Cast:

ALL IMAGES FROM GOOGLE

Nina (Nini) Jenay Montez:

Kathleen (Kathy) Anna Churchill:

Conor (Kierce) Kieran Carter:

Raymond Maylie:

Your friend, and the author of Hallucinations, Sophie.

Author's Note:

Hello, everyone! I'm so happy to have you here with me! I cannot believe I finished my first book! I started Hallucinations sometime during 8th grade and finished Hallucinations on the morning of Saturday, January 15th, 2022. My self-due date was March of 2022, but I ended up finishing two months ahead of schedule! I can't even remember what inspired me to start writing Hallucinations, but for whatever reason it was, I'm so glad it came to me! 

Nina is my favorite character in Hallucinations. There are too many reasons to explain why, I couldn't even write them down. I tried to incorporate some of my personal traits into her personality. Building her character was mainly from other female roles in books that I've enjoyed. I was really into watching the original High School Musical, and the show HSMTMTS. That's where Nina's name was inspired from. In the remake, Olivia Rodrigo plays Nina (Nini) Salazar-Roberts which is where I took her first name from. All I needed was a middle and last name. In the original, Vanessa Hudgens plays Gabriella Montez, which is where I took the last name from. Nina's middle name is Jenay and that I used from a friend's middle name. 

I can now back up Nina's fear of dentists. At first, it was just a common fear humans have that I put into this book, and now after a dentist appointment I had merely half an hour prior to writing this, the lady who was cleaning my teeth was pulling at my gums WAY TOO HARD, and I legit thought she was trying to hurt me on purpose. I counted one tear fall from my right eye. It was scary for me and I am typing this at FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. Moving on. 

It was really hard to let my characters go (Kathy, Raymond, and Nina) because they are such big parts in the story. And the emotional scenes... I don't know where I got that power from to type those words (I literally cried, as my fingers poured out the words that spelled out their deaths). I was devastated to see myself creating Nina's death, asking myself if I am sure this should be a part of Hallucinations. There were so many parts I had to consider that go into a story. The emotion. THE UNEXPECTED! THE HUMOR! Cue the: HAHAHAHAHAHA! 

I hate to admit that I had to use the internet to find the information about the flowers in the field outside the hospital, and was baffled when I made the trial set in the afternoon when a regular trial would always be set in the morning. Some of the things I had to search up were for good reason, like what order do trials go in, and I even used my own copy of The Book Thief to create the character of Death. Some of the events that happen in Hallucinations are based on my own experiences. Believe it or not, a lot of research went into this book.  I wanted to have the settings in this book be as real and relatable to Minneapolis, Minnnesota. The main troubles with this was how the hospital was researched. I actually had to recheck the location on Google Earth for the Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center - East Bank Hospital of Minneapolis, Minnesota. As I was writing this section of my Author's Note, I ran across the memory of not actually seeing a flower field or a marble bridge on the images I found of the hospital. A quick search on Google Earth confirmed that flashback. Nonetheless, there is no chance of me going back and changing that because I don't need the extra stress of getting a hospital location exactly correct, and as mentioned in the Preface/Rights Reserved; "This book is a work of fiction, regardless of the existing settings in Minneapolis, Minnesota and real life references. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of my imagination and are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events are remotely coincidental." End of story, goodbye, the end. 

I would be a terrible person if I didn't give credit to the people who deserve it because they are the people who have helped me along the way in the process of making this book. First, to the person who introduced me to the Wattpad app, who will remain nameless for their privacy. Without the discovery of Wattpad, my book would never have come this far. Thank you. A huge thank you to Benji, who conducted the EXCLUSIVE Roasts Review of my book. You have a very unique humor and I loved reading the Roasts Review while being equally insulted and CRYING from laughing. Also a HUGE thanks to Adrielle for awarding me fourth place in the 2023 Wattpad Gloria Regali Awards, and for the awesome feedback. Also, for helping me with recreating the Hallucinations book cover, AND the TRAILER for Hallucinations, they are both perfect, and just, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Thank you to Kari Hansen, the librarian at RHS who took up my offer of assisting me in editing my book, promoting the publication on social media, and physically publishing it, fresh and bound to the RHS library. That's more than I could have imagined for my Personal Project results.

Lastly, thank you to me, myself, and I. My brilliant brain that excels when it comes to literature (thanks, mom) helped me write this book. And, of course, thank you to my social media platforms where I promoted the publication of Hallucinations. Thank you to my followers on social media, and your support, and of course, thank you Wattpad for making this possible. Thank you, to Chet Davenport, for letting me use your name in this book as "the cheeto", which I came up with during Intermediate Algebra in freshman year. Also, tank you *inside joke* to my friend Emmett, for letting me use your dog's name, Zelda, in the court scene. You are the BEST PERSON! *Saved My Life starts playing* (My song for you, déjà vu). I am going to miss you when you go off to college.

Thank you. Yes, you. For reading this. Every word your eyes scanned over, and every part you clicked to, brought you to these final words. To this final part. Whoever you are, you are awesome. And you have made an average girl feel special because you have just finished reading her book. You have made me very happy, thank you for that.  

I hope you enjoyed Hallucinations, and I look forward to your feedback! Thank you for your support! 

Much love, a friend, and the author of this book, Sophie

Well, here I am. A Sophomore in December of 2022/January of 2023, about a year since Hallucinations was published on the morning of Saturday, January 15th, 2022. Looking back through and reading this book has shown myself that YES, my writing skills have INDEED IMPROVED since I was 14, in 8th and 9th grade. If you enjoyed this book, please check out the sequel Hallucinations 2 in this two-book series! ALSO: This book will be physically published to my High School's library in March!!!! - Sophie