But I also ask you to remember the bad times, the dark times. These are the times when there were no friends to comfort you. Family seemed detached. Or maybe they were there, trying their hardest to help you, but they couldn’t get through all the pain and sorrow. Remember those times when you felt your heart had been cut so much that the scars that formed as a result coated your heart in a feelingless, tough layer of resistance.

Why do I ask you to remember these things? Why do I ask you to recall moments that may have never happened to you, or dig up the painful ones that did? What am I trying to do to you, oh dear and precious reader of mine?

I press my finger upon the very fabric of my characters, until their soul is opened up to you. I press so hard that some of them die from the force. I tear open their chest and expose their beating heart. I pierce their skulls and show you their mind. Why violate them that way? Why do I want you to see that?

Because I want you to see that you are that character. Every character. The good one, the evil one. The one who refuses to help, and the one who leaps to action. You are them, and they are you. And I am also you, my dear reader. I want you to see what they see, because it is what I see, and I want you to see what I see because I want you to understand me. But I don’t want to merely convince you, I don’t want to simply force you to believe what I believe. I want to open myself to you, tear open my chest and pierce my skull so that you my see my heart and mind, and maybe in these words you will see also my soul. I want us to understand each other. I want you to understand me, but more importantly, I want to understand you.