Chapter Text
“Don’t cry.”
The creature that looks back at him is a miserable thing, pathetic the way a dog caught out in the rain might be - but this is not a dog and it is not a man, no matter how much Scratch might look like a real person. It’s ostensibly supposed to be him, a simulacrum of Alan Wake, but looks more like if someone rearranged his features just slightly off on an incorrect body. Eyes that are a bit too large, too blue and watery. A mouth one shade too pale, dulled pink. The beard scruff on Scratch’s face is too precise, placed upon him in a failed mimicry rather than organic growth. Nothing about Scratch is organic, not even his name. His? It’s? Theirs? It doesn’t really matter, Scratch doesn’t care - that’s all human stuff.
Semantics.
No, this creature doesn’t look like Alan at all. Not really, not where it matters. Scratch blinks slowly, water slicking down his pale face as he kneels upon the wet concrete - rain seeping into the knees of his trousers. It feels good on Alan’s skin, cool and clear and tastes nothing of lake water. The tears on Scratch’s face bubble over, drifting up and away as if pulled through a current - anti gravity. Does he cry saltwater?, Alan wonders. Does this creature cry brackish tears, or would it be the freshwater of a clear lake? Maybe it’s dirty mop water. Ahti might know.