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ljsarts · 1 month

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Here’s a big old infodump on Mari Matilla an AW 2 oc who's little plot and background I kept on adding to for the last month or so till it spiralled into a fully fleshed character-

I briefly mentioned Samy and Mari’s dynamic in this post so this is more focused on Mari as the remaining Matilla sister.

Warning its a long post I've tried to section out but I thought i better post it now or i never will so oops here we go ALSO spoilers for the entirety of AW2 just to cover my bases

Tldr basic info-

Name: Mari Matilla

Nickname/mean rumour name: ‘Mary Shell-y'

(Anglicised her name to Mary if people mispronounce it enough)

Close Relatives:

[Deceased] twin Sister Sam Matilla.

Estranged Mother Francesca Matilla. [Alive]

Stepfather Micheal Matilla. [Annoyingly Alive]

Name: Samy matilla

Nickname: ‘samwich’ a highschool nickname that Samy tried to spread herself that Mari will not let her live down.

Close Relatives: (same as above but was secretly still in contact with their mother Fran)

Died : 2022 spring swimming in cauldron lake.

The duo moved to bright falls in Spring 2019.

Works at the summer general store before the lake is closed off to the public.

Samy Drowns and she moves into the general store basement in 2022. (Year before the nightingale murder and the events of AW2).

Additional oc Outside the Matilla family:-

Name: Satu Barkley

Nickname: Sparky

Works for Biltmore’s Logging camps, mostly delivers the logs but won't skip the opportunity to do some log splitting. Her Hobbies vary from wood carving to hiking and darts. She met and ended up dating Mari after getting set up on a blind date with her via their shared friend Rose Marigold.

Family:-

Recently Mari Lost their twin sister Samy Matilla violently to ‘the cult of the tree’.

Her ‘murder’ happened a year before Saga and Casey arrived to investigate Nightingales murder.

This death in the family leaves her alone in Watery with only the company of their senior dog Charlie, a greying jack Russel with a laziness problem.

Mari makes do with the little family she has left (literally little Charlie is tiny even for his breed she jokes he's shrunk as he's got older)- not having many relatives nearby as a support system considering she ran to bright falls after cutting contact with everyone but her sister in 2019.

Before her Grimm passing the twins had very little other family than distant (both physically and emotionally) aunts and uncles as well as having a mother and stepfather they'd cut contact with for good reason.

The ’murder‘

The grizzly ritualistic murder of Miss Matilla and Mari’s trauma from discovering the gruesome aftermath (only being drawn outside by Charlie howling at the cultists outside) has led to her becoming an elective Mute when encountering about 90% of the town.

Because of the cult's anonymity Mari lacks any kind of mutual trust in the majority of the town growing paranoid that anyone could be a cult member after her too to finish off the whole family.

This paranoia in turn led the non cult members of the town to be suspicious of her being that she somehow didn't hear the murder happening right outside her home at the time (staying for the summer in the general store by the lake).

All they'd heard was that her sister had been murdered right on her doorstep and she'd just slept through the ordeal only waking when it was too late.

The truth being that Mari had been up the last two nights looking for her sister who'd set out to go swimming in the lake despite her protests that those waters were not safe.

See She'd been too swept up on scouring every inch of the woods after finding Sam's bag, shoes and phone sat on the edge of the lake just abandoned that she hadn't called her in missing in town (not daring to leave the woods) . And even after spending the full day searching she didn't trust the police to come looking for her either.

This lack of sleep from searching day and night meant she had passed out on day 3 and slept through the cults ‘murder’ ritual never knowing that her sister was long dead before the cult began attempting to carved her heart out (Samy having been drawn into and drowning in the lake while trying to disprove her sisters worries about her. Samy following a ‘figure’ into the waves).

The town also was not aware that at that time the three of them (Samy, Mari and Charlie) slept in the basement of the old general store, meaning even if Mari had been awake she wouldn't have heard a thing anyways. (This doesn't stop her blaming herself though).

They also didn't know that Mari had stirred that night at the sound of the howling and barking making it out of the general store door rifle in hand a moment too late only seeing deer masked figures fleeing into the woods and the telltale pattern of her sister's dress covering a bloodied and water trodden body splayed out on the picnic bench. She'd rush out not realising she was screaming already and try to shake her sister awake to no avail.

Seeing a body

something there ,

not her sister

not anymore.

The sun would rise by the time she called into the sheriff's office. Hand still wrapped around her sisters, hair wiped off her bloodied face with loving care and blanket pulled over her so she wouldn't get cold.

They'd come within the hour and cordon off the area.

She'd only let go of her sister’s now Ice cold hand when another would grab hers leading her off to the car park in silence.

Mari had been taken to the police station to fill out all the reports and witness forms not really saying a word just in shock. They'd ask if anyone could come collect her and when they received a shake no offer a lift back up to the store to get her things.

Later on she'd be silent still as she begrudgingly brewed coffees for the sheriff and deputies up at the general store while they took the body and photographed the crime scene.

They'd comment on how the heart had been half carved out sliced open shoddily but not removed properly like the other victims and that the noise of the dog howling and the lights of the store turning on must have put off the ‘killers’ assuming someone nearby was watching them (at least that's their running theory).

Aftermath-

Mari gets very intense surrounding the investigation into Samy’s death. She finds out from her autopsy some key facts that don't add up -

Samy's lungs were filled with lake water - logically yes she drowned in the lake so how did she walk up back to the general store where she got murdered.

Her mottled skin and appearance applies more to a body that's been in the water for weeks not mere days at most.

The cult still seemed to have tied down Samy’s body but the marks on the body would coincide with her being alive at the time of the ‘murder’ and pulling against said restraints.

In Mari’s mind she can only comprehend two ideas-

Either one : Samy almost drowned in the lake barely surviving and after being lost in the woods for two days finally struggled back home to the general store getting picked off like a wounded animal .

Or worse, the cult tortured her by waterboarding her in the lake only to grow ‘ bored ’and kill her up by the general store as a threat.

In either of these options one thing remains - guilt Mari feels such a deep gnawing guilt at not running after her sister after Their fight at not checking up on her sooner knowing the lake had a history of drownings.

It had to be her fault , hers and the cults.

The police (well really just the Sheriff since he's the only one who can relate to Mary having hallucinations having his own about shapes in the night) considered making a recommendation to go to the cauldron lake clinic after some pretty horrendous ptsd episodes and bouts of insomnia began occurring more frequently to Mari leading up to deer fest.

These recommendations definitely did not arise because she accidentally punched a newbie cop in the face who mistakenly jumped out at her from a dark corner with a deer fest mask on while trying to prank their coworker).

These episodes are all being triggered by the surrounding deer imagery of all things. Why'd the cult have to pick the town's mascot of all things, why not a wolf or something scary?.

Mari denies the help initially. Partially on lack of trust and partially because in her own words-

‘Im not fucking crazy Breaker alright! I just get spooked by y’all running up on me all the time with this stupid deer fest shit it's every day and it's it's everywhere in town already the festival’s not for another month and a half alright! Why? why are they rushing?’

It takes one pretty rough breakdown and waking up in an open holding cell on a Sunday morning with no recollection of the *last ten hours for her to finally realise yeah getting help might be the best thing for her sanity and safety right now. That or moving out of town forever and that's not an option in her mind.

*Those missing ten hours consisting of her actually getting the courage to shoot at a cult member missing by an inch, fleeing badly on foot , getting caught , kicking screaming and exchanging punches, just to then in a fit of rage screaming at them to go ahead kill her like her sister only to get *bonk* knocked out cause a taken was approaching and they didn't have time to explain to her what actually happened with her sister. A cult member dropping her off at the station steps as a ‘drunk and disorderly’, their fellow cult members in the police station getting her inside and checked over.

Satu the lumberjack picks her up from the station in the morning with coffee , an ice pack for that possibly broken nose and therapy enrollment forms alike in hand.

These outbursts lead to her becoming even more of a social pariah, seemingly an outsider against small town customs .

But In Spite of said episodes she still aims to be polite when she does choose to speak to the townsfolk.

She always pays promptly and tips well in the dinner;

she'll smile back at the townsfolk as she walks by when taking Charlie to the town park to chase pigeons.

When she stocks up She nods along with cashiers gossip trying to remember who's who and waits while they give Charlie all the fuss his old little face can handle. (Which is surprisingly a lot , he loves all the attention).

Most of all when she heads back to the woods she's never late for work.

Not that she could be late considering she works alone as pest control and wildlife management in the acres surrounding the lake.

She only visits town to stock up on supplies every month or so and since Rose in the Dinner is about the only person she’ll hold a full length conversation with in town , her social skills have been lacking as of late. (Not that she has great ones to begin with)

She thinks Rose is ‘weird’ (heavy quotes weird) like she is , changed by all the weirdness in this town.

She’d never admit it but she feels Like something is following rose around too, a darkness that dims the usual sparkle in her eyes sometimes or a daydream on the air she gets lost in.

Not that she'd admit to spending way too much time staring into Roses' silvery eyes though.

But she knows Mr Wake writer extraordinaire is Rose’s ~ one true love~ and she's only a pinch jealous . Though she does love to hear her excited reviews and ratings of - ’the best Casey novel in her opinion , or are we talking about most engaging ?or ooh! the one that the critics like the most? cause that's a controversial pick in my opinion~’.

(Oh and Mari totally didn't get accidently spoiled by Rose about Casey dying in the last book when she’d just decided to start reading them.)

After her sort of one way crush faded a bit and Rose and her became more besties , Rose tried and succeeded to set her up on a blind date with a local lumber worker who Mari had met in the past delivering logs up to the general store - Satu Barkley.

A broad shouldered gentle giant of a lady who Mari sees as way out of her league but who seems to be pine-ing (pun fully intended) just as much as her.

They bond over a shared love of woodwork with Satu carving a little wooden raven to go on Samy's grave and a little wooden wolf for Mari to wear as a necklace Mari immediately swooning.

Satu becoming the second person she feels safe enough around to talk to freely when she comes to visit the lake and deliver logs.

Work-

Work has been weird too lately.

She used to work in the bustling old general store with their sister before the whole park got shut down.

It was a dream I mean sure the summer rush was always hard to stay on top of but the work kept her mind occupied and sharp , it was a challenge and made the quiet evenings afterwards so much more rewarding.

Worth the struggle just to get to see the sunsets and hear the full array of seasonal birdsong , the cool breeze through the woods slightly chilling the skin.

Her sister always the overachiever would spend the summertime working by Maris side part time shopkeep but full time most days ‘idiot supervisor’ (her own words) or rather doctor and emergency first aider. (Spending the rest of the year working in the wellness centre)

Having worked in emergency medicine in a Vancouver hospital before moving to Bright falls to live with her ‘runaway’ sister, Samy knows her way around your miscellaneous woodland injuries handling the splinters to sprained ankles and the more grizzly injuries too with equal measures of care.

Those summer days in the store by her side the lake and the woods felt even

brighter,

warmer,

kinder than usual.

The woods used to be alive with a beating heart of campers and birdwatchers, the odd ‘guided adventure tour’ by the Koskela Brothers too travelling down the trails like veins through the woods.

Now they're just too quiet.

The only harsh sound being the consistent clanging and buzz of the monitoring station in the hill a crude noise cutting through the bird song in the morning

Moving on-wards-

When the general store got shut down the two of them had moved back into an old cabin their aunt owned that they'd inherited after she passed in 2019 , (this inheritance prompted Mari cutting contact and moving).

The cabins Situated just outside the town's borders up in Watery, but the two secretly keep the keys to visit the general store every summer and fish the lake.

Mari couldn’t bear going back to the cabin without her sister ; all her clothes laid out for work tomorrow , all the sticky notes reminders the plants in the window unwatered. That whole cabin just felt like an open unhealed wound .A living tomb dedicated to a woman who'd never step foot in it again.

She'd slept in her truck that night and sold the place to whoever would move in the quickest, this person ironically being Satu who was a little shocked to see Mari just up and leaving.

After she'd gathered all her sister's and her stuff on the back of the pickup truck she'd left for the woods.

And Once she'd found the old store keys and some solid padlocks she'd set out to bunker down in the basement of the abandoned general store. It was the warmest down there and had been least hit by the elements being some old bunker design from way back when the caldera in the lake was more of an active threat.

(Listen please okay , I sleep deprived Luc editing this backstory right now knows that there isn't a basement but I forgot that the first cult encounter happens in the general store and it's inferred they chill out in there too so we're shifting from the og idea of living in the general store to a second location , for story purposes she's hiding out in the fictional basement keeping Charlie entertained with a bunch of tennis balls and chew toys while the cults lurking above like a fox beneath the hunters, she's covered the hatch to the basement with moss and scrap wood it's all good alright… at least for now).

The store itself is broken down in patches, it's overgrown in others and the patches between those two variables aren't looking too good either.

But It's familiar , it's safe enough

If only it wasn't close to where it happened.

She keeps envisioning that day over and over , rushing out to Charlie's howling , seeing shadows scatter into every corner of the woods.

Seeing her.

Trying to perform CPR on someone , something long gone, a bloodied chest and empty eyes. Just a shadow of the bright bubbly sister she'd angrily yelled goodbye to a few days prior.

The blood on her hands grew as cold as the one she clasped.

It's always the same nightmare , the same moment until eventually it's just silent rest .

Maybe she hopes deep down by staying in that dingy building by letting it rot around her bit by bit.

By being in that right place at all times she can stop the cult using the woods for their murders and make them slip up somehow.

That she can be there when she wasn't before awake and watching.

It was a stupid and under-thought out plan but it's all she can think about now , the what ifs that might have saved her sister , that could save another soul eat her alive in the silence like rust through iron slow moving but persistent till the end.

She spends weeks out at night tracking , documenting and trying to hype herself up to take a shot at these cult members. Trying to detach herself from reality by hyping herself up going ‘deer hunting’ never quite having the bravery to pull the trigger once and for all. Hell when she finds an old Halloween mask- a wolf while clearing out boxes for memories she dons that imitating the very cult she's trying to catch out.

Her days, unlike her nights, are monotonously spent culling ‘ diseased ‘ wildlife for the weird company she's found herself working under. They say their pest control and testing wildlife so they can provide treatment and preserve the species in the woods. She doesn't ask questions , the pay is a little too good to be true but it's paid on time and she doesn't have to worry about being late.

This constant prowling of the woods A dedication to surrounding the lake is why she kicks herself when she returns from a monthly supply run to find the area cordoned off with a dead FBI agent there splayed out contorted just like her sister was.

Nicknames-

After a few days of near encounters with the cult she hangs tripwires at the front doors attached to chimes she makes from razor clamshells taken from the lake, the one on the front door additionally bearing the old door's entrance bell in its centre for extra volume.

Gossip, well more a cruel mythos started spreading of a ‘Mari shell-y’ a week after the Chimes went up.

The story goes that when two rangers came to check on the abandoned store after seeing smoke in the forest that they reached for the doors and were ambushed by tripwires of shells wrapping tightly around their arms, the chimes breaking in the process.

That ‘Mari the shell lady , the weirdo in the woods who lost their voice in the lake, had finally gone looney and is collecting shells to fight off the “witch's powers”’.

She persuaded the rangers that she was just lighting a fire to mask her scent, and that she was on the job- tracking some weird wolves in the woods with rabies , emphasising how rabid and uncontrollable these wolves were to the rangers, this task putting them at enough unease to leave promptly with a ‘-good luck with that’.

Interaction/encounter wise within AW2

(Disclaimer I wrote the majority of this stuff while watching a play through of aw2 and was only on the first few chapters of the game so there's some bits that are out of sync with the main plot)

Overarching plotline of Mari like most Bright Falls inhabitants is just a ‘so bad very bad day worst day of their life’ plot. She doesn't influence the progression of the main story and is more just another victim of the horror genre narrative demanding sacrifices barely surviving it's attacks on her ‘Until Dawn style’ (Emily from until dawn my beloved inspiration).

So Mari’s arc Aka ‘Mari will not die in spite of the world trying it's best to axe her’ (wink wink) begins with a nice calm start in the oh deer diner:

After Rose gives her ‘remember me? , weird your back cause…’ speech to Saga and she's gone through both conversation roots, Mari can lightheartedly bantering with Rose at the counter of the oh deer dinner about how-

M- ‘the animals in the park, well around the whole lake are acting weirder than usual lately like really off putting, more aggressive, almost rabid, think it's just the changing of the seasons getting to them?’

R- ‘must be that volcanic ash in the air their studying down there, you should mask up breathing all that dust in all day and night oh and get a little doggy sized mask for Charlie to wear you'd match’

M- ‘we would (she grins) , you worry about me too much though Rose’

R-‘well someone's got to , I mean just look at you’

M-‘hey!, I'll have you know this is my best shirt I ironed it and everything’

R- ‘oh really? So that's why you wear it every time you're in town hmm? S’got to be the fourth time I've seen it this year’

M- ‘you try living in the woods with a senior dog who's always needing carrying I'm sure all your clothes would be finely pressed and smell like daisies’

R- ‘daisies and roses. well, at least I know what to get you for your birthday’

M-’ a new shirt?’

R- ‘shush you'll ruin the surprise’

Mari doesn't really speak to Saga in the dinner but will nod when noticing her and smile genuinely (if a little anxiously) at her if approached before turning back to the counter and the paper sat on it before her. Giving Charlie scritches behind his old scruffy ears, who sits next to her on a pulled across diner chair.

General Store Basement introduction-

Saga and Casey can encounter and interact fully with Mari in a night-time/late evening cycle of exploring around cauldron lake anytime after the first overlap events/ first encounter with the cult occurs.

When returning to the murder site A trail of fresh blood not washed away by the rain can be found and observed leading from bushes nearby to the general store.

Meeting Shelley for the first time she'll be hunkered down in the deepest corner of the general store basement

To get in you'll need A key for the front door that can be found using the flashlight as its hiding spot on a small metal tin is marked by fluorescent paint.

Several shell tripwires can be inspected and disarmed outside the doors and windows, some of the windows are hammered shut shoddily with long nails sticking out of the frames.

Unlocking the front door and delving into the general store again , several objects are disrupted

- a table is shattered, legs strewn apart , several frames off the walls smashed on the ground and a cult mask sits on the floor brandishing some dog sized chew marks.

-Following the trail of blood leads further into the store and to the attached laundromat room where one washing machine has been pushed out of place revealing a hatch concealed below it.

Below the general store in its basement Mari is found on her last tether.

Being guarded by a quietly growling charlie (you know that sort of old dog rumbly growl they have?) And with A shotgun raised shakily she crouches in the farthest corner of the store wide eyed at the intrusion and visibly bleeding. Having been shot in the shoulder , rough gauze is wrapped haphazardly around the wounded area but She looks palpably pale and clammy.

The shotgun is leaning awkwardly against her stiff bracing shoulder twitching much to her dismay and Charlie the jack Russel sits tucked onto her lap.

Saga can de-escalate the situation by showing Mari her badge and introducing herself and Casey, commenting on recognising her from the dinner in town earlier and asking about her dog.

‘She's Charlie , She's harmless, really more talk than bite. Not that she could bite with her old teeth, give her one of these biscuits off the counter and she'll be your best friend’

A dog biscuit can be retrieved and given to Charlie who softens up at the approach.(And yes you can pet the dog)

When Mari finally calms down she'll crumble a little bit from the stress and alot-a bit from the general blood loss.

Saga can then ask her name and ask about the gunshot wound :

Asking about the name triggers her to recognise the last name Matilla as one of the previous victims of the cult commenting on the incident occurring around a year and a month ago and how the victim looked identical to her minus the haircut.

Mari winces at the comparison, combing a hand through her hair she clarifies Samy was, is , her twins sister and almost spitefully asks why they've turned up now of all times to look into the murders,she calms though saying it's atleast better late than never.

Asking about the bullet wound prompts Mari to comment on it not being as bad as it looks,

‘I was just bunkering down for the night getting Charlie her dinner when I got ambushed by this smokey figure? Like not smoking burning like an enveloping aura of sooty air must be the fucking volcanic ash shit from the lake’ , she quietly adds “I haven't been drinking I swear.’ when Casey's eyes fall on the array of cans on the table.

‘The shot though that went clean through and it's missed the brachial plexus see’ ,

holding up her hand she clenches and unclenches her fingers a few times it's weird though there's two of her fingers on this held up hand missing old wounds scarred over.

‘It all still works just hurts like a bitch , missed the subclavian artery too, still made a mess of my good shirt though and Im supposed to wear this to date night tonight :( ’. Mari is scarily calm for someone who's been shot.

Casey comments on the formal medical knowledge Mari seems to possess but rather lacking medical application of the gauze on her shoulder.

She divulges that her sister used to pop quiz her on the parts of the body, the challenge growing along with her growing up from bones to muscle systems to arteries and where they are a great way to pass time on long summer days.

All great fun at the time but in hindsight it would have been better in this case to have been taught how to bandage said body parts.

Casey has some medical training from a previous operational medicine program he gestures for her to approach so he can adjust the gauze and the two agree to answer some questions in exchange for them just double checking that shoulder wound and rewrapping it (concerned by how pale Mari looks).

While Casey's sorting out that shoulder wound Saga can explore this corner of the basement further around where Mari has crumpled down She has several frankensteined together sketches of the cultists faces from memory watching the cultists hiding in the different areas around the lake, noting down details when they'd lift masks to take sips of beers or drunkenly letting them slip off entirely.

Yellow and pink post it notes , receipt paper ripped from the cash register , and lined stationary paper are stuck haphazardly to a corkboard against the wall with whatever Is available .

(Casey's pretty sure there's a few empty pens stabbed into the cork in more than one spot.)

While Saga is looking around Casey can ask about Mari’s hand if it's a ‘New wound? , looks old from the scarring, that from a cult attack too? ‘

She clarifies no an old wound from when she was a kid , an accident with an unsafe bear trap, not that there is a safe bear trap for a child to be left around and supervised by a ‘distracted’ stepfather on a hunting trip.

She changed the subject pretty quickly and apologises for the shell alarms out front. Commenting on the rumours and nicknames around her,

Casey in turn comments on the choice of names saying it's cruel when a nickname sticks , mari sympathises making a guess that having the same name as a fictional character must come with a lot of jokes and jabs.

Casey asks how she can be staying in the general store and not have heard the murder happening right outside.

Saga, equally confused, clarifies their here because of an FBI agent being murdered on the picnic table outside.

Mari stumbles back up to her feet and with some assistance closes the hatch door , the room immediately falling deathly silent of the sounds of the outdoors now locked away.

Didn't hear a thing. I'm afraid it's an old bunker design sturdy as anything but soundproof too.

Mari promises to head into town to get the shoulder looked at and as Saga and Casey head out to explore the cauldron Lake area she can be heard calling up Satu to come and pick her up trying her best to downplay her injury and saying it was an ‘accident’ while cleaning her rifle.

Escalation /second worse encounter:( aka the angst zone of Samy the dead sister returning.)

Her sister was buried in the woods near the lake wanting to be surrounded by the very nature she coveted . Her grave being marked by some small memorial rocks from mirrors peak and carvings of a crow , a bear , a little wooden duck and other trinkets left by visitors. Fresh flowers sit picked from the surrounding area.

Saga can on her travels around bright falls encounter a manuscript page that details a horrifying encounter - an empty grave and a taken soul rising up to lay it's last family member to rest beside her in that woodland tomb.

Of a shadow imbued figure clawing out of the dirt handful by gritty handful and brandishing an axe ripped out of a cedar tree stump, carving its way through the general store's front door like a horror cliche , the shell chimes rattling a final death rattle.

(this next bits a little messily written i won't lie i love all the manuscript pages and the style of writing in the game but i cannot imitate it i do visual art not written so shoutout fanfic and authors this is harddd.)

“Beyond the door , her last remaining protection Mari Matilla , still recovering from her bullet wound burning a hole in her shoulder, is frozen in place staring in wide eyed abject horror at the looming figure on the other side of the splintering wood.

This figure who shares the same face , the same blood now cold no longer pumping through dead veins looms forward through the gash in the door.

A single white eye peers through the crack sunken into it's hollow socket, the creature smiles a sickly grin too wide for it's face.

She swings her axe bringing the door down with it charging through the threshold , with each slamming step Mari snaps out of the ever growing fear in her heart willing herself to just move! as the axe comes slashing down again.

Finally it makes contact, clipping her ankle with a sickening thump. Bone exposed She screams the world all crashing back down around her at once.

‘The light , the basement. The light will keep me safe’ she thinks and so she dives for that sunken room.

Gunshots ring out in the distance , safety , a chance at survival; she knew who it was, the only one brave enough to be out in these woods alone , Saga Anderson, her hero.

she screams again louder than before:

‘SAGA she's Here Help me!’ she just had to hold on a few moments more. Just a few moments longer. The creature a mirror of her lurches forward for the basement door and-”

The rest is scratched out.

The page ends before anything else can occur saga sets off back to the lodge as the day draws to an end.

On the way to cauldron lake she calls Casey and tells him where she's going, chasing after another page by our best selling author friend she's pissed she asks why he'd write something like this into reality.

He tries to explain that he doesn't remember writing this but writing in the escape , writing in that saga is there to save her and that the basement full of lights is the safest place for her to be. That sounds like what he'd write , from what he knows that that is how he can help.

‘its a horror story all of this is I have to stay within the narrative tropes but you can change it's ending it's not written yet there's always a final girl right who barely escapes but not unscathed?’

When she arrives at cauldron lake it's dark the sun's setting , as she approaches down the hill from the parking lot she encounters several taken , gunshots ring out and she hears from the general stores direction screams for help exactly as written she just prays Charlie and Mari have reached the basement , sprinting towards the store.

The sister's warped and ritually sacrificed body has become a taken a hollow hole in her chest, hair slicked to her face and hands bloodied .

((I have two visual ideas for this currently. One is that she sort of floats above the ground like a body floating face down in the water. Or alternatively upright usual axe swinging but her hairs sort of floating behind her and clothes slightly flowing in a current we can't see)).

She has dirt across her arms and under her fingernails having crawled and clawed her way out of the grave. Stumbling back to her place of death hearing Mari whistling as she cooked, her attention drawn and a rage at her own death bubbling up inside her.

She screams out at her in its distorted voice ‘ why weren't you there ? Why did you leave me to die? What sister lets her sister die in the cold in the dark ? Look at me, You wretched bitch look at me!’

When saga arrives to save Mari she can look around and find the shallow grave empty and flooded with lake water, the coffin floating atop and ripped open. Reaching the general store front door is destroyed , Mari surprisingly isn't dead but has barely contained ‘what was samy’ in the basement of the general store. Rattling and slamming can be heard against the basement hatch upon arrival that goes scarily quiet when Mari calls out to saga again.

She's blood splattered and with one arm weakly cuddling Charlie and is pretty sure like 90% her ankles fully broken (saga is more than sure it's broken she's pretty sure it's been slashed by an axe swing and maybe broken too who knows but she's trying not to panic despite being able to see bone) saga quickly sets to scouting around finding something to splint the leg with and something to cover the basement hatch with that's heavy.

Mari's struggling in the sort of blood loss delirium but asks saga (when she brandishes her weapon of choice and flashlight to go head down into the basement with) to please please leave her be,

Mari asks why she's like that why she came back like that,

She confesses quietly that she hopes that whatever has brought her back can purify her if , if they just wait long enough right , keep her in the light? She doesn't know how she knows but she just knows the light will fix her. It's a fact in her mind now the light is safe and she can be safe again.

She has to be right? .

M: ‘I just , I mean , she's talking. She's breathing what she's saying is cruel, sure but it's better than silence. Please don't hurt her, what would you do ? What would you do if Logan came back out of the Lake please just leave her be’

It seems the story has warped Maris memory of events aligning it with Logan drowning too.

Saga sympathises with Maris grief but stands firm on Logan's condition ,with both hands on Maris shoulders reminds her that -

‘Logan isn't dead. Your sister down there? she’ doesn't have a heart ,

theres post mortem autopsy incisions across her chest Mari , the woman she was, your sister , who you cared about so deeply , that you feel so guilty about not being there to save that version of her she is gone and that thing in the basement is just a vessel being puppeted around, a shadow of who she once was . whatever that is now it is not your sister it's a monster , it's dangerous and it will kill you if we don't kill it’

The Frankenstein's monster - part beloved body - park lake darkness, trapped in Mari ‘Shelly's’ basement and wanting revenge upon her misguided ‘creator’- Mari feeling solely responsible for the argument that led to Samy going to the lake.

(Am I forcing this concept too hard? Yeah absolutely, probably but oh well it's fun and stupid too something something seeing the humanity in someone you've lost coming back wrong even if this vision is clouded by your own remorse).

Ultimately Samy ends up breaking out of the basement if Saga approaches and/or leaves the area and Saga has to put her down fighting in the limited space of the general store trying to lead her away from where Mari and Charlie are cornered.

After defeating Samy , Mari will be in tears but gather herself as the trio make a break for the car park , the escape sequence set off by a loud rattling of all the shell chimes outside and a growing dark presence outside warping the scenery. Mari can carry her own flashlight helping to stun enemies and throwing out the odd flare but is slow moving due to the ankle wound and dog on her hip.

(no she will not leave the dog she'd rather die )

(I'm imagining Kind of like the AW1 section where you're getting Barry Wheeler across Anderson's farm - defeat a wave or two of taken and then rush for the exit no cool rock number though but alot of ambient sound - storm , shell wind charms etc).

After getting their leg seen to properly, splinted stitched, wrapped and painkillers prescribed by Doc Nelson and an ambulance called .she gives the excuse some poachers put bear traps up in the woods and that luckily Saga was in the area following a lead and was able to open the trap for her.

He half buys it considering there's a record that Mari lost two fingers as a teen to a bear trap but doesn't ask further questions considering she's been escorted to him by an FBI agent who still has some blood splatter on her coat.

After aftermath:

It takes a few days to overall emotionally recover from the horrors ™. But once she does recover Mari can then be found half the time hiding out in a makeshift room in the ‘employees only’ room in the back of the oh deer diner.

She refuses to stay in a hotel or home saying she's not getting taken out in her sleep after surviving all this. It takes s while for Satu to persuade her to move back to the cabin with her (mari joking they’ve only been together 6 months and already moving in how forward~)

Rose agrees to watch over her when she’s in the diner she can until everything's sorted out.

(And lend her some actually daisy smelling shirts joking she bought the detergent just to prove her wrong)

The reward for getting Mari alive out of the taken onslaught is a charm she offers that reduces the damage you take from axes (thrown or melee) by 50 percent. It's shaped like a little shell and hook.

Eventually Mari starts spending her daytime out of the back room and in a corner booth of the diner. She doesn’t want to be idle so spends some time folding napkins and cleaning cutlery whistling little simplified versions of the chapter songs as the story progresses.

Charlie settles really well into her corner booth of the dinner enjoying pancake scraps from the chef and scratches from the patrons equally.

I think at some point after the events of AW2 when she finds out about everything (the cult, the taken etc) she ends up having a bit of a fighty argument with Ilmo only to falter when finding out his brother's death.

She gets closure from knowing while her sister probably did suffer drowning in the lake she wasn't tortured or aware (as far as she knows) as a taken when the ‘cult’ got her.

Other little details/ miscellaneous plot beats i didn’t know where to put:-

Mari feels like the failure of the family in her eyes. Her golden child sister got her degree worked in a hospital and seemed to have her life together while she just struggled to figure out what she wanted. That's why she feels so bad that Sam died, not her because she feels she wasn't doing enough with her life while Sam had so much more to give. She learns to push through this guilt and live for the both of them by the end.

Mari lost two of her fingers ( pinky and ring) in an accident with a bear trap when she was little. Her stepdad at the time forced the two twins out in the snow to go hunting despite their protests. Mari was a good shot but didn't enjoy the cold. She'd never seen a bear trap before and then suddenly bam no pinky or ring finger. Stepdad freaked out calling for help and scrambling while Sam stayed calm checking on Mari and talking to her to keep her from going into shock. Since that day Sam's always been Maris' hero. And since that day Samys always knew she wanted to be a doctor to help people like her sister in crisis.

While Mari was born before Sam , Sam has always been the ‘ older’ sister of the twins. More mature in nature and in ego.

The day after Sam dies Mari lops half her hair off because she looks too much like her sister. In turn this makes her look just the same as she did when they first moved to bright falls (partially symbolising how she's set herself back in time healing wise by not confronting her grief). It only kind of works so she gets rid of the mirrors in the cabin.

Maris' fatal flaw was her devotion to killing the cult, it drove her to insomnia, dehydration and overall not taking care of herself .

She obsessed over unmasking a group that she'd fallen for the publicity of.

Spending months in total out in the woods at night , a wolf mask worn to conceal her face stalking the cult never brave enough to pull the trigger and take one out but Internalising the same ideology the cult used to detach themself from the rituals (telling herself ‘ it's just deer hunting , their not people just pull the fucking trigger’) even at times almost getting caught after hallucinating her sister by her side taunting her to take the shot.

she thought they were evil and had murdered her sister but she ultimately (by the end of the game/her character arc) ends up being told the truth and convinced to either work with the cult to take down taken (as a parallel to Ilmo losing a sibling but having the community for support) or teaming up with rose as a body disposal guy. (Since The hardest part is hiding the bodies ; D) she laughs about it in hindsight if only she'd known from the start how different things could have been.

#alan wake oc #remedyverse oc #cult of the tree #its an oc infodump babeyyyyy #oc tag: Mari Mattilla #tw gore #tw body horror #long post #alan wake 2 spoilers

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entropicquilibriumofchaos · 2 months

Text

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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