Author's Note
"I know, it's been a while... again. Normally I'd try to make up an excuse, but no more. I have to be honest here.
For the last 12 years (half my life), I've been battling anxiety and depression, and for the last 4 years, I've been getting my ass kicked by PTSD and prolonged grief disorder. For my entire life, I've been struggling with ADHD. It's... quite a bit, to put it simply. My interest in my hobbies, including writing, have been going down over time. My motivation and my desire to do the things that I want to do have taken hit after hit after hit after hit. This story unfortunately has not been spared these feelings, and these past few months, I thought a lot about if I should bother continuing.
To be honest, I came very close to scrapping everything and tossing it into the garbage. But before I made that decision final, I got a notification that others had started following this story. Curious, I opened it up, and as I was checking out the new followers, I also went back over the reviews for both this story and its predecessor. Despite my very limited experience and (I'm sure) numerous mistakes, the positivity I saw in these reviews made me think about why I took up writing in the first place.
It's an escape.
I started this because it was an outlet for me, as I'm sure it is for many others who both read and write works of fiction. It's a gateway to other worlds where we can spend some time away from this one, and just let our imagination run wild. It's a healthy way of dealing with the struggles of life, and after reading the reviews of both stories, I have decided that I do not want to be the one to take that away from others or from myself.
I cannot promise that this will mean regular updates again, only that I will not let this story or this series die like this. I am still fighting with my mental health after all. I still need some personal work, but I will be continuing this journey that I have started.
I hope you all understand and can be patient. I really cannot express how grateful I am to those of you who have stuck around this long. It means the world to me and I hope this note does at least a decent job of showing it.
To try and make up for some lost time, I will post the next three chapters, one every three days, starting tomorrow. They've been sitting in my documents, completed for a while, I just never posted them. Like I said, it's been a struggle lately, but hopefully the triple update will make up for it.
Until next time.
~ Shadow Fictions
P.S. I may be rebranding my name at some point in the future. To what exactly remains to be seen, but I figured I should let you all know ahead of time.