Return: Rest Stop

[Page 1: Alan Wake, the Writer]
My name is Alan Wake, and I'm a writer.

I didn't become one overnight. Like most writers, I struggled with it -- a short story here, an article there. Then I got lucky and spent a year as a staff writer on the Night Springs TV Show.

It wasn't the great American novel of my fantasies, but it taught me discipline and craft, and the difference between wanting to be a writer and actually writing.

[Page 2: Hunting Mr. Scratch]
Mr. Scratch is a twisted copy of me, powerful and dangerous, but I know I can fight him. I don't think anybody else can. They don't understand what he represents, or that all the horrible things he does here are almost insignificant compared to what he will unleash on Earth, given the chance.

But I have survived the Dark Place, and it has taught me things -- how to cope, how to stay sane when the world goes crazy. He's two steps ahead of me, but I can find him. And I believe I can stop him.

[Page 3: Rewriting Reality]
The reality we take for granted is softer, more adaptable than we think. Under correct conditions, you can reshape it, turn it into almost anything you want. When it happens, almost nobody notices. It's not that we forget; it's that after the change, there's nothing to remember.

Only those who have been directly touched by the powers that can shift reality are aware of the changes. Many are driven mad by it. Others can cope. I am one of those people, and I know to wield that power to rewrite reality.

[Page 4: The Devil is in the Details]
To change reality, you nudge it into the right direction. Your version of it is there, waiting; it wants to come true. All you need to do is to help it achieve its potential. The devil is in the details.

You change the details of the scene to match those on the page. If you get the details right, if you achieve that critical mass, the shift will come, and the rest of your new reality overrides the existing paradigm.

The lie -- no matter how outrageous -- is now the truth.

[Page 5: The Splitter]
Some of the Taken aren't protected by the darkness like their comrades. Instead, their aversion to light is so extreme that they literally split into two when they encounter strong light. It leaves the two halves weaker, but of course there's strength in numbers.

It's a disturbing development; the Dark Presence I faced two years ago was powerful, but it didn't have much in the way of imagination. Clearly, the same cannot be said of Mr. Scratch.

[Page 6: Too Many Legs]
The strands of webbing glistened in the beam of my flashlight, fine, almost ethereal. They were fresh, and right in my path.

I held my breath and waited, ears straining. Nothing. I moved on, concentrating on the task at hand. Just get what I was looking for, then leave, that's all, I kept telling myself.

For a moment, I actually thought it might be as simple that. Then I heard too many legs skittering across the ground.

[Page 7: The Twisted Mirror]
My own face peered back at me from the TV screen. For a moment, I struggled with the sensation of deja vu -- how many times had I seen myself like this now?

And then there was that easy grin that never seemed quite as quick or natural on my own lips, the dark, malicious twinkle in the eyes, and I knew who I was looking at.

As he pulled back and revealed the room behind him, my throat went dry. There was nothing I could do but watch.

[Page 8: New Reality: The Satellite]
At the oil derrick, the wheel had been jammed in the place and turned until the oil gurgled and flowed, thick and flammable. The warning lights were blinking in a fast rhythm, bright and steady, powered by the battery. The Kasabian CD was playing in the boom box, all distorted guitars and intense beat.

High above, some piece of orbital junk or another collided with the satellite, knocking it radically off course. Trailing debris, it screamed down from the skies at an impossibly steep angle, all that high-tech-engineering reduced to nothing more than a bullet that would destroy whatever it hit.

[Page 9: The Appearance of Mr. Scratch]
I'm trapped in the darkness. HE has started appearing to me. Mr. Scratch.

He can travel back into the world effortlessly, and he loves to rub my face in it. At first, he was just an echo in the darkness, a flicker beyond the edge of my vision. Now he's started showing himself, getting bolder all the time. Telling me what a great time he's having in the world while I'm stuck here. And what he plans to do, especially to Alice.

All the moves I have left are dangerous and desperate. I have no choice. I have to hunt him.

[Page 10: Pages and Instincts]
I know that when I arrive, the clarity of vision I have now may disappear. I have made my plans. I have prepared for this. But I know the transition from the Dark Place will be hard on me -- and not just physically. It may affect my mind, my memory.

These pages should help me remember and focus. That's worked for me before. Even if that fails, I think I will be able to trust my instincts.

I'm navigating my own story. I'm hoping I'll know where to go and what to do, even if the details elude me.

[Page 11: My Best Friend]
I don't make friends easily -- I know plenty of people, but I don't let most of them close. I've known Barry wheeler ever since we were little boys. We had the time of our lives. I'd get us in trouble, and he'd talk us out of it.

Things haven't changed that much now that we're grown-ups. He's the most loyal and dependable person I've ever met -- in all the things that count, anyway.

You could call him a weasel, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong; you could call him a clown, and I would reluctantly agree. But he has never let me down.

[Page 12: Wake's Friends]
Alice and Barry -- my wife and my best friend -- are easily the two most important people in my life, and they've never really gotten along with each other. I suppose both of them resent the others intrusions into what they consider their domain.

After I was gone, they maintained an uneasy truce -- my books stayed in print, still selling, the licensing machine churned away. she was my wife and controlled the intellectual property: he was my agent and took care of the business.

I wish they'd found more common ground than that.

[Page 13: Night Springs, the Cult TV Show]
Night Springs doesn't exist. It's a fictional town from the TV show I used to work on. It was Anyplace, USA, a place we used as a backdrop for whatever strange story we had that week.

One of the stories I wrote for the show involved a man, "the champion of light," fighting his evil double, "the herald of darkness". It was something I'd written back in the real world -- something I had a link to, a framework I could build on.

I adapted it into a new story . This story.

[Page 14: Night Springs, Arizona]
Now Night Springs is in Arizona, although not for long. It's in Arizona because whatever the town that has become Night Springs is really called is located near one of the thin, worn places in the world -- where dreams and reality flow together and life is always a little strange. Aperfect analogy for Night Springs.

I can't return to the real world. I've tried. But I'm operating on dream logic, forcing the door open a crack so I can slip through. I can enter the strange little town of Night Springs.

All I did was put it in Arizona for one night.

[Page 15: The Spectre]
In Bright Falls, I was constantly under attack by birds that were more shadow than flesh and feathers, but this is an evolution: some of the Taken are actually capable of turning into a flock of birds to escape my attacks... and turning back into human form to make surprise attacks.

[Page 16: Emma Sloan]
With all the herbs, crystals and the rest of her New Age paraphernalia, Emma Sloan had been called a hippie and a freak, and worse; it was that small town mentality. She was a female mechanic, and even in 2011, there were always going to be backwards shitkickers who thought that was a hoot.

She didn't mind. She could deal. She could take any engine apart, even the new ones with all the computers in them.

Turned out that these boys were awful polite while waiting for here to put them back together.

[Page 17: Old Gods of Asgard]
Tor and Odin Anderson. Old Gods of Asgard. I still don't quite know what to make of them. I know they used to be rock stars who modeled their stage personas after Norse gods. I know they're old. I know that in their day, they fought the darkness as I do. I know they're demented and insane, ravaged by age and self-abuse.

But there's something in them, something powerful that took hold when they were touched by the powers beyond, a thing that goes far beyond just stage names. Something godlike.

Location: Found in the starting canyon, on the left. Third time through.

[Page 18: Barry and the Old Gods]
The Anderson brothers should probably have been in a facility somewhere, despite their tendency to escape from such places. It could be argued that they had no business being on tour, considering their condition. Their lives mostly revolved around a laundry list of ailments and their endless quest for liquor.

But Barry Wheeler managed them now. And whatever else they might say about Barry, he knew how to make things happen...

And honestly, it wasn't like the Andersons were the most difficult clients he ever had.

[Page 19: Old Gods in the Studio]
Getting the Andersons into the recording studio was a struggle and a half, but once they actually picked up the instruments, something happened.

They were two old men, and they weren't; they were doddering bags of bone, and they were barely contained power... And there was music.

Barry rubbed his hands together; he knew how to pick a winner. Now all they needed was some direction on how to make things a little more modern.

Barry had never produced a thing in his life, but he knew what he liked. He knew "Balance Slays the Demon" was going to be a hit.

[Page 20: The Giant]
I have seen the darkness twist flesh into new shapes before, but encountering these giants is an extremely disturbing experience.

It's as if the genre has been switched on me; they're something out of pulp fiction -- twice as tall as normal men and stronger than forklifts, their lumbering gait and slow-witted demeanor brings to mind some kind of a mean-spirited caricature of a febble-minded hillbilly.

[Page 21: Emma and Mr. Scratch]
Emma wasn't sure exactly when the man arrived at the hotel, but from what she could tell, the party started almost immediately. It was infectious, spreading from one room to another. He was mercurial, almost as if he was flickering through the scene, telling a joke here, throwing an insult there, oozing sex and violence and excitement.

She had never seen someone like this before. He looked at here and smiled, and she felt her heart flutter a little.

She knew he was the kind of a man mothers warned their daughters about, but she told herself it didn't matter.