The world has almost been destroyed. Millennia ago, the Devourers use humanity's greed and ignorance to bring about the Desecration. Now there is only the World, a huge cavern ruled by the immortal Custodian. The priests teach that nothing else exists apart from Heaven and Hell, and few doubt the glorious future that awaits them, so long as they don't transgress; but to make sure, the angels watch their every action. Flame is different. She sees impossible things, and discovers that something terrible happens to the people who supposedly ascend to Heaven. But knowledge is dangerous in the World, where mirrors watch and pendants listen, and not everyone is as human as they appear. Yet the only escape is to venture onto the surface of the devastated Earth – the place the priests, with some justification, call Hell. "For uncounted centuries did Humanity fight and play, and commit strange and terrible deeds in bright halls of its own imagining; whilst around its Dreaming Domes, the dark and ruined Earth lay forgotten" — The Dark Rain Chronicle (100,000 words)