✘ world summary

[citygrit]

The world takes place far enough into a post-apocalyptic future that the date doesn’t even really matter to Alexander, as one is never given. There are hints of it, though. While there are remains of preexisting cities (Boston, for instance, is still around), most of the civilization as you know it is degraded into a pitiable state of existence.

The Plagues
2127: Sometime during the events of what had once been called The Long Winter, a plague had reemerged, wrecking much of the global population. No one knew where the plague had originated from, though in truth it came from a small village in Ireland, called Hartlone Hollow.

In between here, the timeline relevant to the Seraphim story takes place, including The Long Winter and...

The Winter Revolution
2153: Events of Seraphim Descent.

But that is another story. No, it literally belongs to another series. Derp.

The Collapse
2199: Seventy-two years after the Plagues hit, and forty-six years after the Winter Revolution, the system was met with a total cataclysm. In spite of the best efforts of the Winter Revolution nearly five decades ago, the inevitable nuclear winter brought everything back to zero. This incident not only fell ruin to most of the world’s numbers by sickness and disease, but insanity as well, thanks to the virus the Plagues left behind.

Most of the aforementioned people — including the homeless — were thrown into Basins, to keep them out of what civilized society remained. But this only made matters worse when the disease began to spread, and the country became isolated. There was very little to no contact with the outside world, with the exception of those who enlisted into what remained of the crumbling government.

Another effect the Collapse brought about were rapid shifts of the environment. Many cities that once flourished are now buried in ashes and ruin. With that, a desert was formed, creating the largest wasteland that blanketed North America: The Wudeliguhi Desert. The heat there became so intense that skin cancer within hours of exposure was an applicable risk when venturing out into the desert unprotected, where it reached as hot as one-hundred-fifty degrees. The desert is literally uninhabitable.

The Wudeliguhi stretches from the edge of Louisiana, to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South and the edge of North Carolina. Along with the Plagues, the desert itself wiped out several small towns and a few cities. Among them were Constance, Third Hope, Rubia, Snakeroot, and Progress. Other cities such as Ophelia, on the other hand, remain safe from the Wudeliguhi, but because it still remains on the border of the desert it still is somewhat affected by the Collapse.

Technology of any sort that existed before the Collapse became known as Old Technology. During this time, technology had been highly advanced, ranging between Links to devices that can cause a radio signal to beam down, and make a conversation between you and anyone else private (think of it as a privacy curtain, only more like a bubble). Due to air pollution it became more and more difficult to send signals up into the space satellites. Over time, smog began to muck up radio signals. To make matters worse, some leftover “space junk” passed by in the atmosphere, knocking some of the satellites out of orbit and were lost for good. Since the Plagues and air pollution, nobody had been able to recover the satellites, or send more up there.

The Ophelian Riots (c. 38)
The year is actually 2237, but after the Collapse reset everything, the date became unknown. This was the year in which the Ophelian Riots became known as a rebellion that stretched out for a good fifty years (ending in c. 94). The Riots were and mostly led by John Jerusalem (later, Alexander Wolfgang contributed). Along with them and a group of other Ophelians, they brought down the government that created the system via destruction and anarchy.

John Jerusalem played a key role in Ophelia. Some said that he sold his soul to the Devil, but his story is far less simple as that. In return for immortality, John Jerusalem surrendered his freedom to a supernatural entity known as the Genesis. The Genesis was one of a handful of entities that dwelt between realities.

Society itself has been divided into “Pillars”, although for the most part the kind of world Alexander lives in is more of an anarchist one, struggling to maintain any form of government after the Ophelian Riots. Alexander, once of an upstanding Noble family, had become nothing more than an Ophelian dog.

The Ophelian Uprising (c. 328)
The year is actually 2527 when this shit goes down. Just the downfall of society as the world knew it. Big culture and class divide among the people. Nothing big. Not at all.

The Entities
In this universe, these are forces that work behind the scenes. At one point, they were a whole, a power that one might consider to be God. They resided in a limbo state, called Edom. Since the fall of humanity (i.e. Adam and Eve), the Tree of Knowledge that sustained the universe became tainted, and later turned into the Blood Tree. It required a sacrifice from a cursed bloodline. There would be no warning, no rhyme or reason to when the Blood Tree required flesh, so the Entity created the Reapers. More on this later.

The Sacraments were a sacrificial ritual carried out by a cursed bloodline. The victims would be taken from their lives on Earth, and dragged into Edom. There, they are hung spread eagle on a cross, where the Reaper would usually commence tearing out their eyes and disemboweling them. It is part of the ritual to keep the victim alive during all of this, until their blood is split into the Dead Tree. It’s until their blood is split into the tree when the ritual is over, killing the victim, and feeding them to the dead.

A cursed victim will develop a mark at one point in their life, called the "God Scar". Most of the time, it develops as a faint spot on their left shoulder, and darkens the closer it is time for them to be sacrificed. Toward the end, the scar grants the victim great pain and a number of hallucinations.

The Reaper
The Reapers are reincarnated souls, born from the Blood Tree, and are the second oldest beings next to the Entity. They typically represent once-living people, and as such, carry tho memories of their past lives. What the Entity had in mind when it came to the Reapers was that to truly be able to handle the dead, you had to have died yourself. You had to experience the same amount of pain the souls you carry, thus greatening the burden. Reapers have just about as much, if not greater power than the Entity itself, as they are the ones forced to carry out the Sacraments.

Because of this, the Entity put a limit to their lifespan, allowing only one Reaper to be born per generation.

In the novel, the current Reaper is a woman named Ravine, who was once a Babylonian prophet under King Nebuchadnezzar II. Unlike the many Reapers before her, however, Ravine managed to survive many of the Sacraments that should have killed her along with the victim. This is because she usually casts them to the dead before the victims are killed. Effective, but not proper. Which leads into..

Schism
After carrying out the Sacraments for several eons, the current Reaper, known as Ravine, failed to carry out her task in killing a sacrifice. This was due to the fact that the sacrifice was a woman who had befriended her brother's reincarnation.

Failing to carry out the sacrifice, Ravine did not kill Anya McHugh. Tragically, Anya died in a freak accident anyway, rendering Ravine's momentary altruism completely pointless. Regardless, the Schism was what happened when the Entity was divided into eight different bodies -- Them, the Abaddon, the Genesis (who would later be called Reene), Libra, Noel, Orpheus, Arkady, and Enoch.

i could never know what the dead man sees
A concept in the trilogy is that the idea of death and dying are carried out between various worlds:

The Living World
Where the living resides; now become a realm of pseudo-anarchy and chaos.

The Dead Zone
A ghostly layer placed atop of the Living World. It mirrors the world of the dead and how the dead wish to see it, for those who bind themselves to the Living World rather than moving on; some call these ghosts.

Because of the Dead Zone and the nature of their bodies, it is possible for the Reaper to live in both the world of the living as well as manage the dead. Since they technically exist in both worlds and are given special bodies by the Entity after they die as human, they can also make themselves seen and unseen by the living, and even interact with the Living World, with their abilities as the Reaper. However, things like her reflection in mirrors and in video cameras are not carried out between both worlds.

Sometimes, it's possible for it to work vice versa, and trespass into the monochromatic world of the Dead Zone.

Point Blank
An empty space, where malicious spirits/emotions are left behind from the dead, creating spirits known as poltergeists that are able to make it to the Dead Zone once created. Other brings known as demons are created from Point Blank.

It's the the Reaper's responsibility to keep track of these souls, because once they lose control of them, they risk the possibility of being taken over by the wraiths and go crazy, and channel such negative energy into the realm of the living. The task of being a the Reaper is very stressful, and before Endless there had never been such a case of a the Reaper lasting for very long because of the wraiths and Point Blank.

There is no such thing as gravity in Point Blank, as it's just a weightless space that goes on and on. It's an empty plane, distorted and sphere-like. The the Reaper is able to travel through the physical world by passing through Point Blank, but in doing so they are also in danger of being pulled by wraiths . Because of the dangers, it's not a favorable mean of transportation.

While in Point Blank, the the Reaper tends to take on a new, almost shapeless form--being a black entity with glowing gold eyes, and hair stretching out for miles. Their shadowed wings engulf the upper part of Point Blank, shrouding over the spirits and wraiths below.

Scheol
Also known as the afterlife, once dead souls have moved on. Ironically, one might consider this to be Heaven.

Edom
Also known as Limbo, which is a desolate island in a vast void where the Entity once lived.

As human, Alexander neither sees nor has been to any of these layers, but he learns of them and that they reside on top of his travels with Ravine.