombshell on my life. I didn’t have the heart to tell him his efforts had been in vain, that the paparazzo had likely been approached by Hartman and paid off to tell his salacious story. Barry was trying to be sensitive to my family’s painful history, but the truth was far more complicated.

“I was doing more than just talking to myself, Barry. The paparazzo caught me talking aloud to Alex Casey.”

“You mean he’s been around since before your accident?”

“Uh… Yeah.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve been able to talk to Casey for years. Both in our world… as well as my fictional one.”

Every word needed to be chosen carefully. I was laying the groundwork for every step forward I was taking in real time. I couldn’t fuck this up. One wrong move, and I risked losing Barry’s trust forever.

“I don’t know how to explain any of it. It just happened one day. I was writing for the fourth book and then I was there in the scene with Casey. After that, I could talk with him while I wrote or in my dreams. I could immerse myself into my fictional world as if it were a real place. He’s even able to manifest in our world a few times.”

“Like that night at the hotel.”

“Yeah. We were…”

Was I really about to confess to having an affair to Barry?

I abruptly stopped talking, unable to follow through with my admission. The silence went on for what felt like minutes upon minutes, and I lost track of my surroundings as everything faded to static.

“I can already guess what you both were doing, Alan.”

My head jerked up, my eyes widening. “W-What do you mean?”

“After you tore up your office, you remember how Alice and I fixed it up? Well, I found some of your writing.”

My heart stopped. So he had found those writings.

“I didn’t share them with Alice, but I gotta be honest, I wasn’t surprised with what I read. I had always wondered if something was going on under the surface.” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “Look, we’re both adults, Al. You being in love with Casey wasn’t exactly the biggest shock of my life. You wrote about him since we were teenagers. You spent so much time thinking about him. It wasn’t surprising. You’ve always been so defensive over him. Never wanted him to be with anyone else. I remember you being so adamant about the cult leader being a guy. It was clear the character was based on you. It was obvious.”

I’d done plenty to make sure I wasn’t obvious.

“If it was so obvious, how come you didn’t say something?”

“What did you want me to say? That I knew you had feelings for Casey? That you were possibly into guys? What difference did it make? You didn’t want to talk to me about it.”

“How the fuck was I supposed to start this conversation with you back then? This wasn’t just me being in love with my own writing. This wasn’t just some self-insert wish fulfillment. It might’ve started out that way, but after Casey and I met in person within the story, it became more. It wasn’t just some crush. It was serious between us.”

“Well you could’ve just started with this.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure. Before Bright Falls, would you have really believed me?” I scoffed. “Of course not! Two years ago, you would’ve never believed me! You would’ve thought I was already on drugs!”

“Alan, I’m not saying it would’ve been easy—”

“So don’t sit here and act like it would’ve been normal to find out I was in love with Casey! You can’t tell me point blank you would’ve accepted that at face value.”

“Are you serious, Alan?” Barry gawked at me. “You want to judge how I would’ve responded, but you didn’t even try. That’s not fair.”

“Face it,” I sneered. “You would’ve thought I was as crazy as my mom.”

Barry blinked hard at me. “After everything I’ve done for you, you really think I would’ve done that?!”

He stood abruptly, swaying on his feet, his cheeks red from more than just the moonshine. I’d never seen him this angry before, his whole body vibrating with barely contained frustration.

“For fuck’s sake, you have no idea how much shit I’ve done for you that I didn’t have to do, but I did it because you’re supposed to be my ride-and-die best friend. I had the goddamn FBI breathing down my neck because of your writing!”

My brows narrowed. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would the FBI care?”

“Hell if I know, but why do you think you’ve never heard about it until now? Because I took care of it. I made it no longer an issue. I was looking out for you and your passion and your fucking career.”

I couldn’t think of a reason why the FBI would ask questions about my writing. I’d never so much as been to Washington DC. Maybe there had been a few dubious internet searches for the purposes of research, but I’d never done anything egregiously illegal. At least while I was writing the novels.

“You have no fucking clue Alan. I could’ve walked away countless other times, but I didn’t because I chose to become your agent to support you and your writing. I mean fuck, I single-handedly cleaned up shit for you when you got roofied. I was there for you when you needed to get clean. You dished out a lot of shit you while going with withdrawals. I could’ve left at any time, but I didn’t.”

He collapsed back onto the couch with a loud huff. “I came out to Bright Falls the moment I heard you were missing. I bailed you out of jail. I’ve fought fucking shadow monsters. I got kidnapped by a quack psychologist who wanted to perform some fucked up eldritch ritual on you. After all that, you still don’t think I’m trustworthy enough for your deepest secrets?”

After his outburst, Barry grew quiet. Without the music, without our chatter, the Anderson farmhouse was still, silent enough to hear the old wood creak and groan with the slightest breeze. The tension in the room, however, was palpable. Our relationship had never felt this way before.

“I love you, asshole. You’re like a brother to me. You’re my best friend. To hear you say I’d judge you because of who you love or lock you away…”

His eyes had turned glassy, and in turn, it made me choked up too. My hands were balled into fists in my lap, nails digging into my palms. The truth sat across from me; I hadn’t been afraid of telling Barry the truth because I feared his reprisal, his embarrassment, his judgment. I’d been afraid because I knew deep down I had fucked up by not being honest with him. Just like every other point of conflict in the past between us, I had let him down yet again. I’d given him yet another reason for him to regret coming over to meet me the day my mom and I moved into his neighborhood years ago.

Barry didn’t need me the way I needed him.

Barry leaned forward, his large puffy coat ruffling as he moved. Over his shoulder, my cutout glared at me with disappointment.

He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and then met mine across the table. “I guess I’m just sad that after everything, Alan, you assumed I’d be like all the other chumps who’ve treated you like shit.”

A knot formed in my stomach. When he put it that way, he really made me feel like a total asshole.

“I… I was scared,” I muttered in a soft whisper.

“Yeah, I know,” Barry said at last. He sighed again, but this time it felt like a release of his own tension. “That’s why I’m still here. Because I get it. Maybe I wouldn’t have been on board a hundred percent, but I would’ve at least tried. But you never gave me a chance.”

“I’m sorry, Barry.”

It was frustrating to hear Barry accept all this. Between what Alice had said on the tape about wanting me to be happy no matter what to Barry’s own observations, it didn’t make sense. How could Alice love me after everything I’d done to her? How could Barry be so loyal, so devoted after I treated him like shit? How could they wave away this level of indiscretion after I had all but desecrated my two closest relationships?

And as the dust settled over our argument, one devastating truth was revealed…

“I killed him for nothing.”

“Alan, we talked about this,” Casey warned. “Don’t go down this road. You didn’t know.”

But I couldn’t hear him over the sound of my own pulse pounding in my ears. It was like my mind couldn’t even process Casey was alive and well beside me. Everything was collapsing in upon itself, creating a whirlwind in my head. It was like I was back in my office, standing over my typewriter all over again, watching the ink dry. I could hear them both calling my name distantly, but I couldn’t get back to them. When I spoke again, it came out as the mutterings of a madman.

“I killed him because I thought something was wrong with me. I didn’t know if you and Alice would understand. If… If you’re saying you would’ve believed me, I could’ve just…”

The horror washed over me like a high tide. All of this was my fault, Alice was missing, people were dying in Bright Falls, Barry was in constant danger—

Arms wrapped around me, pulling me in for a tight hug. Barry had come over to the empty spot beside me on the couch to comfort me. “You were scared.”

I slumped against him, burdened with regrets.

“Couldn’t you have just written him back into the story when you realized what you’d done? You know, retcon his death? They do that all the time on soap operas. You could’ve written a different ending. It’s not like we had sent it to the printer that day. I would’ve gone to bat for you with our publisher for an extension on The Sudden Stop if you needed more time. You just needed to tell me.”

Hearing Barry describe what I had already tried to do reopened the wound. It hurt so much. To reach out into the void of my imagination and grasp at nothing in the space where Casey should have been. The despair had been so overwhelming it broke my mind. To survive, I forgot about my love for Casey. I cut him out of my heart and walked away.

“I couldn’t reach him anymore, so I thought… I thought he was gone forever.”

“I take it you must’ve forgotten your feelings for Casey after your seizure?”

I nodded.

“Suppose that explains why you were kind of an asshole.” He paused and rubbed my shoulder in comfort. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Al.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“So… If you tried and failed to bring him back, how is Casey here with you now?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged against him. “I haven’t exactly been desperate to find an answer to that particular question. I’m just glad he’s here.”

What did it matter in the end? I couldn’t undo the past, but I could be grateful for the present. Casey was here, back at my side was where he belonged. I never wanted to go back to being unable to remember how important Casey was to me. Of course, I wished he didn’t have to see me have breakdown after breakdown, but I could stomach the embarrassment if it meant never losing him again.

“I guess that’s fair. Either way, I’m glad he’s back. You’ve been better, all things considered. You’re more alive than you’ve been in months.”

I did feel more alive and motivated. My reasons for feeling this way were misaligned, but he was right. I was more determined than ever to save Alice and make up for my mistakes.

I leaned into Barry, returning his hug at last. It had been too long since we’d done this, and I realized then how much I had missed being this close with him. For months, I hadn’t really been paying attention to anyone but myself. I had put up walls all around me, making it impossible for him or anyone else to reach me. I’d treated him poorly in my depression. Even after everything I had put him through, Barry still gave the best hugs.

Barry and I pulled away after our long hug. He returned to his couch to give me some space and sprawled out on top of the cushions. Maybe I had been wrong all along. The moonshine had offered a revelation of sorts.

“Is Casey still here with us?” Barry asked, turning a little pink. “Did he hear all this?”

“Yeah. He’s right next to me.”

Barry smiled half-heartedly, folding his arms over his stomach. “So, after all this is over, you’re going to be with him, right?”

I glanced back at Casey. He was so focused on me, waiting for an answer. What did I want in the end?

I reached out for Casey and touched his cheek, cupping it with gentle fingers. Casey leaned into me, covering my hand with his own.

“I just want to be with you,” I whispered. “I don’t deserve you, but it’s all I want.”

In some strange way, I was glad to have discovered those tapes of Alice and Hartman—they had brought back my memories of Alex Casey. My love for him ran so deep, and no matter how difficult things became, I’d never allow myself to forget him again. I’d carve his name into my heart so I’d always remember.

But so much shit was spiraling out of control all around us. We couldn’t stop time and return to our adventures in the dark city. So many people were getting dragged into this vortex. I feared it would only get worse before it could get better, but I would do everything in my power to save her.

“I have to save Alice, first.”

Casey nodded in understanding. “I know, Alan,” he reassured, “we’ll find a way.”

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to feel his arms around me, to feel safe again, but I refrained from making Barry (and myself) feel any more awkward.

“I wish I could see him,” Barry lamented. “I get the feeling you two just had one of those big sappy moments.”

I laughed sheepishly. Yeah, we had.

“Are we alright, pal?”

I sniffled and nodded.

“Good. No more secrets, okay? I’m on your team. I’m betting on the broody anti-hero to save the day. We’ve got this so long as we stick together.”

I scratched my neck and blushed, humbled by his cheerleading. “You… You really think I can?”

“Yeah. You’re Alan Fucking Wake. You can do anything if you put your mind to it.”

Barry’s words held power. They were like an incantation, imbuing me with a blessing.

“So we should probably listen to the song some more,” he suggested. “Some of those lyrics feel a little on the nose, dontcha think? I mean, ‘Find the lady of the light, gone mad with the night…’”

That’s how you reshape destiny, the song’s chorus had concluded. Was I supposed to take this line literally? Had the Old Gods laid out exactly what I needed to do through their song?

We listened to The Poet and the Muse on repeat, quickly realizing with newfound clarity that the song was prophetic, an omen from the past to ward against a crisis in the future. Something had happened to Thomas Zane in the 70s, and now something similar was happening again. We concluded that Cynthia Weaver had to be the lady of the light given her interest in the electrical grid across Bright Falls. She also carried a lantern everywhere she went, and she had written articles about Thomas Zane in the local newspaper. Somehow, she knew more about what was going on than she had shared back at the diner. It all sounded so surreal, but nothing could surprise me anymore.

The song’s direction filled me with renewed vigor. Maybe not all hope was lost. Maybe there was still a way to fix my terrible mistakes and save the people I loved.

Sometime around midnight, Barry crashed on the couch and I began to feel exhausted as well. My head rested against Casey’s shoulder, and his arm was draped around me, holding me close.

“I know that was hard for you back there,” Casey murmured in my ear, his head laying atop mine “but I’m glad you did it.”

“I needed to. I’m not letting you go again,” I said, my voice a mere whisper. I nuzzled my head into the crook of his neck and pressed a kiss into his skin. “I love you so much, Alex.”

He smiled. I wished I could crane my neck to see it for myself, but I was too comfortable pressed into his side, warm and safe in his embrace. The last twenty-four hours had been full of emotional whiplash. The day had started with Casey beside me in the morning light, and now it would end with my best friend knowing the whole truth and the assurance that the man I loved would still be there when dawn came again tomorrow.

▼

The warm sentiment lasted for a short while, at least.

Unlike the previous morning, I woke up to someone vigorously jostling me awake before the sun had even come up.

“Alan, come on...”

“Casey? What time is it?” I mumbled, words running together.

“Grab your gun. There’s somebody here..”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. A car just pulled up with the lights off.”

I reached for the gun on the coffee table by the record player, but as my fingers clasped around it, the door burst open.

“Pick up that gun and find out what happens, Steinbeck!”

Drawing away from the gun, I raised my hands slowly. Across the table, laying on the other couch, Barry started to stir.

“Al? Jesus buddy, we’re never… ever, and I mean NEVER, drinking moonshine again…”

Nightingale approached, arm outstretched as he pointed his own gun at me. He was shaking, his finger hovering over the trigger.

“I’ve had enough with your shit. This is the end of the line. Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? What you’ve done to me?”

Animosity radiated off Nightingale like a furnace. Fire burned in his eyes.

Just as I opened my mouth to try and talk him down, the barrel of his gun ignited with a spark, the bullet flying from the chamber in the air towards where I sat, petrified. Yet instead of hitting me, Casey pushed me out of the way, taking the shot that had been meant for me. I landed on my side on the hardwood floor.

When I looked back to where I had sat on the couch, Casey stared back at me, clutching his side where the bullet had hit him. There was blood seeping between his fingers.

“Casey!”

“Goddamn plot armor,” Nightingale hissed. “Stop moving you piece of shit!”

I didn’t care what Nightingale had to say; his taunts meant nothing to me. All that mattered was reaching Casey to see how badly he was hurt.

Yet when I scrambled to Casey’s side, the butt of a gun slammed into my face, Casey shouted my name, and I was plunged into darkness.

Chapter Text

I came to inside the back of a police cruiser, my face pressed into a cold window. Every bump in the road threatened to make all the moonshine sloshing around in my stomach come burning up my throat.

Loud, harsh voices from the front of the car made a vein in my head throb. It was Agent Nightingale and Sheriff Breaker. I made out every other word of their argument, something about procedure and not being above the law. The police radio dispatched information about the prime suspect’s belligerent accomplice in the other trailing cruiser.

When the car came to a stop, rough hands pulled me out of the backseat and tried to get me to stand, but I couldn’t. I was too off balance, and a wave of pungent booze on someone’s breath hit me hard, making the world spin. A man started yelling at me, something about expensive fucking shoes being ruined, but I was too out of sorts to care. Another string of expletives and a sneered name of some author I’d never heard of followed, another name was called, then I was hauled over a shoulder by someone else—a bulkier guy.

He could have carried me for five minutes or five hours, I wouldn’t have noticed the difference. He dropped me onto a metal bench, and through squinting eyes, I realized we were inside of the police station’s holding cells.

When the cop left, a familiar presence was at my side, clutching my hand in a terrified vice grip.

“Al? Jesus fuck… What the hell did he do to you…”

It was Barry. Even though I was barely conscious, I could never mistake my best friend for someone else. His hand holding mind was a much needed touchstone, but I was too exhausted and sick to my stomach to do much more than lightly squeeze back his hand. I couldn’t reassure him any further; I wasn’t alright, none of this was okay. My head injury had worsened thanks to being pistol-whipped. I just wanted to give in to the darkness again and float away inside its stillness.

Instead of finding relief as I faded, my mind drifted to somewhere else, somewhere dark. Images played in my mind like a film reel, sending me back to where it all began: Bird Leg Cabin, the night Alice was taken from me.

▼

With the moon hanging low in the late August sky, I dove into the inky black waters to save Alice. Through the blurry darkness, I saw her being drawn deeper and deeper, pulled down by tendrils of shadow. I reached for her, she reached for me, fighting but struggling. Our fingers brushed together, her hand clasped mine. For one brief moment, there was hope in her eyes, sheer relief, but as I moved to tighten my hold of her, to begin dragging her back up to the surface, she vanished.

I blinked, searching the lake’s waters for Alice, but she was nowhere to be found. In one instance, she was there, the next, she was gone. My lungs burned, desperate for air, and I couldn’t continue my search any longer. I clawed through the water, and when I broke the surface, I spluttered and coughed. I called out for Alice, but no one responded to my plea. Nothing but silence answered. I was alone.

I should have taken a deep breath and dived back in, but as I peered into the waters once more, I couldn’t see into their depths. The water had turned as black as oil, and pure instinct urged me to return to the shore or risk being lost as well.

When I returned to the pier, I collapsed onto the water-logged planks, shivering from drenched clothes and sopping wet hair. I was consumed with panic, tormented by confusing, contradictory thoughts racing through my mind. Was Alice dead? Had she drowned? Had I driven her to suicide? What kind of heartless monster would come back to shore if he knew his wife was still in the lake?

Burning eyes on the back of my head halted me from striking the match which would lead to my proverbial self-immolation. I pushed myself upright and looked over my shoulder back at the cabin to find a shadowy figure waiting before the circular window, summoning me with a whisper on the wind.

Without thinking, I raced up the pier to return to the house, taking the rotten wooden steps two at a time to reach the porch overlooking the lake. The backdoor was still wide open, its hinges creaking in the breeze. The soles of my wet boots skidded against the floorboards. I didn’t bother checking my surroundings as I hurried upstairs. Nothing else mattered.

The door to the room with the two circular windows was ajar, inviting me inside. Stepping across the threshold, the air chilled, my panted breaths visible in front of me. Some selfish voice in the back of my head told me to run, to flee while I still had the chance, but I was frozen in fear.

The same typewriter Alice had brought with her sat atop the antique desk with a stack of papers, an ink pen, and a single banker’s lamp. The strange woman from the diner who had given us the key to this cabin greeted me, her expression hidden by her funeral veil.

“All your wife wanted was for you to write. She wanted to help you, and you denied her,” the crone accused, her hands trailing along the edge of the desk. “It’s your fault she’s dead. You drove her to this end.”

I fell to my knees, overcome with anguish. Why had I fought Alice? Why had I pushed her away? I pressed a hand to my tear-stricken face. How could I be so cruel, so vindictive? Why couldn’t I just humor her, doing as she asked? Was I truly so detached from the world, from myself and my imagination, that I couldn’t even try?

Cold, clammy fingers sank into my hair, and the old woman cooed down at me. “There, there. Cauldron Lake is special. A place of vast power. You could use this power to change her fate. To bring her back.”

I tilted my head toward her. “How?” I pleaded. “How can I save her?”

The woman trailed her fingers through my hair, and though she smiled, her eyes were lifeless.

“Write.”

Ice seeped into my veins at the mere suggestion. “Write? B-But why? I don’t understand…”

What did my writing have anything to do with saving Alice? How could it help her? Why did everyone want me to write? I hadn’t written in years, since the publication of The Sudden Stop.

“But I can’t write,” I stammered, “I’ve tried, but I—”

“The choice is simple enough, boy.” Her grip in my hair tightened. “Write and bring her back or abandon her once again.”

I tried to lean away from her, but with inhuman strength, she dragged me to my feet, forcing me to stand on shaky legs. She pulled me close, her breath moist and hot against my skin.

“Don’t you want to save her?” She whispered, her eyes narrowed to slits.

An echoing scream ripped through the cabin and pierced my psyche. Alice. It was deafening, shaking the foundation of the cabin. I was frozen, unable to process what was happening. Where was she? What was happening to her? Why did it sound like she was dying?

At that moment, tormented by the sound of Alice crying my name, begging for someone, anyone to help her, I would have agreed to anything to end her suffering.

“I’ll do it! I’ll do anything!”

The woman—no, this was no mere woman, this was a monster—softly laughed. A sinister smile spread across her face. She gestured to the chair, beckoning for me to take a seat at my new throne.

“Good. It will be easy. I’ll even help you.”

Faced with no other alternative, writing seemed like an easy price to pay for the return of my wife. Writer’s block had led me to this crisis, but with a figurative gun to my head, surely I could write words at someone else's behest. Surely I wouldn’t have to come up with a particularly deep story. I would just approach this demand as I would any other stream of consciousness exercise. I would allow myself the freedom to tell a bad story, whatever the lake, the woman, or the universe wanted. I would do whatever it asked of me if it meant saving Alice.

I approached the desk, willing but uncertain.

“There you go, much better.” She came up beside me, pushing me into the chair. “You will see. We will create something special. The story will come true and all will be well again.”

A strange sensation washed over me as I placed my fingers over the cold keys of the typewriter. Something coiled around my ankles, rising further and further up my legs like slithering snakes—it was darkness given form, shackling me to my position hunched over the typewriter. I tried to struggle, but it immobilized me as it crept higher, wrapping around my waist, sinking under my clothes to caress my skin like a lover, yet with none of the warmth or gentleness. The darkness was dead, hollow. A tendril slid around my neck like a collar, constricting my airway, and this was when its acrid smell hit my lungs. It was like smoke and ashes, like burning flesh—my own. It tugged me backward, forcing my back to straighten in the chair.

“You will write,” she commanded.

“Yes.” The word came unbidden from my lips.

“Anything I ask for. My every whim.”

“Yes,” I said again.

“Your mind and body will belong to me,” she hissed, pulling my sopping hair out of my eyes.

Shadows covered my eyes, blacking out my vision. I was blindfolded, bound, given no choice but to submit.

“Yes.”

“You will be the vessel to bring about the return.”

“Yes,” I uttered in fear, the darkness moving around me, its grip growing tighter and tighter.

“Good.”

A tar-like appendage slid across my mouth, forcing its way past my lips and sliding down my throat. I gagged and screamed around its intrusion, the smell of rotting flesh inescapable. The darkness crawled under my skin, skittering over bone and muscle. The more it sank into me, the more it explored every crevasse and inch of my mind and body, tearing me apart from the inside and reshaping me in its ghastly image. It was inescapable, all-consuming. I would never be the same man ever again.

Over the sound of my screams, the crone chanted, ushering the darkness in a fevered pitch.

The ritual, the ritual, the ritual…

I had no idea how long this transformation lasted. I lost consciousness.

When I came to, it was over, and I was alone in the room. It hadn’t even felt real. It had to have been nothing more than a dream. A nightmare. Maybe the cabin was full of black mold, and I’d gone on the wildest trip of my life.

The banker’s lamp was on, casting a small halo around the desk. Beyond its light, however, the shadows seemed to move of their own accord, but I was tired from my nightmare. Everything was a blur.

Wracking my brain, I tried to put the timeline of the last twenty-four hours in order. Alice and I had argued, and in my frustration, I had tried writing until it put me to sleep. That’s what had happened. That made sense.

My nightmare brought me back to my senses, scaring me straight. I was ready to leave Bird Leg Cabin, overwhelmed with thoughts of Barry and homesickness. I missed the sounds of the city. The “great outdoors” was overrated. The silence was unbearable. We had only spent one night in the cabin, but it was enough. Maybe if we went back into town, we could try convincing Stucky to give back our deposit on account of false advertisement on the cabin’s status.

Still, our stay at Bird Leg Cabin hadn’t been for naught. If the whole goal of the trip was to reinvigorate my interest in writing, it had served its purpose. I wasn’t suddenly overflowing with inspiration, but the idea of crafting a new story no longer seemed as daunting.

“Alice?” I called out, hoping I wouldn’t have to convince her to stay. “I think we should head back to town and try to catch a flight back to New York.”

No response came. The cabin was still. Maybe she hadn’t heard me the first time.

“Alice? Hello?”

Rising from the desk took tremendous effort, but I went to the door and tried the knob. It was locked and wouldn’t even turn.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My heart dropped into my stomach. I rattled the door, slamming my fist into the wood to catch her attention.

“Alice! What the fuck! This isn’t funny!”

When nothing but grating silence followed, I ran for the windows to peer outside to see if she was on the island.

I gasped.

I was no longer at Cauldron Lake. Hell, I wasn’t even on Earth anymore. The world beyond the glass was nothing more than an endless void, the bottom of a dark ocean.

“You remember our deal?”

I swung around, and the woman from the diner stood before the desk, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Deal? What the fuck are you talking about? What’s going on? Where am I? What have you done to Alice?”

“You will write.”

And it was like all the gears in my skull jammed at once, gummed up by black tar. My body sagged like a puppet without strings.

“I’ll write,” I droned.

Mechanical movements were all I could accomplish even as my mind yelled for me to stop. I was rattling the bars of my cage, screaming on the inside, but nothing responded to my commands. I dropped into the chair and hunched over the typewriter, my numb fingers poised over the keys, anticipating a command.

“Every story needs a title,” she purred. “What shall ours be?”

“Departure.”

“Clever.” She chuckled, coming over to my side at the desk. She folded her arms across her blouse and gestured to the typewriter. “Now write.”

“Yes. I’ll write.”

And as the witch commanded, so I began. I typed and typed, a mindless peon. The words on the page belonged to me as much as they did to her; we were in sync, performing a grisly dance—one which needed a suitable partner to complete.

By her decree, we pieced together a horrifying story about objects coming to life, shadows taking over innocent people to twist them as the darkness had done to me. People died. Every death fueled the evil in the lake, each soul kindling for the funeral pyre. It would all lead to the End, when the creature was strong again, powerful enough to break free of the caldera and to walk the earth once more, pillaging and consuming everything dragged beneath its tidal wave.

And I was to be its harbinger. The herald of this darkness.

In the void of nothingness, there was no clear passage of time. No sun, no moon. I was slumped over the desk, wasting away as I wrote, my fingers sore and blistered, unable to do anything more than submit to the will of the monster bearing the witch’s face—the Dark Presence, I called it.

This beast was my jailor, and it had specific demands for the narrative. The Dark Presence demanded I adapt to its preferred style, altering the tone of my writing. Its so-called “narrative beats” were scattered, near incomprehensible. I couldn’t tell if I was being held hostage by an alien creature who had no understanding of human storytelling practices, or if this was some ancient incantation from a time before man walked the earth. Nothing made sense, but my body had no choice but to submit.

Wasting away in the dark, the Dark Presence often left me alone to rut and suffer. I was writing another terrible arc in our story when suddenly a bright light peered through the window. The brilliance blinded me, and I had to shield my eyes to see where the light was coming from. Light flooded the room, beating back all the darkness. It was warm as the sun, a beacon in the nightless night.

I rose to my feet, drawn to its presence, and I pressed my hand to the glass window, mesmerized by the way the warm light silhouetted my splayed fingers.

A hulking white diving suit was on the other side. It was a suit from the seventies. The helmet’s viewport was the source of the light, and it blazed into the window, blinking like a large eyeball. I couldn’t make out a person’s features underneath the glow.

“We don’t have long,” the diver said. “It wears my Barbara’s face. It will be back soon. My light will help you reach the surface. You will be in control of your body from now on, but you must not let her know. Do you understand?”

There was urgency in his voice, but I was so transfixed by the light, basking in its soft glow.

“Alan! Listen to me, do you understand?” He repeated.

I blinked, snapping out of my trance. “Y-Yes?”

“You must write your way out of here. It’s the only way.” The beam of light shifted as the diver titled his large head. “I must go. We will speak again.”

“Wait! Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he dismissed. “The Darkness is coming.”

“Please.”

I hadn’t even known I had been drowning until this visitor’s arrival. His voice, his light, they were life preservers, something to help me tread stormy waters. He was a lighthouse, a promise of hope.

The diver let out a deep, airy sigh which rumbled through the respirator of his suit and created bubbles outside my window. “Fine. I’m Thomas Zane. Now get back to writing before she returns.”

Before I could thank him, Thomas was gone, the space on the other side of the window empty and dark without his guiding light.

I returned to my “throne” as the Dark Presence called it, depressed and dismayed to be alone again. A half-typed page stared back at me describing in graphic detail a town being overrun by flesh-loving crows.

When the Dark Presence—Barbara, as Thomas had called her—returned, I put on a blank affect and obeyed her every command. I wrote the story exactly as she described without hesitation. I couldn’t let on that I was in control.

With my own free will regained, I was painfully aware of time’s passage. Barbara made me write and write and write for what was surely hours, days on end, but I could show no signs of weakness or exhaustion. I had to be the perfect vessel for her gratuitous horror story which made no sense.

Thomas’s light had woken my body, granting me total control, but now I could feel my mental and physical breaking point rapidly approaching. To my relief, Barbara eventually expressed feeling bored and ended our marathon writing session. She left the writer’s room, her tall heels clicking against the floor. I had never heard their sound before. I had never seen the door to the room open at her request—the threshold led to a terrifying dark void. I had been numb before, but now I was alive, free to understand the gravity of my situation.

When she was gone, I wondered if Thomas would return. Meeting him reminded me of how alone I was here, trapped with no way out.

No, that wasn’t true. Thomas had told me to write to escape, and I understood what he meant: writing as an act of self-will, of freedom of expression. If Barbara wanted a story which freed her—the Dark Presence—from this prison, then I could write my own supernatural jailbreak as well. A plot within her plotless mess of a narrative.

So instead of resting as my body craved, I faced a dilemma: Could I write a new story on my own? Everything up to this point had been prompted by the Dark Presence. This would be different. Could I write my own story using the framework she had provided? I wouldn’t be able to stray far from the narrative path the Dark Presence had laid out. I couldn’t risk being caught.

The stakes were higher than anything I had ever created before. My life was on the line, and so was Alice’s—she was out there, somewhere in the miasma. She was in this dark place, rendered collateral damage because of my failures. She was enduring a hell of her own because of me. I would never be able to atone for it. But maybe if Thomas ever returned, I could ask if he had visited her too.

I would have to sneak out through plot holes, through figurative language, through story additions which would fit the genre. It would have to be dark. Bleak. There would be more death, more suffering ahead. To satisfy this abominable creature, I would have no choice but to take the poison inside of me and turn it into art.

This would be my own version of Departure—a prison break. A descent into madness. I would be eager now poised at the starting line, filled with confidence and inspiration. But it would require patience. Revision. It would need to be perfect to fool the Dark Presence. I wouldn’t see the final page until the very last minute.

Could I endure such torment?

I would have no choice.

John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost had said it best: Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to the light.