July, 2021. For the better half of a century, the quiet village of Kentsburg, Mississippi has languished in the rural south, largely unknown to the outside world. When the electricity is knocked out following a series of mysterious flashing lights in the fields, several teens go to investigate. What they encounter are deadly machines that seem intended to keep them prisoners of the town.July, 2021. When the small town of Kentsburg, Mississippi finds itself cut off from the rest of the outside world following a terrible thunderstorm one evening, no one thinks much of it, although several teens can recall seeing flashing red lights on the horizon just before the power went out. The next morning, even stranger things begin to happen.Nobody's car will start, clocks are frozen, and all cell phones are mysteriously dead. Then come the circular drones that some farmers have started digging up in their fields--heavy devices which house a plethora of deadly weapons to kill anyone who interferes with them.In the days following the aftermath of what many refer to as "The Shock", an unlikely young antihero named Markus Huxley rises, eventually declaring himself de facto leader of a place henceforth known as "Burntown". Influenced only by his haunted past and an unusual penchant for fire, the future of those who remain in Kentsburg under his reign seems uncertain.With the town's older residents dying off, the younger teens soon turn to drugs and alcohol in order to cope. And so the parties rage on, even as the world has seen fit to end in fire...

My name is Kelsey and I'm the last person in Kentsburg to know what happened before The Shock. They say everyone in this town has their own reasons for not wanting to leave. Mostly, it's just too scary to think about.Even if we could get back to civilization, none of us imagine it to be pretty. As for me, I don't have to imagine. I was in the city when it happened. I know we're going to die...My name is Kelsey and I'm the last person in Kentsburg to know anything about what happened before The Shock. On April 23rd, my cousin Janelle had picked me up for a weekend in Jackson, begging me to get out of that stupid hick town. I can't say I complained. We had gotten high up to our eyeballs that night. Everything was going as planned up until it happened...the thing we vowed never to talk about.No one anticipated how the world was going to change. I can't remember all the events leading up to it and in some ways, that's not important. But the fact remains. I know far more than I should, and I can't tell anyone. Either way, it wouldn't matter. Fire or ice? It seems the only one who can save us has chosen fire. I just don't have the heart to tell my friends, but I know the truth. I know we're all going to die out here, and there's no stopping it...