Title: Departed
Summary: "There was something about the package waiting on Artie's desk when Leena arrived that morning, that set her teeth on edge."
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters of 'Warehouse 13' or 'Alan Wake'. The rights belong to Syfy & Remedy Entertainment. I do not use them for any means of fiscal gain.
There was something about the package waiting on Artie's desk when Leena arrived that morning, that set her teeth on edge. It looked relatively normal. A brown cardboard box tied together with string. But it just felt wrong.
There was no postage label, or really any discerning features whatsoever, except for the words 'WAREHOUSE 13' printed across the top in thick, black letters, as if written by a typewriter. For a second, she almost swore she could almost hear a faint tapping noise in the back of her mind.
Pulling on a pair of gloves that had been discarded on the desk, she cut the strings holding the box closed and carefully opened it.
Inside was a stack of paper, on the topmost of which was written, in the same font as the box, 'DEPARTURE by Alan Wake'. It seemed so ordinary. Just a simple manuscript, that for some reason, someone, somewhere had decided needed to be confined to America's attic.
Setting the mainframe to search for any references to this Alan Wake. She began to flick through some of the pages. She lost herself in the words on the paper; Bright Falls and the dark presence inhabiting it. So engrossed was she that she didn't notice the discarded title page that happened to brush the exposed skin of her arm.
She jumped as images, emotions and sensations flooded her mind. Frustration; deep paralysing terror; yawning, empty darkness that threatened to swallow her whole. She staggered back, clutching at the desk trying to regain her balance; trying desperately to shake off the last remnants of the cloying darkness that clung to her mind.
A window appeared on the computer monitor, announcing the results of her earlier search. There were a surprising number of hits; book reviews, announcements of television appearances, newspaper articles reporting his altercation with a member of the press and debating on his current mental state as a result, posts by a user listed as 'Rosey_Gold' on various forums. Scrolling through the rest of results of varying degrees of relevance, she instead changed the search parameters for any official records that could give her more information on why his manuscript of what was reputed to be his latest novel had appeared in the Warehouse.
Recently there had been a charge on the account of an Alice Wake; reservations for a 'Stuckey's Cabins' in a town called Bright Falls. No other recent transactions. Nothing for Alan either; there was a vague police report concerning a possible DUI filed a week ago but that was it. It was like he'd dropped off the face of the Earth.
Her eyes flicked to the innocuous pile of paper again. Tentatively she reached out to it again, bracing herself for the same images that had assaulted her before.
Nothing happened.
She released a breath. She continued to skim through the pages; Wake had written himself in as the protagonist of his own novel and yet his protagonist-self was seemingly none the wiser to why events were unfolding around him.
Something about this was incredibly wrong. She could feel a strange oppressive presence begin to press at the back of her mind.
Despite her growing apprehension, she persevered. She followed Alan as he tried to find his missing wife; his pursuit of her supposed kidnapper; his altercations with the FBI Agent, Nightingale; and the psychiatrist Hartman; all the way beset by bizarre eldritch forces.
The lights briefly flickered, a low chill creeping into the room. The pressure on her mind was building. She kept going.
Discovering the Lady of the Light; the revelation of what had caused his wife's disappearance; being manipulated by the Dark Presence into trying to engineer its freedom; using the spirit of Thomas Zane, already snared by the darkness during its previous escape attempt, to free himself; the journey to the Well-Lit Room; discovering the sole remaining pages of Zane's manuscripts and the Clicker; venturing into the Dark Place and finally banishing the abomination now inhabiting the body of the woman once known as Barbara Jagger.
In her mind's eye she could almost see the murky depths of the Dark Place, everything shifting and mutable. A pale and mottled face obscured by a black funeral veil superimposed over everything. And right in the centre, the house. The only 'real' thing in this world of half-formed ideas, conceptions of thought; the elsewheres and neverweres.
There was light shining from the highest window, trying in vain to hold back the dark. The writer struggling desperately to leash the forces that he had set loose.
There was a whisper against her mind. She needed to help him. Her energy lent to his. Her words with his:
A-l-a-n-f-e-l-t-a-p-r-e-s-c-e-n-c-e-a-l-o-n-g-s-i-d-e-h-i-m-.-S-o-m-e-o-n-e-s-o-f-a-r-a-w-a-y-.
With a gasp she dropped the pen that she had unknowingly picked up. The words she had written blurred and twisted until they were absorbed by the manuscript, becoming one with the words already at home there. Horror gripped her. This was dangerous, if this manuscript was ever tampered with then the darkness contained within could be released. She dreaded to think what would happen if this ever came into contact with Edgar Allen Poe's pen. There was only one place this could go; the Dark Vault.
Hurriedly, she collected up all the pages she had left lying loose as she read and assembled them back into a pile. Pulling a roll of purple string from a drawer by her side, she cut two lengths, and quickly tied them round the manuscript. The string was infused with neutraliser, it wasn't strong enough to contain the artifact but it would keep it quiet until she could get it safely contained in the Dark Vault.
Grabbing a bag from the back of Artie's chair, she shoved the manuscript inside and ran down into the Warehouse proper.