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entropicquilibriumofchaos · 2 months

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Re-Write the Ending

Veikko Alén/Aleksi Kesӓ/Baba Jakala

All's fair in love and cult sacrifices.

*A re-telling of Yötön Yö*

Thank you to the lovely @fritzmetzger for creating and sharing the bisexual lighting Yötön Yö art piece that was the inspiration for this fic! Go check out his blog if you haven't already; his art is amazing.

Read it on ao3.

“You’re fired, Kesӓ.”

Aleksi blinked in surprise, trying to digest what the man in front of him was saying. “What?”

In all honesty, he couldn’t even remember how he had gotten to where he was. One moment he had been out, chasing a lead on one of his newest cases and the next he was here, getting fired for some reason? His face was screwed up in confusion as he stared at the man across the desk from him.

The man sighed, standing up and walking over to where the detective was sitting. He handed him a sealed letter. “You’re fired. Orders from the chief.”

Aleksi took the letter and stared at it for a second before replying. “Why?”

The other man leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. “You caused quite a stir on your last case. Uncovered some things that should’ve stayed in the dark; pissed off some people you should’ve sucked up to.”

The detective shook his head. “You can’t- you can’t just fire me because I pissed off some corrupt officials-”

“It’s not my decision. The order came from on high, there’s no use fighting it.” The man popped off of the desk and put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you should go home, Aleksi. Make it easier on all of us.”

Aleksi couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes from the letter of termination. Anger swelled in his chest as he stood. His teeth ground against one another as he clenched his jaw. The paper wrinkled in his hands.

“Maybe I will,” he said between clenched teeth.

Driving back into his hometown was surreal. The quaint main street was almost dead even with the biggest holiday of the summer on the horizon. Storefronts that had once been bustling with life were empty, their neon signs long burned out.

The street lights blinked red as he made his way through to the small cabin on the outside town. The cabin where he had spent so much of his childhood and his teen years.

Where he had loved; where he had lost.

The cabin was just as he remembered it. The paint was peeling slightly and the flowers in the garden beds were wilting, but everything else was the same. The porch swing swayed gently back and forth and the windows shown bright with warm light. There was a cat out on the green grass of the front lawn, lazily sprawled out with its belly in the air as if it had no worries in the world. The thing that caught his eye though, was something that definitely wasn’t there before.

A woman sat on the porch step, watching Aleksi with an intense gaze as he pulled into the driveway. The summer breeze made her dark brown hair blow gently to one side and her white dress fluttered with the wind. Aleksi felt his heart skip a beat seeing the pretty girl that he had known once upon a time, all grown up into a beautiful woman.

He stepped out of the car cautiously. She didn’t smile at him; instead she got up and made her way over to where he stood.

“Baba…” he whispered, taking her hand as she drew close to him. “You look- you look wonderful.”

His comment made her serious facade crack as a smile spread across her lips. “Shut up, Aleksi,” she chuckled, before wrapping her arms around him and enveloping him in a hug.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said softly, relaxing into her arms and cradling the back of her head in his hand.

Her voice was muffled against his shoulder when she replied. “We missed you too.”

A shiver ran, inexplicably, down his spine as her words reached his ears.

“We missed you.”

That night was the Midsommar’s Eve dance. Baba dragged Aleksi down to the town hall. He went willingly, following her like a lost puppy.

Once upon a time, he had been in love with Baba Jakala. When she chose Alén, Aleksi had left town, unable to live with the idea that she could never be his. But, now, thirteen years later, Veikko Alén was nowhere to be seen, and his feelings for the woman were being fanned into a flame once more.

They swayed together to the music, Ahti’s voice dancing around the town hall in a dreamlike melody. Aleksi couldn’t help but reminisce of the times he and Baba had been in the same place, dancing to the same music, but in an entirely different time. He took in every inch of her: her legs, her torso, her chest, her neck, her arms, her face. The flowers in her hair; the way the black dress she wore fell across her hips. Everything was the same as he remembered and at the same time so different. The carefree girl that he had left in the care of the writer was gone. Baba’s green eyes held secrets now. Aleksi was determined to unravel everything that she would let him.

“I missed you,” she said, looking into his eyes as they swayed. The context of her words wasn’t lost on Aleksi as she moved ever closer to him.

“You and Veikko were together,” he explained. He swallowed nervously, “So I left.”

It was the truth. They both knew it.

Finally, Baba confirmed what Aleksi had suspected since returning home. “He’s gone.” she said. Aleksi bristled slightly. “Has been for a long time now.”

The words came out of his mouth before he had the chance to think them over.

“This time when I go, come with me,” he responded, his voice breaking the tiniest bit. His heart jumped in his chest as she smiled at him. He used his hand on her back to bring her even closer. He wanted to kiss her right here, in front of the whole town.

A mischievous look came over her face. “But not before the morning,” she smirked.

Aleksi blinked, her forwardness stunning him slightly as she rested her forehead against his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a masked figure cloaked in black. The figure stared at him, its deer mask never shifting or breaking eye contact.

When Aleksi blinked, the figure was gone.

He thought back to Veikko. How could he just be gone? Aleksi could feel the pain in his chest; that tiny sliver of… something that he had repressed so long ago coming to surface as he thought about the writer. The thought of him disappearing had his heart beating faster than it should for the gentle sway that he and Baba had been caught up in.

He had loved Baba, yes. He still loved Baba if he was honest with himself.

But deep down, he had loved Veikko, too.

The writer had always been the leader of their group. The guiding hand. It was Veikko that Aleksi had gone to when things went wrong, Veikko who would embrace him and tell him it would be alright.

In the end, it was Veikko who had broken his heart when he had chosen Baba and not him.

Confused and slightly unnerved, Aleksi went to the one place in town where he knew he was always welcome.

Aleksi had known Ahti since the beginning. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time that the man hadn’t been in his life. He was a staple in town, seemingly everywhere all at once. Always a friendly face when you needed it the most. And Aleksi had needed it more than he’d like to admit.

The coffee cup in front of him steamed as the black coffee reflected the tiredness in Aleksi’s eyes. He took a slow drink, letting the liquid burn down his throat with a sigh.

“Why return when you got away once?” Ahti asked with arms crossed.

Aleksi shrugged as he placed his cup down. “I didn’t mean to,” he replied, “But now I find myself here. I must be cursed. I’ve been written into the story of a sadistic writer; I’m stuck in a loop.”

His words didn’t make complete sense, even to himself, as he spoke. But at the same time, they felt right coming out of his mouth. He was here because of Veikko, after all.

Veikko is what made him leave. How far off would it be to think that Veikko had brought him back?

Ahti sighed. “Earth is a cyclical song,” he drawled before changing the topic. “How’s it going at the Federal Bureau of Control?”

Aleksi held back a smile at the old man. His memory must have been getting away from him.

“You’ve got the wrong Bureau, I don’t work there,” he corrected, taking another sip of his coffee. “Besides, I was fired.” He tried his best not to let the bitterness in his voice leak through. A smirk crossed his lips as he finished, “You wouldn’t be in need of a janitor’s assistant?”

He thought of how different his life would be if he had chosen a different profession. Maybe he’d be far away with a family by now, having gotten over his first loves long ago.

But he became a detective, and that brought him right back to the beginning.

Ahti’s response was quick as he shifted in his seat, “No, the master of this farm vanished into the night years ago. Soon after you left.”

Aleksi’s eyebrows furrowed together as he recalled the conversation between him and Baba. She had said Veikko was gone, not dead, or missing, but gone.

“Now the signs are in the air again that I too will be out of work soon,” Ahti added, bringing Aleksi out of his thoughts. “That’s why I’m asking about the Bureau, maybe I can get a job there.”

He sipped his coffee through a sugar cube in the way that many of the older residents of the town tended to. It reminded Aleksi of simpler times. Of him and Baba and Veikko sitting on the porch of Baba’s family’s cottage, watching the old folks drink their coffee and argue about things that never ended up mattering. Of Veikko making up crazy stories for them to play along with on the shore of the lake. Of the three of them, just being kids together.

“Come,” Ahti announced, finishing his coffee and setting the saucer down. “The sauna is hot.”

The two men made their way outside and into the sauna, grabbing a few beers from the fridge one the way. The sauna was indeed hot, and Aleksi could feel the heat work into his muscles as Ahti threw a ladle of water onto the rocks.

He sighed and took a drink of the beer. The juxtaposition of the cold liquid and the hot, steamy air made him content. As they sat, he began to think once again about Veikko.

“Ahti,” he began, catching the older man’s attention, “What happened to Veikko anyway?”

He shook his head and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “They say that Alén reached too far into the depths of the night; couldn’t find his way back anymore.”

Both men took a drink of their beer.

“Be careful of Alén’s black widow,” Ahti warned.

Instinctively, Aleksi bristled with the need to defend Baba, but he kept his mouth shut.

“You had a crush on her, didn’t you?”

Aleksi chuckled. “I was scared of her.”

Ahti returned his smile. “Us boys used to be a bit hopeless with women,” he mused, before throwing another ladle of water onto the rocks.

Truer words had never been said.

Aleksi was never good at staying in one place for very long. He was prone to pace, to wander, when he had nothing better to do. After leaving Ahti, he decided that maybe a good wander was what he needed to clear his head.

He was deep in his thoughts when he heard voices. A familiar sounding voice that sent chills down Aleksi’s spine.

He looked up to see Ilmari Huotari posted up against the side of a shed with his foot up on a chopping block. He was wearing a leather jacket that Aleksi recognized as his brother, Jaakkopi’s. Oddly enough, as Aleksi searched the faces of the group standing with Ilmari, he didn’t see the other Huotari brother.

“I poked him with my knife: poke, poke, poke!” Ilmari laughed, the look in his eyes one that Aleksi knew from interrogating one too many psychopaths. “And he shat his pants.”

The group of men laughed, a couple of them passing around a flask of a liquor strong enough that Aleksi could smell it from where he stood.

“On all fours in the ditch, drunk out of his mind,” Ilmari continued with a sick smile on his face, “sobbing for mercy, ‘Mercy! Mercy, dear brother! Mercy, I’m dying!’”

Suddenly, Aleksi understood why Jaakkopi was nowhere to be seen.

The group of men burst out into more laughter as Ilmari shifted his position to take the flask. Aleksi approached the gang cautiously, the leaves under his feet crunching and giving away his position.

Ilmari turned to face him slowly, the smile melting off of his face as the former detective approached. Aleksi did his best not to bow under the intense gaze of the other man.

“Check this out…” Ilmari trailed off. He screwed the cap back onto the flask from where he had been uncapping it, dropping his arms to his side as he eyed-up Aleksi. “The return of the prodigal son. And with his tail between his legs.” He looked over to the rest of the guys by the shed with a smirk. A few of them laughed maliciously.

Aleksi fought back the urge to roll his eyes. He had always preferred Jaakkopi out of the two twin brothers.

Ilmari’s next words struck Aleksi’s core. “Did you come to beg for forgiveness?”

In an attempt to gain control of the situation, Aleksi spoke slowly and clearly. “The news of my return are premature,” he explained, “I just came to drop by. And now that I remember what goes on around here-” He paused to look at the dangerously rag-tag group of men. He smirked. “I won’t stay long.”

Against his better judgment, Aleksi decided to play into Ilmari’s psychopathy.

“Where’s your brother hiding?” he asked knowingly.

Ilmari smiled widely and let out a breath. Aleksi could smell the booze on it from five feet away. “I stabbed him to death,” he admitted with no remorse, as casually as one would talk about the weather.

Aleksi couldn’t hold the smirk on his face.

“His never-ending jabbering got on my nerves,” Ilmari said in a low, gravely voice. The air around them had shifted into something that made Aleksi’s fight-or-flight instincts flare up. “A sacrificial offering for the master. But my shit brother wasn’t even good enough for that.”

Ilmari approached Aleksi slowly, calculatingly. All playfulness had left him, leaving behind a murderous look in his eyes. The other men had stopped laughing as well, all waiting on edge for their leader’s signal to rip Aleksi to shreds. He stopped a few feet from Aleksi, raising the hand with the flask in it to point at the well-dressed man.

“You were the master’s chosen one,” he growled, baring his teeth. He reminded Aleksi of a guard dog that had been backed into a corner with nowhere else to go. Nothing else to lose.

Aleksi gritted his teeth together and swallowed hard.

“Never could figure out why,” Ilmari continued before taking a long drink from the flask. “I should kill you too for that.”

The sound of a knife being unsheathed drew Aleksi’s attention. He watched as Ilmari drew his weapon out from his pocket and the other men gathered theirs as well. Suddenly, Aleksi wished very much that he had just gone back to the cabin with Baba.

“The knives are out,” Ilmari announced, that damned smirk playing on his face once more, his blue eyes sparkling with murderous intent. “We’ll give you a cut throat shave, boy!”

As the gang of men began to surround Aleksi, he moved back slowly with raised hands. When it was clear that they were going to pursue him he turned and ran faster than he had ever run before. It had been years, but he had grown up here, he knew these forests. His work as a detective had kept him on his feet for the last thirteen years and adrenaline was pumping through his veins, causing his legs to carry him away from the men at a shocking speed. Maybe it was his training, or maybe it was the fact that all of the men following him were at least half drunk, but he managed to lose them.

Something was wrong here. Something was very, very wrong.

Nighttime fell onto the woods like a smothering blanket. When Aleksi finally stopped running, he found himself at the old well that he, Baba, and Veikko used to hang around. Baba was there, sitting on the side of the well and looking down into its depths.

“Baba!” he called, catching his breath. “Baba, we need to get out of here. Ilmari is-”

She cut him off by placing a finger to his lips. “It’s okay, Aleksi. Breathe.”

He did his best to do as she instructed, his face growing warm as she slid her hand down to his chest. Finally, once she determined that he had calmed down enough, she took her hand away.

“A toast,” she suggested, producing a bottle of clear liquor from behind her back.

Feeling slightly light-headed from the lack of oxygen, Aleksi smiled, sighing ever-so-slightly. “What are we drinking to?”

Baba smirked. “The nightless night.”

She placed the bottle into his hands and he took a quick swig from it, not forgetting the strength of the liquor distilled from the water of the lake. He capped the bottle and handed it back to Baba, expecting her to take a drink as well.

The wind whispered through the trees. Aleksi swore he heard a voice on the breeze: “you came back to us”.

Instead of taking a drink herself, she uncorked the bottle and tipped it into his mouth once more. He didn’t fight her. He drank what she poured down his throat. She watched him calculating eyes as his head began to swim. His eyes crossed involuntarily and he swayed on his feet.��

The world around Aleksi seemed to fall away as the liquor traveled into his bloodstream. Much faster than it should, at that. The woods spun around them and he felt as if his skin were melting off of his skeleton. He felt relief as Baba untied his tie and began to open his shirt. The cool night air felt like heaven against his flustered skin.

“This is the ritual to lead you on,” she whispered as he slowly blacked out.

The darkness was thick, like a syrup on the verge of crystallizing. It seemed impenetrable, even as bright flashes of light echoed from far away. Suddenly, the flashes got closer and closer until there was nothing but white light.

And then, Aleksi was in a darkened room. On the other side, in between two eye-like windows was a man, lit by a single, warm light.

He seemed to tower over Aleksi as he approached, his long, dark hair falling into his face as he looked down at the shorter man. It had been years since Aleksi had seen him, but he knew as soon as he first laid eyes on him that the man in front of him was Veikko Alén.

He held a lamp in one hand, holding it high over the detective’s head as it cast long shadows of the two of them onto the floor. Veikko studied Aleksi with curious eyes, as if he hadn’t expected to see him. Aleksi did the same, his eyes traveling over Veikko’s body, taking him in for the first time in so long.

Words caught in his throat as his eyes landed on the man’s chest, exposed in the slightest by his unbuttoned dress shirt. His face grew warm and he swore he saw Veikko’s lips turn into a smile. He was about to finally say something when he began to fall back, away from the writer and into the darkness once again.

Aleksi reached out for Veikko, who simply watched as the detective was swallowed by the void.

Aleksi came to with bile in his throat. He was shirtless and on all fours, crawling in the detritus of the forest floor. His head was pounding as his arms shook with the effort it took to hold his body up. Unable to hold back his sick any longer, he vomited onto the ground in front of him. As he looked into the vomit, a single, intact mushroom covered in sickly yellow stared back at him, taunting him.

What the fuck had Baba done to him?

He struggled to his feet and wiped his mouth. The taste of vomit had mixed with the liquor that Baba had forced down his throat, making him feel even sicker than before.

Half-naked, Aleksi stumbled forward, towards the abandoned well that sat mere feet away from him. If he could just sit down, gather his thoughts, maybe he could stop his head from spinning. But, as he approached the well, figures began to appear from the darkness of the forest.

Figures like the one from the dance. Cultists.

They all wore black robes tied with rope around their waist that made them blend into the darkness. Strange deer masks hid their faces, but they all donned necklaces that held two intertwined triangles made of gold. Cult symbols if Aleksi had ever seen them.

The cultists surround Aleksi, who immediately backed away from them, just to be met with more behind him. Two figures grabbed his arms; their grip was bruising.

They forced Aleksi down onto the scattered stone. He thrashed back and forth, trying his best to free himself from their grasps. He managed to get one hand free, reaching up to the sky.

‘Towards what?’ he asked himself. ‘God? There’s no God here.”

Slowly, one of the cult members knelt down next to him. The hood was thrown back, and the deer mask ripped off to reveal Ilmari Huotari. Aleksi didn’t have the energy to be shocked. For a moment, he thought the figure in front of him shifted, no longer Ilmari but Baba instead, unsheathing a large puukko. The figure flickered between the two cultists, Ilmari and Baba becoming one as the knife was raised above their head. It became fixed on Baba as she brought the knife down hard onto Aleksi’s chest.

Pain blossomed in his chest and blood spattered across everything in the proximity. The dark red humor, a stark contrast against Baba’s pale face, against Ilmari’s unkempt beard.

The knife kept coming down. The identity of the person wielding it never stayed the same between stabs, flashing between Baba, Ilmari, and even Veikko himself. Blood coated every face Aleksi saw, including his own as his chest was eviscerated.

Blood filled his mouth, pouring out as Aleksi’s head turned to the side. He no longer had the strength to fight against the cultists. His vision slowly darkened as he choked on his own blood. Words floated around in his head, the voices of Baba, Ilmari, and the other cultists slowly becoming one cacophony of sound that laid Aleksi to a painful sleep.

As he shut his eyes, a blinding light filled the forest. A spotlight of white focused on the well. Aleksi’s eyes were wrenched open by an unknown force as all attention turned to the decrepit stone pit.

Slowly, like some kind of angel.. or demon… a body began to rise out of the well. His arms were outspread as his head tilted back, relishing in the light that reflected off of his pale chest. His hair fell back, revealing Veikko’s face, his eyes closed in reverie as he floated out of the well and back down to the forest floor.

Aleksi couldn’t tear his eyes away as he watched Baba approach Veikko. He spit up more blood, unaware of how he was still conscious with the amount of blood that he had lost and was still losing every moment that his heart continued to beat.

Baba’s voice came as a whisper. “At last.”

Aleksi couldn’t help the groan that left his mouth. The feeling of betrayal was just as strong as the pain that surged through his chest with every breath he took.

“Thank you, my love,” Veikko responded in the same baritone timbre that Aleksi remembered from their youth. The voice he had fallen for. The voice that would haunt him even in death.

Suddenly, the pain in Aleksi’s chest was gone. The world had turned to darkness once more.

He opened his eyes to find himself back in the room where he had seen Veikko the first time, but this time he was alone. He was fully clothed, his suit pristine without a single drop of blood to be found.

“It’s not a loop,” he realized. “It’s a-”

A bright light cut him off. Where the darkness had devoured him, the light enveloped him, filling every crack in his lips, every wrinkle in his skin. It seeped into his very being until there was nothing left but light.

Veikko cradled Aleksi’s body to his chest, his hand placed over the various stab wounds. Baba knelt next to him, brushing the detective’s hair out of his face, whispering her apologies through tears.

“Come back to us, Kesӓ,” Veikko whispered, pressing his hand further into Aleksi’s chest. “Come back.”

The larger man bent down, bringing his lips to Aleksi’s gingerly. Blood seeped between the two of them, making Veikko shudder, but not deterring him in the slightest. He could feel Baba’s hand thread into his hair reassuringly.

A gasp of air caused Veikko to retreat. Aleksi’s icy-blue eyes shot open, filled with fear, immediately locking with Veikko’s before he was crushed into his chest. The writer held him tight, arms wrapped around his body and not letting go. Another pair of arms held him as Baba embraced them both.

“I’m so sorry, Aleksi,” Baba whispered into his hair, “It was the only way to get both of you back.”

Veikko loosened his grip on Aleksi slightly, and Baba took the opportunity to slide her hand between the two and grasp Aleksi’s face gently. She wiped the blood from his lips before guiding his face to hers, kissing him passionately. They moved together in time with Veikko holding both of them close to his chest. He wasn’t going to let go anytime soon.

Aleksi might not remember every loop they had been through, but something about being held by the two people that he loved from the beginning was enough to placate him for now.

#no aleksi kesas were hurt (permanently) during the making of this fic #Veikko Alén/Aleksi Kesӓ/Baba Jakala #Veikko Alén/Aleksi Kesӓ #Aleksi Kesӓ/Baba Jakala #Veikko Alén/Baba Jakala #Yötön Yö #baba jakala #Veikko Alén #Aleksi Kesӓ #thomas seine #alan wake 2 #ahti #ahti the janitor #angst with a happy ending #tw blood #canon typical violence #cult of the tree #cult of the word #Veikko and Thomas are the same person? Maybe? idk i don't even understand it

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the-hidden-writer · 2 months

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A Piece of True Fiction: Prologue

An Alan Wake 2 fic. Spoilers for Alan Wake 2!

Summary: Aleksi Kesä manages to slip out of the spiral and film he was trapped in.

Saga Anderson, caught in the middle of Wake's horror story, finds a man that looks identical to her partner in the middle of the woods. He's lost, confused, and only seems to speak Finnish. Saga has to try and uncover the truth as well as trying to save her family. Where did he come from? How did he get here?

And where's her Casey?

Chapter Summary: Aleksi Kesä escapes. Warnings: heavy mentions of drowning, implied alcohol consumption, implied suicide idealisation Words: 884 AO3 Link: [Here!] [Next Part]

A Piece of True Fiction

Prologue: Pako

A toast, she’d said, to the nightless night.

He is unable to tell whether the shiver that runs through him is because of the cold or because of her words.

It feels as though her gaze is clawing into him. He’d longed for her attention once upon a time, and now, years later, he’s receiving it in bounds. Except it doesn’t feel like she’s just looking at him. It’s as if he is the only thing that matters to her, that has ever mattered to her, eyes not once leaving his being. It’s almost too much. He almost feels too perceived.

He takes a swig from the bottle she’d offered him.

It’s strong, familiarly strong. It burns his throat as it travels down and down and he can follow it as it sinks into his stomach. The substance is unlike anything he’s ever drunk before. Foreign. Strong. Too strong, even for him.

A dark cloud fills his brain and his head starts to throb. She says something in a whisper but his thoughts are already too foggy to comprehend them.

He doesn’t realize that she’s taken the bottle of liquid from him until she starts to pour it down his throat, a hand on his back holding him in place. Distantly, he tries to pry the bottle away, it doesn’t taste good, it never has, but by the time he manages it he has already swallowed most of its contents.

His already hazy thoughts become utterly incomprehensible as the dark water seeps into his system, into his veins. A red haze obscures his vision. He’s dimly aware that she’s undressing him, but in this moment he is powerless to stop her. It’s taking everything in him to just stay upright, let alone begin to understand what’s happening.

Then the cloud in his mind explodes.

Hundreds of doors open at once and waves come crashing into his brain, flooding it with a darkness that is all too familiar. As he drowns, he remembers. He remembers too late that this has happened before. He remembers too late that it will happen again. He remembers too late what will happen next.

He starts to hyperventilate. He wants to scream, tries to scream, but isn’t allowed to. Each time he tries he is cut away. He starts to cry. It cuts away, he never cried. He tries to curse the writer for the loop he is suddenly aware of, but he isn’t even given the chance. He remembers that this is the moment he remembers. He remembers that it’s all part of the cycle. He remembers remembering hundreds of times before.

He remembers drowning in darkness. He remembers drowning in blood. He remembers drowning in words.

And yet, he has never once drowned in… water?

The thought pierces into the center of the fog, cutting through the dense bewilderment. It feels new, lacking the déjà vu he can’t remember not experiencing. The shock is enough to pull him from the depths. It’s one clear thought and it’s his lifeline.

To drown in water.

They are next to a well.

He can’t understand his surroundings through the combination of his blurred vision and the red haze, and the outline of trees enclosing them seem to blend together like the bars of a cage, but he can still see the well as distinctly as ever. It’s the only thing he can see with any sort of lucidity, sitting there as an invitation. For the first time, the thought of drowning sounds heavenly to him.

He stumbles toward it, struggling to keep his balance. He might be smiling. He can’t tell anymore.

Something catches his arm and tries to pull him back. He doesn’t dare turn around. He can’t follow what she’s saying, but he can tell she’s hurt. Confused. Angry.

She starts to pull more forcefully, but he is filled with a determination like never before. He wants this. He has never wanted anything more. Anything but that same fate, he thinks, stepping over the mossy ground that he is certain has soaked in his blood by now. He uses all the strength he can muster to push forward, escaping her grasp. He doesn’t want to hurt her but she will forgive him once the water settles. He will be back before morning.

A scream fills his ears, except that’s also new. It isn’t his. It sounds like hers. Something grabs his ankle. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, he shouldn’t leave her.

But he’s so close.

He looks into the well, catches a glimpse of the smallest shimmer of water far below, and that’s all he needs to see. He leans forward until he truly loses his balance and falls headfirst.

Down and down and down and it takes so much longer than he expected as he falls. He closes his eyes as he slips between scenes, between lines, between reels, between words, toward waves.

Eventually, nearing the bottom of the well, his eyes fly open as a scream echoes around him. Not his, not hers, but still familiar. Angry. Feral. Desperate. It tries to call his name in an attempt to hook and reel him back into the story.

“Aleks-”

The writer is too late as, at last, Aleksi Kesä breaks the surface and drowns in relief.

Thanks for reading!

#alan wake 2 #alan wake #alan wake 2 spoilers #yötön yö #aleksi kesä #alex casey #baba jakala #thomas seine #thomas zane #drowning #a piece of true fiction

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