Wow, it was difficult to write those words in the title of this post, difficult, but it was also a great relief. Often times we struggle to let things go that mean so much to us. I have been writing this story on and off since the fall of 2011 and Don’t Feed The Dark has been a significant part of my writing life since then. I have learned a great many things about my writing ability in that time and have grown as a writer during this long serial novel process. I have grown to love these flawed characters and have enjoyed the journey of watching them fail or persevere through this ever so dark fictional world that they have inherited. But more than that, because this was a serial novel, it’s been great getting to share this story in progress with you, readers, as the story advanced, and hear your thoughts on various characters and where they were headed.

This year, as many of you know, has been an incredibly challenging year in our ‘real’ world. Every time I sat back down to start Book Seven of DFTD, something would come up in the world around me that would make me stop, look at it, and say, “What has happened to our world?” And often, the follow up question was, “Can this get any worse?” I don’t have to elaborate on that, I’m sure you’ve all been struggling with your own questions that have come out of this year.

Anyway, every time I purposed to sit back down and resume DFTD, I found myself distracted by the world around us and could not start writing again. What was supposed to be the Book Seven premiere in the spring got pushed back to summer, and now it’s already the end of the year… where did all the time go?

So, without getting into some real long boring history of my life, I’ll just say that prior to my commitment to this story starting back in 2011, I had made a commitment to God years before when I gave my life to Jesus Christ and was born again (man, that was like, twenty + years ago). I’m not going to preach at you, but I had a reached a point in my life recently where I felt beat down, wore out, confused, discouraged, and disheartened by everything around me, especially this year. I had no peace. I had no joy. And I certainly had no room in my headspace for writing. I had a moment of clarity recently where I turned my eyes upward to God and honestly said, “God, I’ve had enough. This world is too much. I’m exhausted trying to just ‘get by’ doing everything the world’s way. There’s so much anger and so much fear and so much hopelessness all around me right now… and I need your help.” And then I remembered my original commitment to Jesus and the joy I had when he found me in my previous mess of a life. The solution from there was so simple and so clear to me at that point. So, I drew a proverbial line in the sand and told God that I would give it all up just to have him back and do my part in trying to add a little light to this world. I’m not going to get into what God’s done for me since reaffirming that original commitment, but I will say, I have never experienced so much joy on a daily basis, so much clarity, and so much peace. It’s like, all He was doing, was waiting for me to invite him back into my life, and he jumped all over the opportunity.

Thus, that is why, unfortunately, this part of my life must end. Don’t Feed The Dark was taking me away from my God and I have vowed to let nothing… and I mean nothing… get in between myself and God again. I’ve lived the last twenty years struggling to get by in this world and I’m done struggling.

And at this point, someone out there, or maybe many of you reading this are shaking your heads in disappointment because, like myself, you also were invested in this story as a reader. I am aware of this and it’s because of all of you and my commitment to writing this story, that I’ve struggled to let this go. But God is calling me back and I must oblige. Don’t Feed The Dark, as well as many other things in my life, have kept me from my relationship with Him… and I can no longer neglect that commitment, that relationship. So all I can say, faithful or part-time readers of this long story, is that I’m truly sorry I could not finish this. There were two books left in this series that easily could’ve taken the next two years to write, and I just don’t have it within me anymore to continue this project. The world is in pain and there are a lot of people without hope. I need to let God lead me into helping them with everything I can offer, including my writing.

Without getting into any spoilers for anyone who hasn’t finished Book Six, I will say that I feel better about walking away from this knowing that I will leave this story the way it ended at the conclusion of Book Six. A lot of the big stuff was resolved and there is some sense of closure and a happy reunion after so much darkness.

For those of you who are upset with me, and rightfully so, again, I am sorry. If you wish to vent in the comments feel free to do so, I deserve it. But know that I don’t walk away from this easily, and that I was way more invested than any of you in this story. I feel your pain. What I will try to do for all of you who need to know what ‘would’ve happened’, at that conclusion of this long update, I will give you the snapshot summary of where this was headed, or at least, as much as I know right now. That way, you can at least have something closer to a finish… but you will have to use your own imagination to fill in the blanks. Again, I’m sorry. But that’s the best I can offer.

As for the rest of you who understand, and even those of you who are pissed at me, thanks for sharing in this journey. These six books have been a blast and I hope, finished or not, that it was still worth reading. Thanks for all the encouragement along the way and for sharing in this journey with me into the Dark.

But that’s enough darkness…

I’ll finish by saying that I hope you and your families find peace through these tough, uncertain times, and I will be praying for all of you. May the God of peace, love and joy find a way into all of your hearts. In Jesus name, Amen. (Sorry, had to preach a little… lol.)

Thanks again for sharing this fictional journey with me. If anyone has any questions about the story or about anything else related to my decision to leave it, feel free to ask away and I will endeavor to answer them. Again, I will be summarizing as much as I know about the final two books in this series below and I hope that helps.

-S. Scherr.

~~~~~~~~~~

(THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS ALL MY NOTES AND THOUGHTS FOR THE FINAL TWO BOOKS IN THIS SERIES. THIS GOES WITHOUT SAYING, HEAVY SPOILER TERRITORY)

It’s very strange talking to you about the stories I’d intended to write so just keep in mind, as I have often found out in the actual writing, there are always twists and turns that I never expect but welcome whenever I release these characters upon the pages. But tentatively, here is what I know.

Book Seven: The Prophet

This book would have started roughly two to four months after the conclusion of Book Six. It would have been right around the anniversary date of the initial outbreak and the first chapter, which was intended to be a long launching point chapter for several stories, was going to be called ‘Anniversary’.

The chapter starts out jumping around from character to character, as the community is preparing for an anniversary celebration to honor those who have survived and bonded together after the outbreak. This chapter was going to serve as shapshots through each character of this much larger community that Orosco hinted about which is a combination of ‘Mother’ rebels, mainly in charge of the military aspects of the community, and a civilian part, which is governed by a committee of leaders, including Orosco and Stephen (no surprise there). The community itself, Roaming Shores, was a private community before the outbreak, comprised of expensive resort homes surrounding a massive lake. There is a wall of some kind surrounding the town, and there is also another ‘Mother’ compound, a massive one, beneath the lake itself, that the Mother Rebels are keeping a strict guard over. The rest of community of survivors, living in the topside homes are working side by side with the Mother Rebels, but there is tension and distrust between these two factions. Stephen and Orosco try their best to keep the peace while all of them work together to deal with the bigger threats that are coming. A lot of the inner workings of this community were intended to be Orosco and Stephen’s primary story and they would be firmly fixed in the community through Book Seven while others were preparing to embark on missions away from the community.

Diane and Nine would have been part of the scouting party assigned to spy and keep tabs on the horde that have gone dormant again in New Cleveland.

Sergeant Hash was intended to be resuming his soldier role and working close with the Mother Rebels, primarily made up of soldiers and scientists who broke away from Mother at the rebellion. He was intended to be Stephen’s ‘eyes’ to keep an eye on what the Mother Rebels were up to and report back to the civilian side what they were hiding in this mysterious underwater facility.

As for Logan, he started a church. And while tending his flock of believers preparing for the ‘dark days that were coming’, he becomes a father figure to Megan, who is shunned by most of the community for being a half-dead.

Megan, though maintaining control of her ‘dead’ side, is physically deteriorating and looking more and more like the dead, though she remains herself on the inside. Aside from Logan, who fiercely protects her, and Stephen, who refuses to let the people banish her, she doesn’t have much support and is despised by the living and the dead. She is an outcast to both worlds. She has strong ties with Logan, Meredith, and Stephen after their experience together confronting the First One, Sylvia, who was also Nicole. I had big plans for Megan in the days ahead, and she was going to be the next ‘Meredith’, as far as her latent powers were concerned. While having that connection with Meredith, she also had strong ties with Stephen because of Nicole, and because of her own feeling for him. As for her ties to Logan, they’ve build a strong bond together and she stays close to him, helping with his church efforts. During this time, there are rumors of a mysterious ‘Prophet’ who is apparently leading a group, a rather large group of half-deads like herself, and everyone in Roaming Shores is concerned about what this will mean. It’s during this time that Megan tells Logan that she wants to go find this prophet, and that maybe being around others like herself, she might find her place in this dark world. Logan agrees and decides to go with her to find this prophet. After informing Stephen and Orosco of their intent, the community agrees that they should go… and thus, their story begins.

Meanwhile, Gina, though living in the community, is living in the furthest house she can find away from everyone else. By this point everyone has shared everything that’s happened with each other and she’s wrestling not only with her need to be isolated, but she also fears what will happen if she turns back to that nomadic existence. On top of that, her guilt for Meredith, the loss of their original community, and her brief leadership over the Mother recruits weighs on her. She feels betrayed by Marcus, Clementine, and just about everything else that was happening under her nose that she was unaware of. During this time, she is also struggling with the ‘secret’ that Meredith spoke to her about before her death, that she has kept to herself. Needless to say, Gina is overwhelmed. During this time, Tony and her have drawn close again, not in the old intimate way, but in a new way since they both have gone through a lot of darkness. Tony is also struggling with where he fits in the grand scheme of things and knows that Gina is also struggling. He suspects that she is planning to go after Marcus and the Shadow Dead (relying once more on her anger and need for vengeance), and she eventually confesses and they decide to go after Marcus together. Of course, Tony also needs to confront Alyssa, and eventually admits to Gina, with much guilt, that he has feelings for the strange Shadow Dead warrior. This creates a new bond of openness between Tonya and Gina as they also gain the community’s blessing to gather intel on the Shadow Dead. Thus, starting their adventure. I’ll talk about Gina’s ‘secret’ a little later.

Okay, get ready.

When Logan and Megan find this mysterious prophet, we then discover that he is none other than Charlie (remember Charlie? All the way back from Book Three?) This begins a rather long backstory explaining what became of Charlie after Micom saved him from the Mother topside camp when the maniac ‘god-machine’ Micolad exploded. What I know is that Charlie and Micom run into a very nasty group who kill Micom and are about to kill Charlie, but then a young outspoken half-dead woman saves him and brings him back to her small group of half-dead survivors. This back story intended to tell how Charlie changed from vengeance seeking A-hole, believing that Gina and everyone else perished in that explosion, into something entirely when he had an opportunity to save this small group of half-deads with his ‘voice power’ over the dead. He slowly falls in love with the half-dead woman who saved him and together start to believe that his mission is to rule the half-deads in this crazy world out to destroy her kind. So Charlie goes from vengeance seeker to developing a savior complex and starts gathering as many half-deads as he can find, saving them from the savage yellow-eyed haters and the rest of the dead that despise the half-deads. This story would’ve have concluded with Megan and Logan finding him, and since neither of them ever met Charlie, they would have developed a strange relationship with each other, believing that they were all on in the same page, well, Logan would have suspected something was wrong, but would have stayed close to Megan, who was buying right into Charlie’s doctrine. Charlie eventually would’ve have come in contact with the Roaming Shores community and then realized that his old enemies were still alive! Can you imagine that clash? Anyway, in a strange twist of fate, The Roaming Shores survivors would have formed an unusual alliance with Charlie’s large group of half-deads as the massive horde at New Cleveland started to wake. And of course, Charlie would have reunited with Gina in a very ackward way since they were now on the same side… that would have been a lot of fun to write.

Meanwhile, the second backstory, titled “Mother’s Hand”, would have shown Marcus’s rise to power among what remained of the Shadow Dead after Alysa took him there. After Clementine’s death, Alysa’s position among them would have been very fragile, especially after Marcus started winning favor among them, and she quickly decides to flee before they all kill her. She ends up running into Gina and Tony before they get there and the three of them, form another uneasy alliance as they return to Roaming Shores to discuss The Shadow Dead now run by Marcus!

That would have essentially ended Book Seven, setting up the beginning of a massive war that was about to blow involving the survivors at Roaming Shores, Charlie’s ‘Prophet Community’, The Shadow Dead, and the yellow-eyed hater horde in New Cleveland. Can you imagine?

Book Eight: The Last Ones

This final book in the series would have been very face-paced as the war would’ve commenced with all sorts of twists and turns.

A major element in this final story would have brought to light the workings of the First Ones, those six demons or ‘lions’ that Meredith originally released into our world before The Change (which she was also inadvertently responsible for causing). Since Toby was already dealt with by Meredith and one of the First Ones, Sylvia, a.k.a. Nicole, near the end of Book Six, that just left what the remaining six, now five since Sylvia/Nicole was gone, had been up to in the years they’ve been secretly at work in our world.

Of the five First Ones remaining, we’ve already identified two of them. The mysterious Taven who has a unique ‘foresight’ into future events and has been manipulating circumstances and people behind the scenes. The other is the one referred to as The Alpha Zombie, who is now in charge of the massive horde in New Cleveland. We already know that Sylvia/Nicole was the sixth. So that just left three to reveal. Okay, so one of them was with Charlie, explaining how he had has strange abilities. And another was with Marcus/Russell, and perhaps one of the deadliest of the six. So that just left one more that I had not identified yet… but I have strongly suspected that it was Gina (crazy right?) But I can’t confirm that since neither Book Seven nor Book Eight has been written. But knowing what I know as the writer, it makes sense.

Everything gets a bit vague from here, but I know the war is huge, and there are huge losses on both sides. I know that the good guys win and that is largely in part to Megan who has become the new Meredith. In fairness to my characters I won’t speculate on who I believe survived all the way to the end, and who perished, but I will say that Nine and Diane make it to the end of the series, carrying on the torch of hope and love, and in sense, having together what Tony and Gina could not. I’ve always imagined the very end of this series, showing the two of them on some beach living out Gina and Tony’s dream. And that’s all I can say about that.

After the war, there is one more enemy to face, which brings me to Gina’s secret. Meredith became aware, somewhere down in the caverns in Book Six, that she inadvertently released a second wave of lions into our world–The Second Change. Events caused in Elsewhere don’t adhere to the rules of time in their world so this second releasing of the lions could happen anytime… and Meredith knew this. Meredith kept this secret until her death because she didn’t know what to do with it. The implications were great and could mean the end of humanity. She felt it was important to tell someone near her death, so she chose Gina to bear that load.

Near the end of the series, after the war, there are signs that it’s upon them, and she tells whoever is left that a Second Change is coming. The rest of Book Eight is our survivors preparing for another random event where anyone could turn. And that is as far as I got in the planning. The rest I must leave to your imaginations and my own speculations.

I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a more a complete outline of the end, but I’ve never adhered to outlines, leaving room for these characters to surprise me as well as you. That has always been how I’ve approached this series and have tried to keep these characters believable and unpredictable.

Again, I’m sorry I could not complete this series. Hopefully this gives you enough to wonder what might have happened and give these characters a good ending in your thoughts.

As for me, I will sit with Diane and Nine on that beach every now and then and ponder with them what happened before and after.

Farewell,

-Scott