Chapter Text
Drowning in darkness.
Silent screams leaving nothing more than bubbles.
Alice Wake rises from the inky black water, the absence of light hindering her sight beyond her clenching hands. The memory of a nightmare fading.
A shiver cuts down her back as she frantically glances around to try and figure out what is wrong; what she is not seeing. Her nyctophobia flares and swirls in her heart, branding her with fear at every slight movement. Where is the lamp, why are the lights not on?
Alice’s eyes latch onto the only light she can see, their – no her – balcony window is open and the neon light of New York City streams in. The curtains flap open on either side of the Door with a pattern she can’t disclose. She sighs consciously uncoiling her fingers from the bed sheets and rubs her heavy burning eyes.
“Nothing is there,” she mutters to herself as she stands up to close the open door, it’s an old mantra that has not helped since she was a child. She sits on the edge of the bed that is slept in; the other side visibly untouched even with the crunched sheets. Her fumbling fingers touch an open pill bottle and working off what she remembers pinches a tablet and gulps it down with practiced ease that almost chokes her. Alice falls back into the spiral of slumber. No matter how many psychiatrists she sees or how many pills she swallows, the bitter taste still bubbles in her throat with the viscosity of tar.
Alice Wake is on the shoreline of Cauldron Lake in 2010 aged thirty.
It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean.
The sounds of wildlife drowned out by the typing of keys.
She was the reason Alan Drowned.
She remembers arriving in Bright Falls.
Alan needed inspiration.
She needed him to write.
Maybe it would calm the demons.
Or maybe it would make them worse.
Their Dark Prescence unleased.
Alice holds her camera to the watery reflection and takes a snapshot.
The bulb becomes blinks bright and bursts.
She does not know what compelled her to do so but she sits on the hood of a police vehicle as the dawn rises.
She patiently waits for the picture to develop from the vague shadows.
Now it is 2023, she is forty-three and a lamp switch clicks.
The light is drawn from around her and the scenery suddenly shifts.
It is dusk now and the only light comes from an angel lamp in the hands of a suited man with long hair.
He is faced away from her, submerged up to his knees in water but a name falls from her tongue with a gasp that only registers as a record Scratch.
The man in the black suit turns around and the light flickers out leaving her to drown in darkness before she can see his face.
The water rises to pull her down and silent screams leave nothing more than bubbles.
For the second time this night but not in her life Alice Wake rises from the inky black water. The memory of a fading nightmare she can’t escape from. Her eyes squint at the electric alarm clock beside her head that bleeds the air red, it reveals the time as quarter past three in the morning. Knowing she can’t take any more sleep medication for another sixteen hours Alice leans out of the bed and grabs her phone. She scrolls along the bright screen for a bit, chuckling dryly at the repetitive memes and gazing at the breathtaking landscapes that almost convince her to plan a visit. That just like everything dampens with thought put into it.
The phone displays a popup ad of a person with a deer mask, “Based on your interest in the Bright Falls Deerfest and the Alex Casey series here is a product you may be interested in... The Cult by Thomas Zane. A forbidden play brought to life. Only playing one night at the Oceanview Motel. !Buy Now!”
Alice scowls at the product placement and holds back to urge to throw her phone into the darkness, pressing the metal and glass on the bedside with a heavy drop. Her momentary flash of anger passes like the receding tide, the newly revealed shore battered and bruised. The only way Bright Falls and Casey are connected is through Him unless the real-life FBI agent is doing a case over there which would be quite a coincidence.
Alice doesn't know when she truly notices it, but the Darkness is reaching out towards her again. The room is smothered, and It's frightening touch turns her into a statue. A Prescence lies behind her on Alan’s side of the bed. Clawed hands ghost the line of her back through her shirt, its mane of feathers swipe at her with the tilt of its head and its skin is covered in a sticky material that smells of copper. Those are normal sensations for this haunting situation, the monster has become bolder with every night. Six years ago, it was only a momentary silhouette in the darkness heralded by the sounds of a typewriter in a locked room. She has cameras all over the apartment now to catch sight of it and in most of the snapshots the corpse of her husband is screaming at her. The only reason she does not have the equipment facing the bed always on is that her night terrors would create a constant video. She slowly bends her arm under the bed to where a button stands ready at the edge of the frame. Alice throws herself off the bed as she presses the button and the Devil screeches before vanishing. With their departure light returns to the room, the alarm clock shows that it is quarter to four and cameras start to spit their negatives out. Carefully picking the future photos out Alice transports them to her emergency dark room, her path lit with a trail of automatic lights that sooth her frayed nerves.
In what used to be the bathroom she lays the negatives in a tray of development liquid Alice inspects the previous photos which she has hanging up to dry. Some still need time but a few are good enough to be placed in the exhibition coming up. Alice makes notes on her phone of each piece, giving them dates and descriptions she can expand on later.
Later as Alice cleans up and resets the equipment, she finds her old camera on Alan’s beside table. The object is out of place, but she can’t find it within herself to throw it back to be forgotten in the closet. For old times sake she turns it on to look through the photos. Within the machine’s memory she finds the original covers for the Casey books, Inflammator and so many other memories that she shoved away because they hurt. She spins through the albums frozen in time, unaware of the future. At the final photo she raises her eyebrows trying to remember when she took it.
The shot a distorted black-and-white photo of Alan and the longer she stares at it the more meaning she finds in the ripples. How can she be sure this is authentic? How is there a photo dated last night if this camera has been in a box collecting dust for thirteen years? But most important of all, is this Alan or the Herald of Darkness?
The image of her husband underwater scratches the primal part of her brain. Ever since she visited that government building, she has recollected her time in the Dark Place for the better or worse of her sanity. It is how she was able to accept her haunting so easily. The stimulation of her mind familiar in such a way that she has the strength to move.
Back in the bathroom with her reflection watching she starts up the recorder, “Sometimes nothing happens for days, and then the feeling will strike. September 14th 2023, of course It would be active on this day of them all?” Alice pinches her nose, “The first nightmare came at midnight, the second just after three. That is when the entity I have labelled as The Herald of Darkness showed up. I was lying in bed, my phone reminded me of him and when I turned the screen off, the Herald was behind me.” She turns to the developed photo to get her reaction on film, for the art. Alice takes in the photo and the surprise and emotion is raw in her voice, “it began so violently with wordless roars and opening every draw within reach but over time its touch has settled, and I have begun to second guess the planned conclusion of my exhibition. Maybe that is its goal. Manipulate me before I can manipulate it. Either way, my way forward must change.” She reaches forward and turns the video off. Her phone rings in alarm, she has a meeting to get to.
Exiting the elevator of Parliament Tower she strides through the gilded lobby. Down the front garden Alice passes the statue of Alan they put up in memoriam at the one-decade mark of his departure; she likes to think of it as his grave marker. She finds a bench facing him and waits. Alice could pretend she is having a conversation with him mentally, the shadows hiding his unmoving mouth.
“Alice,” Mrs Queen waved sitting beside her, “how are you going?” The older woman’s knitted sweater is a barf of colours, a direct contrast to Alice’s black jacket and Night Springs Visual Art Show Film Festival shirt.
“Great,” she spits flicking her fingers back and forth in a wave, “I’ve got enough for a first viewing, just need to make a proper bio section for them. Words and writing were always Alan’s area of expertise.”
“I’ve listened to some of your demos and they are perfectly fine honey,” the gallery woman slides her cat eye glasses up her nose, “And I know this is all about your grieving process, but I have some notes.” She pulls a big notebook out of her bag and opens it to reveal paper pages and sticky notes. “The Herald of Darkness is a little long,” she flicks her pen, “got anything less of a mouthful?” Alice gave the Entity the name when she realised it was not Alan haunting her. It looked like Alan, it acted like him and by God it felt like Alan trying to escape that Dark Place but then there was a month of nothing in 2019 broken by this Cloud of Darkness that seemed to have consumed him. It lost the trappings of humanity and showed its true self as a monster in this horror story.
Alice remembers the screeching it would do in the early hours of the morning, her old record player glitching out in its Presence, “Scratch.” For when she used to listen to music to sleep, “Mr Scratch.” Two ravens caw from positions on Alan’s shoulders as a sticky note label is stuck onto the bottom left corner; the font of a typewriter is spat out by the label maker.
