oceanview || ❝ hold hands with my demons and creatures of night. ❞

[outlierdirector]

OCEANVIEW I

blinded by reflections.

Is there anybody out there?
Someone who can hear me and drink from the light
To see things from the same side
Is there anybody out there? CODE BY TESSISAMESS

Comments

[crazyisinevitable]

[ Alan is still standing there with his hand raised, but he's turned to look sidelong at the waitress. Come on... What was it that Barry called him? Good old Barry and his Christmas lights. Come on, Al. You can do this. He used to be able to schmooze and bluff his way through things. He could do it again with this waitress. But as it turns out, Steve is good at schmoozing too, and he gets to it before Alan can so much as open his mouth. Just as well, really, given he still doesn't quite know how grounded in reality he is at the moment.

Something has shifted inside him, however, and he feels as though maybe some of the swirling darkness leftover from the Dark Place has faded. Maybe it's finally letting him go. Knowing that Steve has the waitress situation in hand (man, he really wishes he had money on him right now, cause he'd love to buy the guy the biggest stack of pancakes on the menu), he turns his focus back to Jesse.

The manuscript jogged his memory, in a way, and now he remembers that he'd written about her before, and more than once. Maybe the manuscripts were never completed, destined only to be written and revised until he was satisfied. But each time, there was a connection. Maybe he doesn't want to feel it. Alice is still out there, after all. He hasn't always been the most stand-up guy, and yet he knows that it would feel wrong to him to develop a connection with someone else when he's still married to his wife. But even so, he can't pretend there isn't a connection.

Still, even with the jolt to his memory from the manuscript, something still doesn't feel right. But it's hard to fix something when you don't even know what needs to be fixed. He could spend hours racking his brains trying to bring to mind whatever it is, or he could just wait and let it happen on its own. If it ever does.

His gaze is still on her even as he navigates his thoughts and tries to find some sense in them. Somehow, he can tell he's a little bit more lucid than he was previously, and so he intends to run with that. His eyes snap to hers when she places her hand upon his chest, and they widen when she pushes him against the wall. He opens his mouth to protest, but then he feels the resonance from her and Polaris, but- there's something else there too. ]

What are- What are you doing? [ There's a strange echo present, almost like a callback from another time, but he hasn't a clue what that means. Is it related to whatever happened in the bathroom? Why did she lock herself in there? ] Jesse.

[ Director. Faden. Proper titles that he should probably use, but he isn't because somehow, the name just slipped out like he'd used it before. But when? Where?

Alan. Wake up. His expression shifts into one of confusion, because he thought he was awake. Confused and uncertain as hell, but awake. ]

I'm trying to. [ Trying to navigate the darkness that still lingers that causes him to see things that aren't there, things that happened years ago now. ] I want to wake up.

[outlierdirector]

[ The only manuscript she's aware of that featured her was the one involving the Investigations Sector. The one that he sent to her over the Hotline, a drowning desperate man about to do something so, so reckless. Something that would have consequences that she would have to deal with. She would have rather dealt with it four years ago, but, their AWE detection said it was wasn't active until 2023.

« I've waited to come here. I waited until the time and date YOU sent to us. Now, I'm here, and I don't understand anything. You called to me, to US. Now it's all so, so screwed up. What went wrong? Did I do it? What was I supposed to do? »

『 It was powerful but it was coming from far away. And made weak because of the distance... Faden sensed a drowning man. A man desperate to escape. 』

She can hear the echo of that Hotline call in her mind crystal clear, as if she had just gotten it again. Was he rebroadcasting it? What went wrong?

『 Wake needed a hero. 』

« How can I help him?! Help all of us. We're stuck here until... until what? Forever? When does this AWE begin and when does it END? »

Jesse pushes against his chest again to ground him. Focus him. Make him listen to her. Polaris and she aren't invasive like the Hiss. It's a quite frequency that builds, and builds, and stretches out, and offers to help. A guiding star.

Jesse.

Had he called her by her first name before? Besides now, when they met this time. Face to face, not over the Hotline. ]

Alan, please--[ her voice wavers again as the fear is truly evident now. She's not afraid of him but for him; for all of them here in this hellhole of a altered world event, ]--you have to listen to me. You have to wake up.

I can't...

[ « I'm going to fail him just like I failed Dylan. Aren't I? »

A pressure comes from her hand as if Polaris is adding vibrations to every punctured word. A vibration that maybe, just maybe, can get through to him. Wherever he is, wherever he's drowning. A lake, behind that goddamn door in the Motel, in his own head. ]

I can't save you. Not if you don't wake up. So, please. Alan. Wake. Up.

[crazyisinevitable]

[ Wake up, Alan. Alan, wake up. It's happening again. You have to stop it. He feels himself start to spiral out again as doubt and not knowing what the hell he's supposed to do claws at his mind. ]

It's happening again. Bright Falls, it's happening again. [ He hears a familiar echo of ringing inside his head: the ringing of a telephone. Calling the Director. Calling for a hero. Was he rebroadcasting?

...I need help.

It isn't the first time he's expressed the idea of needing someone to help him, but he doesn't remember if he's ever expressed it so directly, even in his own mind. She presses on his chest again and although it doesn't feel like a hard push the way a strong punch would, he gasps.

Alan, please... ]

I can't... [ What good is waking up going to do, when he can't do anything? ] What good is it if I write the things I see? It doesn't change anything. It never changes anything! [ He can't write themselves out of this, not when he barely knows what this entails.

Wake up! If he thought it would help, he'd punch himself in the side of the head in an effort to snap himself out of whatever this is. Jesse's voice sounds desperate, afraid, and he wants to help make her not afraid. It's his fault she's afraid; he wrote about her and put her in the crosshairs and hurt her somehow. Maybe not directly with his own hands, but he wrote it, so it might as well be. It's still a result of what he's written. He wants to help her, but how can he, when he's afraid too?

Alan. Wake. Up. He suddenly goes rigid, head snapping up from where it was threatening to fall and hang low. Eyes wide and more than a little wild, he stares at Jesse as though he's never seen her before. ]

[outlierdirector]

It's an active AWE. It's going to happen again and again as long as the threshold is open to that dimension!

[ She knows he may not understand the technical terms, but she hopes that he understands what she's saying. Bright Falls will happen again and again because that's the nature of it. But, they can stop it every time. He just needs to work with her! ]

It can change! You stopped it the last time it happened. You wrote the ending, didn't you?!

[ There is a pause and he suddenly snaps to attention. She thinks maybe she has finally gotten through to him after loop after loop. Maybe they finally did it this time. Except, it isn't really Alan Wake looking back at her then. It's not the double either. She's not sure who it is that is staring at her, but it's clear they have no idea who she is. ]

...Alan?

"You know, I thought I might be tired of this game by now. But, it's just so much fun!"

[ The voice sets a chill down her spine. In an instant, Jesse spins on the balls of her feet. Her hands point up with the Service Weapon materializing between them. She fires, and the Darkness ripples.

A familiar face with slicked back hair, trimmed beard, and slick suit steps out of the shadows. He brushes off the shoulder where the bullet would have hit. ]

"And, let me tell you why it's so fun, Miss Director. Because I get to find new and inventive ways EVERY time! Oh, MAN." Mr. Scratch slides his hands into his pocket and glances at Alan, clicking his teeth. "I'd uh, ring and tell him the good news, but you know the old saying. Lights are on and nobody is home! So, let's just cut to the chase and let the poor rat run in another circle."

DIRECTOR!

[ Jesse feels a familiar pressure against her back. She looks behind her, seeing Agent Steve Sevestapol behind her back-to-back. He nods, cycling the gun back in his hands. She glances to the side again.

Alan's gone.

Darkness swirls around them and somewhere in the distance she hears Agent Saga Anderson and Agent Alex Casey shouting for her. It's happening again. They're going to loop back. Its a different start this time, and Polaris doesn't even need to tell her. She just knows.

The FBI Agents finally join with the members of the FBC, making an odd square with their backs together. The laughter carries in the air and they all know this stand will be their last. ]