jacob leister

The world is covered in darkness. Sure, the Sun shined over it once upon a time, but that was ages long past. It gave way to the dark cover of perpetual night. One day, the Sun filled the world with its light, the next, it disappeared behind a veil of darkness, not to be seen again. The people of the world were thrown into a new and challenging reality. Throughout the subsequent generations, this consuming darkness revealed three distinct people groups.

Those Who Walk In The Dark live inside the Great Wall and have convinced themselves the Sun never existed. Their bodies and minds are shrouded in constant darkness and willful ignorance. Ignoring the world outside their boundary, they not only hold tightly to their bleak existence, but pride themselves in it. Millennia of living in darkness has left them physically blind, requiring their other senses to compensate for their lost sight. They rely on convoluted legends of the past and misleading realities of the present to inform them of what light is. It has left them hating and fearing what they know as the Light.

The Seers inhabit the last city in the world, located outside, but only miles from the Great Wall. The Seers have long forgotten the truth about the Sun, but hold on to a pale remnant of its existence. Their dim light that shines from a unique crystal has taken the place of the mighty radiance of the Sun. The glow that emanates from pieces of this crystal is bought, sold, and worshipped by the Seers. The City is ruled by a man who calls himself The Great Seer and his minions. The light controls the Seers, and the Great Seer controls the light, as well as Those Who Walk In The Dark.

The True Believers are a people who have strived to remember the truth about the Sun, and share it with the other inhabitants of their world. They believe in the Sun's existence and that it will return someday. This strong belief in the Sun has connected them to it in a miraculous way. Its light shines in them and through them physically, providing light, life, hope, peace, and joy in the darkness around them. The Great Seer has used lies and manipulation to poison both the Seers and Those Who Walk In The Dark against the True Believers. This has forced the True Believers to live in secret communities all around The City and the Great Wall, as they continually look for opportunities to push back the darkness with their true light.

At the center of these worlds is a young man name Caedmon. A True Believer who has mysteriously grown up in the land of Those Who Walk In The Dark. His ability to see and the light that shines from his chest are clear indicators to him that he does not belong to the family raising him. He has spent years trying to find others like him within the Great Wall, but has only found frustration and more questions. One reoccurring cause of particular frustration is the blind and arrogant Damon. Every day, Damon finds ways to ridicule Caedmon and remind him that he does not belong.

One providential day, everything changes for the two young men when more True Believers are found within the Great Wall. Because of the blind elders' hate for the True Believers and Damon's dislike for Caedmon, Damon unknowingly creates the means for them both to leave the land of the blind; Caedmon into freedom and Damon into slavery. One fateful decision starts each of them on their own paths to find the truth about themselves, their world, and the great and terrible day of the returning Sun.