The Ender

Illustration by Chris Bodily

**The Ender** was a being from the world beyond the rift who snuffed the souls of humans in the real world by consuming their life energy. It looked like a large floating starfish with extra limbs and a single red eye in the center of its body. It was killed by Norman Clancy.

## Overview

### Purple Moon

* The Ender appears in the world beyond the rift when Mark Hannigan inadvertently finds himself there. It consumes a few human souls and tries to consume Marconi's before Mark confronts it. The Ender says that it is not Mark's end-time - "not yet." It eventually backs off when the Inspector appears and forces it to leave under threat of banishment.

### Devour

* The Ender appears again while Mark is piloting the helicopter to detonate the explosions that will seal the rift. Valentina Koeppel tries to kill it, but only succeeds in angering the entity. It sedates and kills her, then does the same to Mark, but not before Mark successfully triggers the detonation.

### Fallen Night

* While searching for any remains of Mark Hannigan beyond the rift, the Inspector comes across the Ender. Because the entity consumed Mark's life force, the Inspector is able to extract what little is left of Mark from inside the Ender. He uses Mark's voice to tell his story, which would ultimately become the Neverglades series.

### Fleshy Sensoria

* Tom Ingram is sent into the world beyond the rift to "locate and subdue the Ender" for Rosen Corp. However, the entity repeatedly kills each version of Tom until Rosen Corp is forced to end the trial and move on to another objective.

### Last Sparks of an Ephemeral Fire

* The Ender appears in the world beyond the rift when the Inspector and Tom Ingram use it as a shortcut to Rosen Corp headquarters. It tries to argue that Tom's vessel has no right to be alive and mischievously summons the Goliath to pursue the duo. When the Inspector returns without Tom, the Ender is gleeful and mocking, until the Inspector roars for it to leave.

### Recovery at St. Florence Hospital

* In an effort to barter with the Ender for information about the rift, the scientists from Rosen Corp manufacture soul ingots using a system called the Net, which allows the spirits of the newly deceased to manifest.

### Black Valentine

* The Ender is finally captured by CAPRA and held prisoner inside their headquarters, where they intend to convince the Inspector to extract Valentina's essence from inside it. When Valentina's ghost starts laying waste to the building, the Inspector has no choice but to comply. He eventually returns to the base to free the Ender after the Semblance kills Valentina and Timothy Lancaster.

### Red Eye

* With reality destabilizing after the Inspector's cross-dimensional trip, the Ender slips into the real world and begins to feed on dying patients at St. Florence Hospital, with grisly results. Paul Ingram works with Lola Velasquez and Georgina Prewitt to bring the most at-risk patients to the North Wing and offer protection, but the Ender instead goes after cancer patient Clara Bellevance. Paul confronts the Ender in Clara's room, but the multiple souls of Tom Ingram that the entity had consumed rise to the surface and keep it from attacking. It is eventually killed in this state when FBI agent Norman Clancy arrives and shoots it.