The Seventh Secret

Prologue

In 2012, a catastrophic event happened around the world. That catastrophe wasn't the  zombie apocalypse, an earthquake, a flood, or robots rising against humans. It wasn't a plague, either. Yet those things have been preferable to what had destroyed the world.

So, what had destroyed the world? The decline of human morality.

Humanity once lived in harmony with the earth, but everything changed when evil came into the world. The Whisperers (rumored to control the world) encouraged crimes, hatred, and perverse moral sins. Most of the Whisperers’ deeds happened during the 1960s and 1970s and continued through the 1990s-2010s.

As humanity's tolerance for depravity grew, many people left Earth and went to Mars. There, they established cities that flourished and kept to the old ways, not the ways of their former home. (Unsurprisingly, this exodus happened several times in history. The most famous exodus happened in 1999, when 10 million Christians left Earth and settled in a land across from the Martian cities. (But that's for a different story.)

Let's get to where we need to be right now.)

While people were leaving Earth for the Martian colonies, many leaders were worried about the conditions in their countries. These leaders, under the influence of the Whisperers, soon made laws prohibiting people from leaving or plotting to leave the countries in which they lived.  In response to the laws, many people went underground, while others conspired to destroy the Whisperers and their supporters.

World War III began in 2031. Unlike the last two world wars, this war was waged against the depravity of the Whisperers. Many people who went underground when the laws forbidding them from escaping from their depraved Earth rose from under the city streets and raided houses of people who supported the Whisperers. Most of them were killed or captured in the raids. As the war continued, many nations were overthrown. The inhabitants of these countries quickly discovered the horrors that they inadvertently allowed to exist. Most of them repented and offered reparations while many others left Earth for the Mars settlements.

That wasn't the worst part, though.

In 2037, a disease called Putrid Atrophy attacked the entire world population. That illness was spread through tick bites. (Ticks flourished in unclean places like beds and couches.) Within hours of being bitten by a disease-ridden tick, the victim would suffer from a high fever and die.

Millions of people, especially those living in poverty, died shortly after becoming infected with the disease.  Those who lived saw the destruction of humanity as they knew it.  The Third World War had already wiped out the world's population, killing more than 51 million people.  The AIDS virus (which could not be cured) killed an additional 91 million people before it too burned off.

The Whisperers and their followers were captured and taken to the place where Auschwitz was located. There they were tried and executed for the crimes against humanity. In all, 19 million people were executed for their moral crimes. The Whisperers were destroyed and their property was confiscated by a group named The Watchful Eye. Their purpose was to repair the damage the Whisperers had done to the world.

When the war finally ended in 2038, the survivors (with the help of the Watchful Eye) began the long and difficult process of rebuilding their world, which was destroyed by war and diseases. Many nations appeared in places where seven major continents once stood. Cultures and civilizations developed all over the world, civilizations different from the world destroyed during the wars.

Within a few years, trade resumed with not only the Martian colonies, but with several other planets. As the Earth slowly recovered from years of suffering, nature soon reclaimed the cities destroyed during the wars. All technology was declared obsolete. Many people were encouraged to take up farming and live in small towns instead of living in the big cities. In fact, small farming communities grew where large cities once thrived.

However, in the middle of the reconstruction, something odd happened.

In 2044, two children disappeared from their homes; the victims were one boy and one girl, both from different places around the world. No one knew where they went. The children were assumed to have been kidnapped by the survivors of the Whisperers, but this rumor could not be proven. Someone once tried to find the missing children after their disappearance, but that person had disappeared with the children.

Time passed and the world recovered from the struggles and diseases that ravaged most of the world. Every seven years, one boy and one girl went missing. The children who disappeared were orphans. Who would miss an orphan if he or she disappeared without a trace?

This is a story about a boy and a girl who were taken away from their homes. They ended up in a mysterious world, where their arrival was part of a world-changing saga...

First, we have to meet the children.