Departure by Alan Wake

Throughout the game, the player can dicover several manuscript pages both foretelling actions and revealling background events. There are 106 pages spread across six episodes with 15 of them only available in Nightmare mode. You can read the entire story below:

Episode 1: Nightmare

• Wake Attacked by a Shadowy Murderer
• Wake Fights a Taken with Light
• The Dark Presence Wakes Up (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Wake Attacked by Birds
• Wake Finds Pages
• TV in the Gas Station
• Wake Lies to the Sheriff
• Stucky Taken
• Rose Daydreams About Wake
• Barry's Arrival
• Toby the Dog (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Rose is a Fan (Nightmare Mode Only)

Episode 2: Taken

• The Sudden Stop 1
• The Sudden Stop 2
• The Dark Presence in the Diner
• Wake at Lovers' Peak
• Alice Sees a Shadow
• Barry Doubts Wake's Sanity
• Rusty Dying
• Rusty Attacked by the Dark Presence
• Wake Reaches a Safe Haven of Light
• Rusty's Final Thoughts
• Wake Sees the Torch Symbol
• Nightingale's Arrival
• Alice's Fear of the Dark
• Wake Hears a Chainsaw
• Barry in Elderwood
• Nightingale Fires at Wake
• Wake at the Dark Presence's Mercy (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Rose and Rusty
• Barry Meets Rose
• Sarah Thinks About Wake
• Deputies at the Logging Site
• Wake Feels the Dark Presence
• Wake's Despair

Episode 3: Ransom

• Randolph Calls the Police
• The Dark Presence Sleeps
• Nightingale in the Radio Station
• Sarah Distrusts Nightingale
• Wake Attacked by a Possessed Object
• Wake and the Dark Presence in the Lodge
• Wake Attacked by the Dark Presence
• Rose Visited by the Dark Presence
• Rose Touched by the Dark Presence
• Walter Fights Danny
• Wake Attacked by a Bulldozer
• Wake and Night Springs (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Sarah in the Radio Station
• Thomas Zane in Love with Barbara Jagger
• Wake Touched by the Dark Presence
• Wake and Barry in the Cell
• Wake and Casey
• Nightingale in the Majestic
• Mott at Cauldron Lake
• Wake Wakes Up in the Lodge
• Mott on the Ferry
• Hunters Taken
• Doc Examines Barry and Rose (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Wake Reads a Page (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Tor Hits Nurse Sinclair

Episode 4: The Truth

• Thomas Zane's Writing and Assistant
• Barry in the Lodge
• Hartman Watches Wake Fall
• Hartman's Mission
• Wake Sees the Old Gods Stage
• Barry Attacked by a Taken
• Mott in Charge
• Mott Fails Hartman
• Hartman and the Power Failure
• Hartman Sedates Wake
• Nightingale Arrests Wake
• The Patients Escape the Lodge
• The Dark Presence at Large
• The Anderson Brothers in the 70s
• The Mystery of the Missing Week
• Walter at the Anderson Farm
• Hartman During the Missing Week (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Hartman Considers Mott and Wake
• Mulligan Questions Nightingale's Orders
• Nightingale Finds the Manuscript

Episode 5: The Clicker

• Nightingale Reads the Manuscript
• Nightingale Attacked by the Dark Presence
• The Dark Presence Set Back
• Cynthia's Work
• The Dark Presence Hunts Wake
• Alice Trapped in the Dark
• Barry in the Sheriff's Station
• Barry in the General Store
• Wake's Plan
• The Falling Helicopter
• Zane's Shoebox
• Cynthia on Her Way to the Dam
• The Poet and the Muse Lyrics 4 (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Children of the Elder God Lyrics 1 (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Children of the Elder God Lyrics 2 (Nightmare Mode Only)

Episode 6: Departure

• The Dark Presence Wants to Stop Wake
• The Trail of the Dark Presence
• Thomas Zane's Last Dive
• The Dark Place
• The Way through the Dark Place
• The Poet and the Muse Lyrics 1 (Nightmare Mode Only)
• The Poet and the Muse Lyrics 2 (Nightmare Mode Only)
• The Poet and the Muse Lyrics 3 (Nightmare Mode Only)
• Sarah and Barry in the Well-Lit Room
• Zane's Poem (Nightmare Mode Only)

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Wake Lies to the Sheriff

"The cabin on Cauldron Lake?" she asked.

The Sheriff looked at me suspiciously. The early morning light flooded through the office windows. I would probably never have gotten out of the woods alive without her help, but I couldn't tell her the truth of what I'd faced the previous night. She'd think I was lying, or crazy. She'd lock me up.

And she wouldn't help me find Alice.

Location: This one is impossible to miss and will be placed on the main path, just ahead of the closed gate leading to the final showdown with Stucky-Taken.

Difficulty: Very Easy

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Rusty's Final Thoughts

In that last instant of consciousness, Rusty thought about Rose. He was older than she was; Rose was barely out of her teens. But she made him feel young and forget what a train wreck his long dead marriage had been.

He still wore the ring. He'd been waiting for her to tell him to take it off.

Now she never would.

Location: After taking down Taken Rusty at the Elderwood Visitor Center, follow the path to Lovers' Peak. Alan will receive a phone call from a panic-stricken Barry, and the two can have a conversation as you continue your walk. As Barry hangs up, Alan will likely be in a small picnic area, at the bottom of some lit wooden steps. On the table will be this manuscript page. 

Difficulty: Easy

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Wake Attacked by The Dark Presence

A darkness surged toward me, sucking everything loose from the ground into its depths, tugging at my clothes.
I saw the flare the kidnapper had dropped and threw myself toward it just as I felt my feet leave the ground. The darkness embraced me with the force of a tornado. Somehow I managed to light the flare.

The darkness roared and cast me away. I fell, toward the dark waters of the lake far below.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Rose Touched by the Dark Presence

Touched by the Dark Presence, Rose was lost in a dreamland where everything was drawn in black and grey crayons. The old lady had promised her that all her wishes would come true. She would be Alan Wake's muse.

She was smiling so hard it hurt her face. She crushed a bottle full of sleeping pills into the coffee.

Deep down inside, she was screaming in terror.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Zane's Poem

(Nightmare Mode Only)
 
I'd first heard the poem in a dream, recited by a strange UFO-like light. I'd read it again in the cabin, in a book by Thomas Zane:

For he did not know
That beyond the lake
He called home
Lies a deeper, darker
Ocean green
Where waves are
Both wilder
And more serene
To its ports I've been
To its ports I've been.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Sarah and Barry in the Well-Lit Room

In the end, Barry wasn't going to shoot Sarah, they both knew that. Once she had no chance of catching up to Wake, Barry gave up the gun and sat down on the floor, shielding his face from the merciless glare of the Well-Lit Room.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna see him again," he said in a weak voice.

Sarah didn't have it in her to be mad at him. Besides, he was probably right.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Poet and the Muse 3

(Nightmare Mode Only)

The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of Asgard.

The third verse:
In the dead of night she came to him with darkness in her eyes
Wearing a mourning gown, sweet words as her disguise
He took her in without a word for he saw his grave mistake
And vowed them both to silence deep beneath the lake
Now, if it's real or just a dream one mystery remains
For it is said, on moonless nights they may still haunt this place

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Poet and the Muse 2

(Nightmare Mode Only)


The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of Asgard.


The second verse:
The poet came down to the lake to call out to his dear
When there was no answer he was overcome with fear
He searched in vain for his treasure lost and too soon the night would fall
Only his own echo would wail back at his call
And when he swore to bring back his love by stories he'd create
Nightmares shifted in their sleep in the darkness of the lake.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: The Way through the Dark Place

After Zane had gone, I stood alone in the shifting dream that was the dark place. I had to find a way to the cabin. I had written myself a way through this place in the manuscript.

I followed the idea of a path. I had written myself across the ocean that blocked my way, and with that, there was a bridge to the island beyond. The idea of the cabin flickered in the underwater darkness. I willed the cabin to be real.

And it was.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Poet and the Muse 1

(Nightmare Mode Only)

The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of Asgard.

The first verse:
There's an old tale wrought with the mystery of Tom the Poet and his muse
And a magic lake which gave a life to the words the poet used
Now, the muse she was his happiness, and he rhymed about her grace
And told her stories of treasures deep beneath the blackened waves
'Til in the stillness of one dawn, still in its misty crown
The muse she went down to the lake, and in the waves she drowned

Read More

Departure Manuscript: The Dark Place

The dark place I found myself in was unlike anything I could ever have imagined; it wasn't solid, it flowed. The was conceptual and subjective.

For someone else, an artist in another field, it would have been very different. I could sense the story of the manuscript all around me, the words and ideas floating in the air, poised to become real.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Thomas Zane's Last Dive

Zane cut its heart out, but it didn't die. The thing that wore Barbara's face kept crooning sweet nothings, sugar laced with poison.

He put on the suit, untied the monster from the chair. The thing in his arms thrashed weakly, but he held fast. He stepped outside, off the pier, and into the dark water, a sinking pinprick of light, descending toward a bottom that never came.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: The Trail of the Dark Presence

The bottom of Cauldron Lake was a graveyard of things the lake had claimed in one way or another over the decades. The Dark Presence brought them up in its wake, scattering the rotten, waterlogged hull of an old boat here, the remains of a long-ago crashed airplane there.

Trees shattered under the impacts. The earth groaned. It didn't even notice.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: The Dark Presence Wants to Stop Wake

The Dark Presence was no longer trying to capture the writer so he could create the ending it wanted.
The writer knew too much. He was too strong, and he carried a weapon left behind by Thomas Zane, something that could hurt it.
Now the darkness was doing everything in its power to simply stop the writer from ever reaching Cauldron Lake and the dark place it came from.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Children of the Elder God 2

 (Nightmare Mode Only)

Children of the Elder God lyrics by Old Gods of Asgard.

The second verse and chorus:
Scratching hag, you can rake your claws, and gnash your crooked teeth
You've taken slaves, like ocean waves, now feel the ocean seethe
Father Thor, bless this war between the dark and light
In their songs let their wrongs bring dissolution's night
Oh, Memory and Thought
Jet black and clawed
Children of the Elder God
Scourge of light upon the dark

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Children of the Elder God 1

(Nightmare Mode Only)

Children of the Elder God lyrics by Old Gods of Asgard.

The first verse and chorus:
Warriors, torchbearers, come redeem our dreams
Shine a light upon this night of otherwordly fiends
Odin's might be your guide, divorce you from the sane
Hammer's way will have its say, rise up in their name
Oh, Memory and Thought
Jet black and clawed
Children of the Elder God
Scourge of light upon the dark

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Poet and the Muse 4

 (Nightmare Mode Only)

The Poet and the Muse lyrics by Old Gods of Asgard.
The chorus:
And now to see your love set free
You will need the witch's cabin key
Find the lady of the light, gone mad with the night
Find the lady of the light, still racing in the night
That's how you reshape destiny

Read More

Departure Manuscript: Cynthia On Her Way To The Dam

Making her way through the water pipe alone, Cynthia was angry at the writer. Foolish young man, taking unnecessary risks. And the way he broke the rules! Didn't he understand what was at stake?

Since the terrible days in the 70s, she hadn't wavered once, as hard as it had been. She was tired of protecting the town all these long years and now only wanted to rest.

Read More

Departure Manuscript: The Fallen Helicopter

Sarah was almost starting to relax. Maybe they could turn this into a win yet.

Suddenly, there was a piercing sound, like a table saw gone wild, as a hundred birds made out of shadows swarmed into the rotor.

The chopper bucked wildly and the board lit up, telling her what she already knew: they were going down. Barry Wheeler screamed next to her.

Read More