The Dark Place wants to drown me. I'm losing myself. I have to fight it. I have to remember. The Clicker. The light switch. I lost it. But I have the lamp now. The lamp the switch was cut from. This place is a nightmare. Not real and yet more real than anything. The danger and the horror are real. It feeds off my mind. Twisting whatever it takes into psychotic reality. I'm trapped here. I write to escape. I've tried this many times. Written countless stories. Forgotten how many. I keep failing, but I must keep trying. I use the story to dive deeper. Every word I write is a step forward on this spiral into darkness. I dive to the bottom to find the answer, the map, the key, the compass, combined to form the door leading out. But how do you open a door that's not a door? At the bottom of an ocean that's not an ocean, in a lake that's not a lake?

I'm a writer! I write! Writing is the key. Art is the key. To find my way out of the Dark Place. I can't forget this. Don't you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ forget this! I'm in the Dark Place. I'm outside time and space. Outside reality. But this is real! A nightmare dimension, an ocean of darkness. Remember: its dark energy can make art come true. Make dreams and nightmares come true. Yes! I can use this. I need to use this! Hungry, monstrous things, out there. Plotting to stop me. To devour me. Become me. Oh no.

The memory is fading like a dream. I must hold onto it. I remember an awful beacon in the darkness. The scene of a ritualistic murder site in the subway tunnels. Is it a previous draft of my writing? Must be. I've been trying to shape the Dark Place around me, but so much fades away. Even my memory of the process. Washed away by dark waves. But some things remain. The darkest, nastiest elements. Like the murder site. It's my goal. A stepping stone to travel deeper, to escape. Write a narrative that takes me there. Casey will lead me to it.

The Dark Presence is out there. It's hunting me. Its spies are always watching. It's trying to catch me. I think it did. More than once. It's stealing from me, stealing my identity. It wants to be me. Replace me. A twisted version of me. Scratch. Mr. Scratch. It's slithering into the story. Once it's in the story, I have to use it. To keep the story true. It got in. I have to make the story darker now. But that gives it power. That's bad. I don't want that. But I have no choice. It's an arms race. Keep it together, damn it. I'll be the first one to cross the finish line. I have to beat the Devil in his own game.

I can do this. Yes! The visions I'm seeing. From the world beyond this nightmare. From home. They sink down to the bottom of this ocean. I catch them. Visions, echoes. Big fish. Some are actual events. Some are forgotten ideas. No. It's good. It will work. They're my inspiration. Elements for my story, to make it more true. Even the parts that aren't true! I must change reality to escape. The writing has to be just right. Just right! Or else it will all just wash away.

I'm lost. I'm lost in the dark; drowning, I'm drowning. I'm drowning no way out, there's no way out sinking deeper deeper and deeper this is hell. I'm in hell, I died, I wish I was dead. Let me die, I just wanna sleep. Please, let me sleep. I'm so done I just want to go home I've written so much. I write and I write but there's nothing left, it's all gone.
I don't know how to write. All the words are gone there's no more words. Where did they go did I eat the words? I recognize these words are the words moving? This is familiar! Why is this familiar? I've been here before. Have I said this before? I've read this somewhere; where am I who am I?
Alan Wake. Alan Wake? That's a strange name A. Wake that sounds like a characters name. Did I write the name up? Would I make that name up? I don't wanna be a character I don't wanna be in the story just, write me out of this story...
Ram these words down your throat.
Make you choke on these words.
I know the words, secret words, you can't take the words I, eat the words. These are my words! Stop using the words. The words. The cult of the word. This isn't your story, it never was your story. This story is a monster. This story will eat you alive! The Darkness is coming! The darkness inside. This is my story! You're In My Story! GET OUT OF MY STORY!!
You are a character in MY story! You can't stop this story. This story will go on forever! There's no escape! YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE! You will drown here...
You're stuck in a loop...and you don't have a clue. You lost. You lost the plot.
I'll show you.

I see it now. The question. How do you run from an idea? From a thought? From a story that lives in your head? You can't escape your fears. You carry your monsters with you. The devil on your back, it's in you. You're running right back to it! A loop! I have to stop. Stop running. Stop writing. I won't write another word. It's too dangerous, only horror comes out of it. People get hurt. I will let the currents of this ocean wash me away... but what if I forget why I stopped? What if I forget I stopped at all- that is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up! If that happens I'll start writing again-

I'm awake, I'm back. I'm feeling... feeling awful, what is this feeling? I died? Did I die? It got me. It ate my mind. You're not making sense, man. ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥. Get it together man. "Return". I was writing "Return". Something went wrong. I've written it so many times, and it always fails. It fails. I'm doing something wrong. I forget. What's wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Am I wrong somehow, am I missing something? Skipping over some vital beat? I have to write. Sure, of course, that's a given. That's a given. I wrote "Departure". That worked. That worked fine. Maybe there's a missing step before "Return". What's between "Departure" and "Return"? The tasks, the challenge, the lessons. "Initiation". Yeah. I haven't written that. To master this place. To set things up. Can't go to "Return" before "Initiation". That's right. That feels right. "Initiation". I have to write "Initiation".

Time is broken here. Maybe time never worked the way we think it does. It loops around. And yet it goes forward. A spiral. I thought I was finding remnants of the earlier loops earlier drafts of my writing. The murder sites. That I had left clues, mementos for myself to guide me on. But maybe that's only part of it. If time is not a straight line, then there are loops beyond these loops vast complex superstructures beyond what's happening to me now ahead of me and I'm there as well, a version of me, something I have become some elevated, enlightened version an archon, a demiurge, a demon of some sort playing a secret game, building something his past self a pawn to get him there. A deus ex machina pulling me there. I hate the idea. A crazy, intrusive thought. And yet, no crazier than anything else here.