So I was explaining to my friend the other day about the book I'm reading. It's a crime novel, like the normal sort of genre I read, yet this one is really quite dark. It's told from the point of view of a young boy who finds a victim of a child serial killer, and how that and other events that occur shape his life. Sometimes it feels too troubled for me to read. Like I'm dippping into someone's mind who's slightly off kilter but through no fault of his own. Sometimes there are words or phrases that really hit home to me. That no matter where or what period of time this novel is set, what it is saying is somehow relevent to my viewpoint on the world right now.

I've never been affected by a book like this before. I've been engrossed, I've been infatuated. I've felt connected to other people through their writing and somehow been relieved. Good or bad, you're not the only one thing think these things, feel these things and it makes you feel less alone. But I've never wanted to see how something ends so badly and yet be too afraid to pick it up to find out.

My friend said she hated books that tell you how a person is thinking. That she has enough problems of her own to get too absorbed in someone else's. I know that sometimes, it is unhealthy.

I've known a few people in my time who've suffered from mental illnesses. Depression, manic depression, mental breakdowns. It still amazes me how others surrounding the victims never talk about it, as though its a secret told only in whispers. It happened to a school friend when I was 17 and no one ever told us anything. We kept in touch even through the dark times, but I never knew her after that, not really. And like the others I've met since, we rarely speak anymore.

In every person since then, I can see it when I meet others the same. Like a vaccine detecting a virus. Alarm bells go off and you treat them differently to others in order to protect yourself.

I heard a theory once, how all were born innocent. That evil is like a virus you can catch when you're vulnerable. Then one day a stresser - a broken relationship, a death, unemployment - can make you susceptible to this evil and allow a good person to change. My innocent friend doesn't always understand how such evil can exist in the world, how some people can do the things they do. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I will say that although I don't accept it, I can sometimes understand it - how certain people can do things so unforgivable and yet still have a reason behind it. No matter how little sense it makes or what trivial reasons. She will look at me and ask how I know such things. I merely tell her that it's the ones without rhyme or reason that we have to worry about.

She doesn't watch horror films with me anymore...