The true story behind the creation

of the Journey Eternal Series

To my beloved readers, wherever – and whenever – you may be,

There are those who seem destined for authorship. They grow up surrounded by books, drawn naturally to language, storytelling, and the quiet architecture of grammar that holds meaning together. I was not one of them.

For much of my life, I was—by all reasonable measures—no one of consequence. I preferred movies to novels, games to pages, and I regarded reading as little more than an obligation to be avoided. In school, I lacked not the ability to succeed in English, but the will. My book reports were, without exception, carefully assembled fabrications—stitched together from opening chapters, closing summaries, and whatever fragments I could gather elsewhere. (For that, Miss Daniels, I owe a long-overdue apology.)

Even now, I struggle to fully comprehend the extent of what I denied myself during those years. But it is the truth.

If you are wondering what changed, the answer is not as dramatic as one might hope—at least, not at first. For a long time, nothing did. By the time I had become an author—though I would not yet call myself one—I had read exactly one book: The Hobbit, assigned when I was fourteen. I chose it only because it seemed the least like schoolwork, and once I finished it, I returned to my life unchanged, convinced that reading would remain a brief and isolated detour.

I was wrong.

Years later, in 2012, I found myself running a successful graphic design business. By all outward measures, I was doing well—better than I ever had before or since. The work came easily, the income steadily. But something within me had begun to erode.

Each day, I created. Each day, I delivered. Each day, I was paid. And each day, I felt increasingly hollow. No matter the success, I could not escape the growing sense that everything I was building—and everything I was building upon—lacked substance. It felt as though something essential had been forgotten, not just by me, but by the world itself.

Eventually, that quiet unrest became unbearable. I walked away from it all without a plan, without direction—only the certainty that I could not continue as I had been.

What followed was not a gentle transition.

I will spare you the finer details, but in short order I lost nearly everything. I had no permanent place to live. I endured winter nights in a tent, hoping the weight of snow would not bring it down around me. I survived through a patchwork of means—donating plasma, seeking shelter where I could, speaking when necessary, enduring when there was no other option. It was a life reduced to its barest form.

And yet, outwardly, I remained composed. I had always been observant—skilled, perhaps, in the subtle art of appearing whole. I said the right things. I listened when I should. I offered guidance where it was needed. To many, I was steady, capable, even admirable. They did not see the truth—that I no longer wished to exist.

Then, one night, everything changed.

While adjusting to a new medication, I made the mistake of drinking. What followed was a seizure—sudden, violent, and unforgiving. I collapsed, striking my head against a stone wall. When I woke, it was not to clarity, but to consequence. The damage was real, measurable. My brain, I was told, would need to relearn itself. Memory, personality, perception—none of it was guaranteed to remain intact.

At first, I dismissed the warnings. I could not afford to believe them. But in time, their accuracy revealed itself. My memory fractured. My sense of self shifted. I withdrew from others, from the world, from the person I had once been. It was disorienting, isolating—and irreversible.

And then, something unexpected began. I started to dream.

Not the fleeting, indistinct kind, but the same dream, returning again and again. I stood on a road I did not recognize, beside two individuals I had never met—yet somehow knew. There was the unmistakable feeling that we had traveled together, that something had already happened, that something still lay ahead. But I could not remember how I had arrived there, nor why I remained.

The dream persisted. It called to me.

In an effort to preserve it—to hold onto something in a mind that no longer held things easily—I began to write it down. What I expected to be a simple act of documentation became something else entirely. The words did not come slowly. They arrived in a rush—insistent, unrelenting. Hours would pass unnoticed as I tried to capture what I had seen, what I had felt, what I somehow knew. For the first time in my life, I experienced something I can only describe as purpose.

From there, the path unfolded.

I acquired a small, worn eReader from a thrift store and carried it with me everywhere. What began as a fragment—barely more than a few thousand uncertain words—grew into something far larger than I had intended or understood. My first attempt to share it was, by most standards, a failure. But it led me to someone who would change everything.

Sephara entered my life not as a coincidence, but as a turning point. She saw value where I had seen none, helped shape what I had begun, and, more importantly, helped me rebuild a life I had nearly abandoned. She encouraged me to read—to truly read—and through that, an entirely new world opened to me.

Now, as I write this, the work has grown into something substantial—something real. The first volume stands complete, with more already waiting beyond it. For the first time, I can look upon something I have created and feel… pride.

The book you hold—whether you have finished it or are only just beginning—was not written by someone trained for this path. It was not crafted under ideal conditions, nor guided by expertise or recognition. It was written in fragments of borrowed time and difficult places. It was written in cold and in exhaustion, in uncertainty and in persistence. But it is honest. It is genuine. And it carries with it everything I had to give.

Whatever becomes of it—whether it finds success or fades quietly into obscurity—it has already given me something invaluable. It has given me direction. It has given me meaning.

And it is my deepest hope that, in some way, it provides you with something as well.

Thank you—for reading, for your time, and for walking even a small part of this path with me.

Welcome to the Journey Eternal.

Forever your humble and devoted servant,

Daphne R. Virden