The Darkness
A slender Cross over with a Twist
My name...My name is Alan wake and I am a writer, or I was... About a year ago I went on vacation with my wife Alice and while I was on Vacation I encountered a Dark presence that Resided in the lake around the Cabin we had been staying at. The darkness Took my Wife Hostage and forced me to write a story called Departure, a story that if it had been completed would have brought the dark Presence to life. I managed to stop the darkness but at a terrible cost. I freed my wife but in exchange for her I was Locked away in the void, trapped. During my time in captivity I began to notice the presence of another being who thrived in this world of darkness. It never strayed to close to my cabin Prison but when ever I saw it it always gave me intense headaches and blurry vision. In my attempts to write myself an escape from the dark place I failed to notice that the escape route I had been writing to finally get me out of this dark prison had taken a different turn, a much more twisted, terrifying turn filled with a creature that scared me worse than anything I had faced so far.
I awoke on the ground, spitting dirt from my mouth and groaning as my head pounded with a dull throb. I pushed myself up to a sitting position and my hand brushed across a flash light. I grasped it and the feeling of the little light calmed my nerves a bit. Just by having this light I was now armed against the forces of darkness, how ever with out a gun I found myself without anyway to finish off the creatures I was expecting to hunt me in the night. Little did I know that what I was facing in this Dark foreboding forest was nothing like the typical darkness I had learned to combat.
Suddenly a sheet of typewritten paper floated into my lap, it read "Find the eight pages." I didn't remember writing it, then again I dont remember most of what I wrote these days but it was definitely mine. With no other clues to go on I assumed it meant to find more of my manuscript pages and they would clue me in as to how I would escape this place. The Cabin was nothing compared to the malice this forest gave off and I almost couldn't believe that I found my self wishing I were back there.
I stood up finally, feeling a little shaky at first but I quickly found my strength and set off into the dark Forest. As thankful as I was for my light it wasn't penetrating through the darkness very well. But to my pleasure I found that I still had my odd ability to manipulate lights into focused beams and even recharge the batteries within them. I wasn't about to question how I was able to do that but I was glad I could because some how I doubted id be getting any more help.
I set off down the dirt path taking care to train my light back and forth as much as possible to give me the largest amount of vision I could. It wasn't till I was standing in front of a 30 foot concrete wall did I realize I had no way to escape this forest. The wall stretched for as far as I could see and without checking I knew it extended all the way around. I was like a mouse on the look out for the cat but completely unaware that the cat was already toying with me. I kicked the wall in frustration and made my way back to the main path and soon enough, I found a page nailed to a large twisted tree. It was just a simple note book drawing that read "Dont look or it takes you." The words on the page combined with the sloppy scrawl and my already jumpy nerves caused my heart to skip a beat and my headache to intensify slightly. Then I noticed the noise. At first I thought It was just my heart hammering in my ears but when I listened more carefully I noticed a sort of white static noise, similar to the kind a TV produces if its not hooked up to anything. Then out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something however as soon as I turned to get a better look at it it disappeared. Must have been my imagination. I set back down the path and as I walked the feeling of being watched never once left me. Something was stalking me but I couldn't get a good look at what ever it was. All I knew was that it was big, and dark.
I checked my watch, I had been walking around in this forest for nearly an hour now and I still hadn't found another page. I was beginning to wonder if their even was more pages until I spotted a medium sized three story house in the middle of a clearing. My first thought was why would there be a house out here in the first place, I quickly abandoned it however when I reminded myself that nothing makes sense when it comes to the dark. I quickly walked up to it and knocked on it, then felt foolish for knocking when I was probably the only person around anyway. I tried the knob but it wouldn't turn so I braced myself against the door and began to batter it down. After several impacts I managed to break it down, rubbing my now injured shoulder with my good arm and transferring my flashlight to my other hand. I moved my light around the entrance hall, nothing caught my eye other than the amount of dust in the air that I had kicked up from busting the door down. I made sure to give the area outside one last sweep with my light before propping the door back up against the wall, better to have it out of the way then in the middle of the floor tripping me up. The first room was a simple living room with a tackey floral pattern couch and fireplace with some photos on it. Apon close examination of the photos however I noticed that any time a child appeared in one their eyes would be dark holes and a faint silhouette of a figure would be standing behind them, it was like that in all 5 photographs. I shivered and moved on to the next room. The kitchen had nothing special in it, not even a knife and the refrigerator was completely empty, didnt matter anyhow, I never got hungry any more anyways. The rest of the rooms on the first floor were empty so I checked out the second. Except for the occasional blood stain and dark tyndrilly patches of something I couldn't identify the second floor was empty as well. Then, as I tried to climb the stairs to the third floor I heard the wood groan and then snapp faster than I could react and I fell hard enough to break through the weak flooring of the ground floor and ended up in the basement.
I lay there dazed and blinking the dust from my eyes. I could just barely see my flashlight through the thick dust cloud from where it had fallen. I sat myself up and cringed at my now sore back, thankful however that nothing was broken and that I had only escaped with minor bruising. I picked up my light that now had a cracked lense, the bulb was fine but the casing was damaged so I needed to be careful how I treated it if I wanted it to continue working. I looked around the basement, just some old washing machines and some empty boxes. Its as if anything I might be able to find remotely useful had already been taken out of the house because despite my best efforts to find anything I came up empty every time. I kicked the boxes away in annoyance and set about trying to climb my way out of the basement. At last I noticed a small window that I might be able to squeeze my way out of and I went to see If I could. It was a tight fit but nothing a little twisting couldn't fix, I had just freed my left arm and was working to bring in my entire body when I looked up and saw something I will never forget. It was a man..or at leas it was dressed like a man. It had no facial features and was completely bald and sported a black suit. Its arms and legs where way out of proportion and it felt as if the source of my headache was emanating from him. Just looking at him caused my eyes to blur and my ears to fill with static. I felt it move from behind me and struggled not to get out but to get back in to the basement so as to get away from it but it was no good. From my awkward laying position I was unable to to get back inside and I could feel its too long arms and its disproportionate hands descending upon me, so I did what I always do when I panicked. I shined my light at it. The effect was rather small but it was enough. I focused my tiny light into where its face should be and it shied away as if in pain, creatures of darkness hated the light and this one was no different. Suddenly the pressure in my skull lessened and I knew I had scared it off...for now. This tiny light wasn't nearly strong enough to destroy it and I wasn't even sure if it would hold the creature back a second time. I finally wriggled my self free from the small Window and dusted myself off for what seemed to be the hundredth time tonight. I looked up at the top floor window, I felt drawn to it and knew there was another page in there so I had to go back for it. And after some careful climbing and another near tumble back into the basement I managed to get into what I found to be an attics. This one read "Cant run." and I quietly agreed with the sheet, I stuffed it in my jacket pocket and made my way carefully out of the rickety old house to find another page.
It became apparent to me that just like the dark world I had been trapped in previously this world also had no day time, just perpetual night. I checked my watch again and it read 7 am. I've been up for nearly 15 hours straight then, wondering through these woods with no safe haven to stop and rest. My entire body screamed for rest but I knew if I stopped moving that slenderer bodied creature was sure to get me. The endless trees was as much a problem as he was, knowing he was out there stalking was one thing but the fact that this forest was so damn big was another. It was safe to say I was completely lost after a while and stopped for a scant second to rest against a tree. I was ready for a change in scenery and was more than willing to find another landmark or building of some kind. Id passed several statues and empty trailers since I found the page in the house but their was nothing at any of them. I felt a presence behind me as I rested on the tree and decided it was time to get going again. And then as if my prayers and nightmares had been thrown into a blender and come out as one horrifying mess my wants for a change in scenery had been answered. Before me was a massive hospital, I could tell from where I was standing that It was in rough shape and could even see some holes in the walls that I could use as an entry point. There had to be a page in here, why else would is be here in the middle of this damn forest? I climbed over some rubble and into the breech hoping to find some answers, if I was lucky maybe some of the medical files or some records were still intact and maybe they'd give me a clue as to what it was I was running from.
The Hospital was dark, then again everything was dark so this was nothing new. The hallways where barren and if I hadn't seen it from the outside I'd have never known this had once been a hosiptal. It was so devoid of furnishings such as even chairs and tables that I had a hard time not getting lost. Finally I made it to what seemed to be an office and inside was a rusty metal filling cabinet. I dug through it and found a few scraps of newspaper clippings and something called slender sickness, the primary symptoms were constant headaches and hallucinating and seeing a large slender man. The rational part of me ignored this since it couldn't have been a real sickness but since nothing was rational in the darkness I ignored my rational side and shoved the document in my pocket to examine later. I put the folders back where the belonged inside the filling cabinet and closed it before exiting the room. I still had no idea where I was going to find the next page, that is until an arrow pointed me the way. The arrow was large and yellow, I could tell right away it was made of the same special paint that old lady Weaver had used to indicate safe areas and weapon caches. I sighed in some relief and set down the hallway the arrow had been pointing down. Sure enough there was a page at the end of the hall surrounded in what I hoped to be red paint, even though part of me knew it wasnt. I ripped the page off the wall, this one reading "Always watches, no eyes." I stuffed it in my jacket with the other two and grabbed my forehead as my Headache intensified once more, the tempo of the mysterious music that seemed to exist somewhere between my mind and ears picked up in tempo and the hair on the back of my neck began to raise. I wasn't safe here so I turned to run, now that I had the page I had no more reason to be in this place any longer than was necessary however as I turned around I slammed right into the very thing I was trying to avoid, only this time it had a shroud around it, tentacles, and an all encompassing desire to kill me.
The dark aura surrounding it was so thick almost none of the creature was visable, I doubted my Puny light would have any effect now. Its tentacles began to whip around in a frenzy. I ducked under the first blow but the second one caught me off guard sending me flying back into the wall behind me and winding me in the process. I looked up at it with one eye, the other had a nasty cut from where I had been whipped and was bleeding down over it to much for me to open it. The creature itself didnt move at all except for the tendrils but some how it was getting closer, at first it thought it was slowly gliding maybe but then I noticed that every time I blinked the creature got a little bit closer. The pressure in my skull was so bad now I could barely keep from passing out let alone keep my eyes open. Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore and that the pressure would surely cause my head to explode it vanished. I opened my one good eye and saw that I was no longer inside the Hospital and was now laying just outside it. I sat up slowly as to not dizzy myself and noticed a pristine sheet of paper laying next to me, and laying next to it a heavy duty flashlight. I was confused, where did the light come from? It all became clear after I read the sheet. It read " You can do better than that Alan. Love, Thomas Zane." That explains it then, Zane must have saved me yet again from an untimely death and was even able to drop me a much more powerful light source than the little light I had started with. I flipped the paper over just be sure I hadn't missed anything and sure enough, I had. This side read "Collect more pages to buy some time, Ill try to figure out a way to get you out of there and will be dropping you some supplies from time to time, don't expect much though." It read. I silently thanked Zane who had became my guardian angel over the course of this nightmare. I stood up finding that some of my older Bruises had cleared up, just another Gift from Zane I guess. My eye must have been to much for him to patch up however because it was still busted and was beginning to swell shut. I flicked on the Metal Flashlight Reveling in how much powerful its beam was and began my search a new, for the next five pages.