Manuscript Pages in Alan's inventory
Throughout Alan Wake and Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Alan comes across manuscript pages, written by him in the Dark Place, outlining his life and events that will unfold in the real world. They expand upon characters we don't really see and give a deeper understanding of what is going on outside Alan's journey throughout the games.
Alan Wake
Alice's Fear of the Dark
On more than one occasion, Alice tried to explain to me how it felt to be afraid of the dark. To her, darkness wasn't simply the absence of light, but something more tangible than that. It was something you could touch and feel.
Worse than that, it was something with a mind of its own, something malicious and malign. For her, things changed when they were wrapped in the darkness, they turned into something else, something foreign, and nothing was safe or innocent anymore.
I'd never really understood what she meant, until now.
Wake and the Dark Presence in the Lodge
I slammed the door shut right in his smug face. He pleaded for me to open the door. True to form, the asshole actually thought I would obey.
I had no sympathy left. No guilt, either, not for him. I took a moment to savor the scream. I bet I had a smile on my face.
It was all that I had time for.
The Dark Presence was inside the lodge with me.
Wake Touched by the Dark Presence
Some of the Taken retained echoes of their former selves, but these were just the nerve twitches of a dead thing. Nothing remained but a shell, covered and filled with darkness.
In most cases these puppets were enough for the purpose of the Dark Presence. But for anything more elaborate, as with the writer, it was different. It needed his mind. And so rather than taking him over completely, it merely touched him.
Alice Trapped in the Dark
Alice had screamed until she had no voice left to scream. Around her, the darkness was alive. It was cold and wet and malevolent and without end. She was a prisoner, trapped in the dark place.
The terror would have burned her mind out, but one thing made her hang on: she could sense Alan in the dark. She could hear him. She could see the words he was writing as flickering shadows.
He sensed her, too. He was trying to work his way to her.
Thomas Zane's Last Dive
Zane cut its heart out, but it didn't die. The thing that wore Barbara's face kept crooning sweet nothings, sugar laced with poison.
He put on the suit, untied the monster from the chair. The thing in his arms thrashed weakly, but he held fast. He stepped outside, off the pier, and into the dark water, a sinking pinprick of light, descending toward a bottom that never came.
Zane's Poem
I'd first heard the poem in a dream, recited by a strange UFO-like light. I'd read it again in the cabin, in a book by Thomas Zane:
For he did not know
That beyond the lake
He called home
Lies a deeper, darker
Ocean green
Where waves are
Both wilder
And more serene
To its ports I've been
To its ports I've been.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
The Genesis of Mr. Scratch
I've seen the enemy, and it's me. I've faced dark horrors before, things that live in the unimaginble pressures of the world beyond our own. Sometimes they masquerade as humans.
That's what ultimately lurks inside Mr. Scratch. He's every mean-spirited tabloid story about me, an evil caricature, a creature formed in that vague territory of misconception, half-truths and the dark imagination of people who "heard a story about me". An urban legend made flesh. A serial killer.
My dark half, brought to life by the power of Cauldron Lake.
Fighting the Taken
I've carried a flashlight and gun for so long that I feel naked without either. It's all too often that I need them.
The darkness protects the Taken. Shadows crawl over their forms like living things, protecting them from harm. Blows that would injure or kill an human outright mean nothing to them as long as the darkness persists. But light makes them vulnerable. Light burns the shadows away. The darkness that drives them is still in them, but now they're vulnerable.
Flashlight and gun. Sometimes, it feels they're all I have left.
Alice
Alice. My wife. The best thing that ever happened to me. She smiles, and the darkness lifts. For her, I have tried things I otherwise never would. I've never really minded if it's made me feel like a fool.
She's a photographer, and the world she sees through her lenses is unique and beautiful. She has the vision. She sees things others don't and knows how to make them visible to everybody.
She did it with me, too; she teased out things I was only vaguely aware of. She always saw me in the best possible light.
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 reavealed the room behind him, my throat went dry. There was nothing I could do but watch.
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.
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.
Alan Wake
Alice's Fear of the Dark
On more than one occasion, Alice tried to explain to me how it felt to be afraid of the dark. To her, darkness wasn't simply the absence of light, but something more tangible than that. It was something you could touch and feel.
Worse than that, it was something with a mind of its own, something malicious and malign. For her, things changed when they were wrapped in the darkness, they turned into something else, something foreign, and nothing was safe or innocent anymore.
I'd never really understood what she meant, until now.
Wake and the Dark Presence in the Lodge
I slammed the door shut right in his smug face. He pleaded for me to open the door. True to form, the asshole actually thought I would obey.
I had no sympathy left. No guilt, either, not for him. I took a moment to savor the scream. I bet I had a smile on my face.
It was all that I had time for.
The Dark Presence was inside the lodge with me.
Wake Touched by the Dark Presence
Some of the Taken retained echoes of their former selves, but these were just the nerve twitches of a dead thing. Nothing remained but a shell, covered and filled with darkness.
In most cases these puppets were enough for the purpose of the Dark Presence. But for anything more elaborate, as with the writer, it was different. It needed his mind. And so rather than taking him over completely, it merely touched him.
Alice Trapped in the Dark
Alice had screamed until she had no voice left to scream. Around her, the darkness was alive. It was cold and wet and malevolent and without end. She was a prisoner, trapped in the dark place.
The terror would have burned her mind out, but one thing made her hang on: she could sense Alan in the dark. She could hear him. She could see the words he was writing as flickering shadows.
He sensed her, too. He was trying to work his way to her.
Thomas Zane's Last Dive
Zane cut its heart out, but it didn't die. The thing that wore Barbara's face kept crooning sweet nothings, sugar laced with poison.
He put on the suit, untied the monster from the chair. The thing in his arms thrashed weakly, but he held fast. He stepped outside, off the pier, and into the dark water, a sinking pinprick of light, descending toward a bottom that never came.
Zane's Poem
I'd first heard the poem in a dream, recited by a strange UFO-like light. I'd read it again in the cabin, in a book by Thomas Zane:
For he did not know
That beyond the lake
He called home
Lies a deeper, darker
Ocean green
Where waves are
Both wilder
And more serene
To its ports I've been
To its ports I've been.
Alan Wake's American Nightmare
The Genesis of Mr. Scratch
I've seen the enemy, and it's me. I've faced dark horrors before, things that live in the unimaginble pressures of the world beyond our own. Sometimes they masquerade as humans.
That's what ultimately lurks inside Mr. Scratch. He's every mean-spirited tabloid story about me, an evil caricature, a creature formed in that vague territory of misconception, half-truths and the dark imagination of people who "heard a story about me". An urban legend made flesh. A serial killer.
My dark half, brought to life by the power of Cauldron Lake.
Fighting the Taken
I've carried a flashlight and gun for so long that I feel naked without either. It's all too often that I need them.
The darkness protects the Taken. Shadows crawl over their forms like living things, protecting them from harm. Blows that would injure or kill an human outright mean nothing to them as long as the darkness persists. But light makes them vulnerable. Light burns the shadows away. The darkness that drives them is still in them, but now they're vulnerable.
Flashlight and gun. Sometimes, it feels they're all I have left.
Alice
Alice. My wife. The best thing that ever happened to me. She smiles, and the darkness lifts. For her, I have tried things I otherwise never would. I've never really minded if it's made me feel like a fool.
She's a photographer, and the world she sees through her lenses is unique and beautiful. She has the vision. She sees things others don't and knows how to make them visible to everybody.
She did it with me, too; she teased out things I was only vaguely aware of. She always saw me in the best possible light.
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 reavealed the room behind him, my throat went dry. There was nothing I could do but watch.
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.
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.