DESCENT

The Story within a story

A VERY LONG AUTHOR'S NOTE:

             The plot wasn't supposed to revolve around romance... nor even had a werewolf in it. The initial plot was a literal horror story about a girl being stalked by some supernatural creature ahem sLeNdEr MaN ahem until he eats her (but I felt it was too predictable, too boring) so let's add Greek mythology and a bunch of other monsters to the blender because I am too done with life for a complicated plot right now and just wanted to write about someone suffering-.

Let's be real, though: the story only happened because I was bored and hungry when I was home-quarantined for two weeks WITHOUT INTERNET.

The first draft was a scene of Winters and William escaping Roman's dungeon, haunted house (whatever it was called) but I scraped it all up since I like the final scene in Prologue so much. I think it has more thrill than a bunch of kids hiding and running away from a vampire. 

The overall plot was loosely inspired from Rick Riordan's Trials of Apollo. I just finished reading the last book when I started to write Descent for real!

The title when this was still a draft was actually 'Can't Help Falling (In Love With You)' because I was listening to the same song only the dark instrumental version at the time. But I got annoyed because I felt it was too freaking long to be a title whenever I typed it. 

For a time, I settled calling the story "Fall from Grace" in my head, but it still felt wrong... so when I searched for a synonym, the meaning of the word descent... clicked; it feels like it perfectly sums up the entire plot.

Proserpina wasn't supposed to have a romantic interest (unless you count Roman) which means the character Alastor Nyx didn't originally exist. Initially, he was kind of added as a reason for Proserpina to break her promise to Hades.

Did You Know?

Proserpina does not personally refer or consider herself as Winters anymore... in the story, only Alastor and William do.

Let me clear up the special chapter: Winters Veil is Winona. Here's another clue: in the story, William never mentioned Winona because Winters is his only sister; Winters may have been relieving her past lives that have fallen victim to Roman and her mind simply filled in the gaps to suit her since she was having a major breakdown in the first chapter. Notice that she no longer brings up having a (nonexistent) little sister anymore?

Proserpina and Roman's perspectives are specifically meant to be confusing. They are both unreliable narrators.

Throughout the story, Proserpina shows signs of having PTSD (post-traumatic-stress disorder) and is implied to suffer from DID (dissociative identity disorder), i.e. Winona. She also has a mild aversion to other people's touch which is why she was usually seen wearing gloves in order to cope with it other than covering up her markings. Ironically enough, she has no qualms invading other people's spaces as means of intimidation... now that I think about it, she only does this to people (Nick, for example) she knows who couldn't win against her.