The Phantom Wolf

Author's Note

Hello everyone!

Okay, so this is the end of Pearl's story. It's been quite a long journey. At least it feels like it has. I hope everyone has enjoyed my fan fiction.

I want to thank everyone for taking the time out of your day to give my story a chance. As well as thank all of you that voted for your favourite chapters, left your thoughts, feelings and ideas in the comment section, and thank those of you who added The Phantom Wolf to your reading lists. It was very encouraging to see all of that. So thank you.

This won't be my last fan fiction, I have quite a few ideas that I would like to put into writing. So when I get the time I will be working on another story.

I have actually started another one. It is a Jasper Hale x female Oc fan fiction, so I hope that once I do actually start posting that story, you guys will give it a chance. If you don't want to, then that's fine, but I hope you'll at least check it out, just to see if it's something you might like to read.

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this book, and it is somewhat sad to see it end, but I'm satisfied with the result. And I hope you all are too.

Now, the next section of this Author's Note will be getting quite personal, and I'm mainly writing it to draw some awareness to the subject, and so that I can look back at this to remind myself of how far I've come.

So if the mention of self harm, depression or suicide is triggering for you and you would prefer not to read about it, then this is where you should stop reading.

For those of you who are leaving, thank you for reading The Phantom Wolf.

Okay, before I started writing this story, I was in a very bad place mentally. There wasn't a big reason for it, I just... slipped into the darkness, and couldn't find my way back out.

During that time, I read a lot of fan fiction, I used them as my coping mechanism, my source of comfort. But reading could only do so much...

I was struggling. A lot. For a few weeks leading up to my first post, thoughts of committing suicide and hurting myself, constantly plagued my mind. If I wasn't thinking about causing harm to myself in some way, I was thinking about leaving my home and everyone I knew behind, just to walk in a random direction and not look back. I wanted to get lost, in a sense...

I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone. I didn't understand what was wrong with me, so how on earth could I expect anyone else understand me?

As far as I was concerned, I was completely alone.

I started walking one day, intending to never come back. I didn't have a destination in mind, I just wanted to get away. It was cloudy and had started to drizzle with a bit of rain. I walked along a main road, so many cars passed by, completely oblivious as to what I wanted to do. The more cars I saw, the more I began to think, they were all living their lives, no matter what personal struggles they were going through, they still got out of bed that morning. I can't explain how I felt that day, nor can I explain what made me turn around.

Mainly because I still don't know. I guess I'll never really have an answer for that.

When I got home that day, I made a decision. If I was going to leave this world behind, I'd at least try to leave behind a mark. Something to say that I was here. No matter how big, or small it was, I had to leave something behind.

That's when I got the idea to write a fan fiction. I mean, I'd been reading them, there was no reason why I couldn't try and write one.

So that's what I did. I took a concept from one of my dreams, and started writing about it. It took a while before I was ready to post the first few chapters. And before I posted anything, I posted that first Author's Note. In that first part of my book, I made you all a promise. A promise that I would finish the book that I started.

Although that promise was to all of you, it was also to myself. I do my absolute best to keep my promises. So making a promise to internet strangers gave me a reason to keep going.

And if when I finished the book I still felt the same way, I'd at least leave something behind, that other people would be able to enjoy.

At the time when I first started posting, I didn't think I'd live to see Halloween of this year. As you can see, I've made it past that. And... I feel a lot better now, at least compared to back then.

The Phantom Wolf became a distraction for me. Something i could throw myself into without having to worry about the world that was surrounding me.

Some days were harder than others, but each time I felt like giving up, I remembered my promise. At first, the promise didn't feel so significant. But when more and more people started reading my book, and the first few votes came in, it felt so much bigger. I don't think I can truly describe how I felt at the time, but just know that every time those numbers went up, it meant the absolute world to me. And when I got my first few comments, the smile that stretched across my face after each notification, felt very foreign to me at the time.

It's been a few months since then, and I can say with confidence that I am doing a lot better. I'm not 100%, but I don't think I've ever met anyone who is.

The point is, I'm getting there. And that is largely thanks to this book. It started off as just a distraction, but over time, it evolved into something I genuinely enjoyed doing. Something I looked forward to getting out of bed for.

So, as cliche as it is to say, it does get better.

If anyone is going through what I went through, it can get better if you give it a chance. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you to talk to people, because at the end of the day, that's not what I did.

If talking to someone would work for you, then absolutely do that. I'm sure there are a lot of professionals out there who could help.

But if you're like me, and the idea of talking to someone is too scary, or you just can't do it for one reason or another. Find a distraction. Something you enjoy, or maybe want to try. It might not make much of a difference at first, but over time, it can still help. Before this book, I never knew that I had a love for writing. I discovered that through writing Pearl's story. I found out something new about myself, and for once, it's a good kind of new.

Anyways, this has obviously gotten quite personal, and I'm sorry if this is something you didn't particularly want to read. But I wanted to share this, I feel like I needed to say it. I've loved writing this story, and I can't wait to share my next one with all of you.

Thank you for reading!

Available help lines:
Samaritans - call 116 123, available 24/7
Text SHOUT - 85258, available 24/7
CALM - call 0800 58 58 58, available at 5pm to midnight everyday
SOS- call 0808 115 1505, available at 8pm to midnight Monday to Friday, 4pm to midnight Saturday and Sunday
NHS - call 111, available 24/7

These are some of the helplines I found, just by doing a quick Google search. There are many more though!