TL;DR at the bottom.

Hey all. I didn't think I'd have to drop this story, but I think it was only a matter of time before I had to.

First, let me start off by saying that I am sorry.

I am sorry I let you down by not giving this story a proper conclusion, even if I was rushing to end it prematurely. I know what it feels like to follow a story for so long and then find out the author dropped it. I didn't want to put you guys through that, the loyal readers who stuck around to the end.

Unfortunately, I just can't continue putting time, effort, and heartache into this anymore.

So far, the only thing that kept me going for months now is the fear of letting my readers, you guys, down. I truly, truly dread having to write another chapter. This is exasperated by the fact that this story's viewership has been reduced to a small fraction of what it once was. I started to feel like all the effort I've put in isn't worth much anymore, with user retention being so bad that less than even 5% of readers made it to the latest chapter. This story is dead, and so is my passion for writing it, no matter how much I wished otherwise.

Another issue is that my financial situation changed, and I can no longer afford to put time in a financially unproductive endeavor like this story. To put it into perspective; I could make what I earn as an author in an entire month with just 3 hours of minimum wage labor. And writing a single chapter takes me 2-4 hours at that.

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Finally, I am a computer science student with no internships, no projects, and no leetcode practice who is graduating soon. The job market is currently brutal from what I've heard, so I have to start rectifying my mediocre CV now. At the end of the day, I have to put food on the table, just like everyone else.

Once again, I am sorry that The Abyssal Enigma came to an abrupt end like this.

Now, I leave you with the answers to a few questions I see coming.

Will you come back and finish the story in the future?

Maybe, but not soon, and I don't recommend counting on it.

Will you start another story at some point?

Potentially, but once again, not anytime soon - if I manage to secure a job and can find the time and energy to write another story, I might just do so.

What was the planned ending for The Abyssal Enigma?

When I started writing this story, I did have a bunch of notes with ideas and directions to take the story and a vague idea for its ending. I had to scrap a lot of those ideas and to change the ending once I decided to move to end the story, so those two ended up quite different from each other. If you would like to ask about any of those, I'd be happy to tell you anything about that in the comments - just be sure to be specific!

The TL;DR is that I am dropping the story for three reasons - because the viewership declined sharply to nearly 500 viewers (4% viewer retention), because I am absolutely miserable writing each chapter, and because I am graduating soon and have to start working on my CV as a software developer.

Thank you so much for supporting me and reading The Abyssal Enigma. It's been a pleasure to read your encouraging comments.