The Dawn of Shadow: An Inspiring and Emotional Novel

By Karol Lynne

Step into the tumultuous world of Ashley Inkwell, a girl whose very existence is shadowed by the grip of depression.

In "The Dawn of Shadow," embark on an emotional journey as Ashley navigates the complexities of loss, identity, and the relentless battle against her own mind.

Following the tragic loss of her

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karol Lynne
• Release date: Dec 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9786090803882

Book preview

1. The Cutting Board

Some say that depression is a state of mind, a mental disorder, a shadow that creeps over a person and destroys them from within. For me, depression was my life. Not in the sense that I only focused on the worst aspects of my life, but that I literally didn’t have a single thing to live for anymore – pretty much everything in my life sucked. Everything lost color, and I was living in a black and white tragedy.

I never thought I’d end up in a state of depression that horrible ever again. I was sitting on the floor next to my bed, bawling my eyes out. I didn’t think I would have a single tear left in my body after that day. I had always been sensitive and always wore my emotions on my sleeve, but that day something different clicked the cry out your insides button inside my head. I was off the rails.

I have never cried so much in my life, not even at my father’s funeral, which was a while ago. I thought I left all this sorrow and guilt in the past, locked away in a cage whose key I swallowed, stomached and turned into acid. But it turned out that I didn’t.

I wiped away the salty tears that were running down my hot red cheeks and tried to compose myself by breathing deeply.

It didn’t work. I was still shaking.

I couldn’t look at my arms without being disgusted with myself. They were mangled and ugly. They were cut up like an old butcher’s cutting board. The cuts looked like initials carved into a tree. The red horizontal lines were so close next to each other, that if a person with a blurry vision saw them, they would think that I had tattooed my arms red, or that I was wearing a shirt with red sleeves – it was that bad.

The cuts looked like thin red leeches that were sucking the life out of me.

I felt angry at myself, furious. I promised my mother that I was going to stay strong, and I wasn’t going to let my dark thoughts take over me and force me to harm my body or my brain. But I couldn’t keep that promise, I broke it.

I felt mad at myself that I started to feel weak again and completely gave up. I could bet that if I was feeling even worse, which I don’t think was possible, I would have killed myself. The fact that my own thoughts would lead me to the grave just made want to start punching the walls and break everything around me. Thankfully, I was too weak to start smashing stuff.

My mother was going to be very disappointed in me yet again, and that was going to hurt way more than a shard of glass on my skin. I tried not to cause her any more pain, and I tried keeping all of my problems to myself. Suffering alone was hard, but at least I wasn’t harming the people around me.

She has lived through so much in the past couple of years, just like me, and I just couldn’t be another factor of her hardship. We both lost so much in such a small amount of time.

Also, I didn’t want to look like I was desperate for attention from her. She loved me and paid as much attention to me as she could while also having time for two jobs at two different diners that were pretty far away from one another. We both needed time to process things, and I guess she got through it a little easier than I did.

Or maybe she was just suffering way more than I could ever imagine, and she was just hiding everything from me. It was hard to tell, because she always looked fine. But who knows, maybe at home she pretended that she got over everything, but on her way to work she may have been bawling her eyes out, and I just had no clue about it. Or possibly her pain was eternal and quiet as a mouse. Whatever the case was, I wished that I could compose myself as well as she could and stop doing stupid things to myself.

My mum already had to deal with the same situation before, with me harming myself. I tried to conceal my arms, but since I was younger and dumber, it obviously didn’t work out. I was taking out the trash from the kitchen and as I was going out the front door to reach the dumpster, I realized I was only wearing a short-sleeved shirt that exposed my mangled arms to the world. How did I not think to put on a long-sleeved article of clothing? I had no fucking idea. The scars weren’t that bad compared to what I recently did, but they still were bright as red neon signs on my arms. I tried to quickly run to my room before she could see me, but just as I was about to turn around, I saw my mother standing right in front of me with her arms crossed and tears in her eyes. She was staring at my arms and didn’t say a word. I could just feel how disappointed she was.

I tried to move past her, but she blocked my way and kept looking me in the eyes with a look I never thought could break my heart so slowly and painfully.

Sweetie pie, she sobbed. What did you do to yourself? she asked while wiping away her tears. Her face looked like she wanted to say much more to me, but I think she just didn’t feel strong enough to let any other words from her mouth. Did I do something wrong? Talk to me, baby, she cried.

I didn’t have the power to answer her, and I just quickly brushed past her and ran to my room. I was so pissed at myself that I let my mother see what I did to myself. I put a pillow to my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs. I was possessed by the fury and guilt that only I created and was responsible for. I couldn’t blame anyone else, but I wanted to. I knew that it wouldn’t be right, but I just couldn’t believe my stupidity. I was overwhelmed, and I stayed in a state of shock for a while. I paced around my room and panicked. From that moment, I was not the only one with scars. Mine were on my skin, but my mother's – they were eternal.

Ashley, please, talk to me, sweetie, she cried while trying to open my bedroom door that I locked once I entered inside.

Mom, I’m so sorry! I yelled at her while rivers of salty, hot tears were dropping to the floor one by one.

That day was so exhausting and horrible, and it was all because of me. I will never forget it. Every week since then, my mother would check my arms for scars. She wanted to make sure I was doing okay. And honestly, I couldn’t blame her for it. It’s all been fine for the past three months, I hadn’t touched my arms with anything sharp and didn’t even think about it. But, eventually, what comes up must come down.

And there I was. Deep down in the pit of self-hatred.

I felt so embarrassed and furious for letting my dumb thoughts get the best of me. I just couldn’t even think about how my mom was going to react to the scars on my skinny, pale arms. I thought about cutting them off, but that would have been too much work, you know what I mean?

I had to stop thinking about what happened in the past and what could potentially happen in the future, so I tried getting up from the floor so that I could fix the situation. I stood up too fast and my vision got blurry and I felt a little dizzy, but that wasn’t new.

I knew the reason for my dizziness was me not eating enough. I ate regularly, but there were times when I wouldn’t eat anything for days and become weaker. That and self-harming was not a great combination.

Great job, idiot, - I thought.

A tear slid down my face and landed on the floor.

I thought about how much would I have to cry for me to be able to drown myself in my tears. What a way to go.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how my mother will react, I just couldn’t get that thought out of my head. She was my world and I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to relive the chaos and those emotions ever again. But I had to. It was my punishment for being a dumbass.

I slowly walked to my bedroom door and opened it as quietly as possible. I had to be slick, quiet, and quick, because my mom was just around the corner, cooking, and the chances of her catching me looking like a literal zombie were massive. I couldn’t fuck it up.

Once I safely reached the bathroom, I locked myself in and headed to the sink. I turned the tap and let the ice-cold water wash away the blood. I watched the red liquid go down the drain and let out a few tears that joined its journey down to the sewers.

After I finished washing away the blood off my arm, I lightly padded with a towel to dry it. It was hard, because the dry fabric touching my fresh cuts hurt like hell. It was hard to stay quiet while drying my hand, but I got through it. I tossed the towel into the washing machine, hoping that it will get washed, and the blood will be unnoticed.

I hated seeing my arm look like a freshly used butcher’s cutting board, but what I hated even more was my reflection looking back at me. The girl on the other side of the mirror looked rough.

A tired girl with puffy red eyes and oily black hair was staring at me through the cracked mirror. She looked awful, and no amount of makeup or ice-cold water could have fixed her face.

I turned on the faucet and tried washing my face with the ice-cold water, but it didn’t do much, so I just went with it, since I had no other choice. If my mom was going to ask me if I felt okay, I would have said yes. That way, I would have a chance to get away with what I did.

I stared into my reflection a little longer and admired my hazel eyes that I got from my father. I was glad I got such a cool feature from him, but what I did hate was the pain I got from losing him. It was the day before his two-year anniversary of his death, and just the thought of that threw me into a spiral. The one-year anniversary was hard enough, but the two-year one, for some reason, was much harder. Maybe I was just realizing more and more that I couldn't live without him? I couldn’t let him go, I just didn’t have the powers to.

If I kept hurting myself like that, we could have possibly had the same date of death. That would have been nice, because we would be twinning, but that’s just a sinister though that made feel sick in the stomach. My sarcasm was sometimes way too dark. I could never do that to mum.

I was obliged to stay strong for my mother. She had been in so much pain as well, but she still managed to make sure I was okay. She really was my superhero. She loved me like I was the only other person in the world with her. I needed to return the same love to her.

I want to say that I loved her as much as she did me, but I can’t. It would be a lie. If I actually loved her like