This chapter has been edited due to content. If you want to see the unedited version GO HERE.
ALEX CASEY
I couldn’t stop screaming. Any semblance of control had withered away into nothing once I saw myself being murdered on screen. It had terrified me enough when I saw myself in a movie I hadn’t remembered filming, but seeing myself being murdered brought me to a new level of despair.
Over what felt like years, I had been dealing with the Cult of the Word. The murderous group had set their sights on me because I shared the same name as the character from Alan Wake’s books. They wanted to bring the writer back and so had decided to torment me.
I stared even harder at the screen to try and see any difference between myself and the actor. It couldn’t be me. Could it? He moved and acted like I did. The only major difference was that he sounded like that actor Sam Lake. People would shove interviews with him in my face and I hadn’t been able to help memorizing that voice.
The Cult of the Word had to have managed to film this. They had somehow been able to both manipulate me into acting in this horror film and managed to make me forget the entire incident. Had it been this year that they had managed this? Had it been even earlier? Nightless Night was supposed to be a rare lost film but that couldn’t be if I had acted in it recently.
****! They must have drugged me! When could they have gotten to me? I went out drinking regularly but there hadn’t been many times when I had gotten so drunk I forgot the night. Even rarer had been the times when I had someone to drink with. None of those times had I forgotten the entire night.
My ******* ex-wife would love to see my corpse plastered on the big screen. Only problem was that she couldn’t have been a part of this. She would have mocked me and spilled the cult’s secret. The Cult of the Word would not have trusted her.
My screams stopped as I turned with my gun raised. I didn’t know why I had stopped shaking as it had been pure instinct. The sort of instincts that kicked into high gear even when you were too afraid to think.
It took too much effort not to blink at the man in front of me. It had taken me a moment to figure out if this creature was red or if that was the blood that covered every inch of him but his eyes. A few of his scales had less blood than others and I could clearly see a black underneath.
The lizard had a crest on top of his head that appeared, at first, to be a blood red color. But that could merely be because his crest was also covered in blood.
In the very back of my mind I felt it important to take a mental note that half of his ring finger was missing. Why was that important? Shouldn’t I just discard a random observation? No. My instincts had told me that it was important so I made sure not to forget it. I wanted to let my eyes wander down his body but I stopped myself. Where had that idea come from? Why did I suddenly feel an overwhelming calmness around him? Why did I trust him?
I lowered my gun.
“That man isn’t you.” The lizard said and pointed a finger at me being murdered on screen.
“********.” I scoffed. “Two people don’t look that similar unless they’re twins. And I’m an only child.”
“So you’re not an FBI agent?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s unlikely an FBI agent would spend his time dealing with things usually left to bards.”
“I was obviously drugged.”
The words sounded hollow to me and with the look the creature gave me I could tell he didn’t believe me. It was as if his eyes both tore down every lie I told about myself and didn’t judge me. It was an unnerving thing to be looked at by someone who could easily destroy you but decided not to.
“Who is he, then?” I asked and holstered my gun.
“His name is Aleksi Kesa.” The lizard explained. “He is an echo of you.”
“An echo?”
“A version of you that lives in a different reality. We all have echoes as there is an endless number of realities. Aleksi’s reality only lasts for sixteen minutes.”
I resisted the urge to shiver at the thought. He lived his brief life only to die. He knew only pain and suffering. Even I found brief moments of what could barely be called happiness. Aleksi didn’t even have that.
I wanted to deny what the lizard was saying as crazy, but the past few months had been nothing but pure insanity. I couldn’t escape the fact that he was too strange to be from here…right?
I had paid the Federal Bureau of Control a visit awhile back. When the Cult of the Word got me involved in their ********, I had gone to the FBC to see what they had on Alan Wake. They investigated the things that no sane person would pay attention to. Their headquarters couldn’t even be found unless you were actively looking for it. So if I wanted to get to the bottom of the Cult of the Word I figured the FBC had needed to be paid a visit from me.
The FBC wouldn’t have given me everything they had on Wake and could have gotten suspicious to the point they felt the need to have someone tail me. You didn’t run a secret organization on the belief that most people were good at heart.
While this lizard didn’t appear to be from here, that could have been because he had been in an accident.
“I don’t need the FBC’s help.” I snapped. “If you wanted my cooperation, you shouldn’t have hid until now.”
“What?” The lizard asked and made a sound like he had been punched. “I’m not with the FBC. I’m not even from this reality.”
Under any other circumstance I would have laughed. But on screen was Aleksi Kesa and in front of me was a blood soaked lizard. Besides, the FBC would have announced themselves differently and earlier. Then there was the fact that I somehow felt the need to trust this creature.
“I believe you.” I said and hoped I didn’t end up regretting saying that. “Why don’t you explain why you’re here?”
“I am Jash.” The lizard said with a bow of his head. “I have spent much time and effort to come here.”
“For the Cult of the Word?”
“For you.”
“********.”
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