Walking Darkened Paths

Good morning. I hope you're all doing well this morning because I am not. I do not feel well at all. Yes, it's the same problem that has been plaguing me since march. Yeah, you know, the one that the doctor's say is nothing.
Nothing sure feels like crap.
Anyway. It was a long weekend, not exactly the most pleasant, other than I found my writing grove again, so happy about that. I learned some startling news that is leaving me a little dry-mouthed and thinking "oh no! not again!" I'm not going to say what it is yet. It's still trying to sink in. It was so out of the blue, my siblings and I were left sitting there with blank expressions when we were told all of us probably thinking, "no that really can't be it."
Now I'm a little worried. We've seen what can happen when things go wrong. I'm terrified that they'll go REALLY wrong.
Adding to my lovely weekend, I had an emotional breakdown. I couldn't handle the stress of my own kept secrets and worries. I feel like I'm trying to swim in freezing water without a life preserver currently. Everything come at me and I don't have time to duck!
I'm worried about my book (nothing new)
I really want a horse (also nothing new)
I'm terrified about college.
And now this news.
It doesn't all have to be bad, I know, but you know when you get shocking news and you kind of have to sit there in a daze as your mind tries to put it together.
I'm not quite out of that daze yet.
I'm also not very fond of school today. I'm tired of the endless pacing of school days where I'm told to do this and then that with teachers who don't really notice my existence. I don't like being referred to as Student #24, or "that person" or "those people" I find it annoying when people do that. When they look right at me, and I know that they know my name but they still call me like they don't. I like being called by my name.
Yes. It's all kind of building up. Emotions...worries...lack of sleep or too much of the precious stuff...it's going to explode.
On the flip side though, it's almost October. I'm not terribly fond of Halloween. Especially the ugliness of it. The undead shouldn't be flaunted like that. Anyone who jokes about such a pitiful existence really doesn't understand what it's like to be without light. I went through a time where I felt like I was partially dead. I know. It's not fun. I don't mean where I was physically half dead, but emotionally. It got really bad. My behavior turned destructive. Thankfully my sister intervened. I love my sister.
My younger sister always asks me if wraiths actually exist. We have this game that we play that for lack of other names is called "walk in the dark" where we play in the world if Twisted. I've gotten several ideas for the story while playing and character development for several characters whose POVs I generally don't write from. From this my sister learned about wraiths and just about everything it takes for a person to become one.
Don't get me wrong. Her understanding is purely innocent. She's under 10 years old. If she were any older I'd insist that she didn't joke about it falling to a state of such darkness isn't something to be laughed about.
Sometimes she gets scared and she asks me if wraiths actually exist. I don't want to take the fantasy out of her life (thanks teachers who told me Santa Claus isn't real, actually I don't remember how I learned that, but blame public school, obviously) but at the same time I don't want to scare her out of her mind.
I have to say no.
I actually believe that they do exist. Now before you go thinking I've popped some nugget in my head let me explain. I believe it's possible to get to such a state where you breathe and feel but you're dead. The Secret Keeper refers to this as "the living death." How a person gets to a state of such darkness...I'd need several novels to list every single way. In essence, it's by shunning light. I don't mean by closing your blinds, but by taking away from your soul everything that is good and human.
I think this is why the Nine (Nazgul, saw it coming right?) are referred to as Sauron's greatest servants. It's because they began as men, great men. I look at the intro showing them as men before they fell and I can't imagine them becoming wraiths. I mean it! Several of them look like grandpas I'd want to spend time with. Or a person I could and would call king and I don't trust most people in authority. Everyone has the chance to either do great good or great evil. And those who choose to do great evil with every knowledge of good are worse than those who do evil because they don't know any better.
The Nine certainly knew better.
So do those who willfully choose to walk down darkened paths.
Eventually they walk so far it is difficult to return and return cannot happen without aid. They sleep in death where there is no light. No hope. No peace.
The exist among the living, but their world is of the dead.
I've been exploring this since while writing from the Secret Keeper's POV I came across the term "sleeping in death" which is how he describes himself as being. I cannot find out how a person would wake up from such a state. It blew my mind when I realized that for the Secret Keeper to have a complete character development I couldn't get away with cheap things. He has a Darth Vader type metamorphosis. He goes from dark and everything that is dead and decaying to light and life.
It begins in the first book when a girl who represents the innocent in Twisted whispers the name his living soul was known by. As it is with those who walk down darkened paths. Names have power and when we can truly adhere to our names and leave old titles behind, we have mastered ourselves.