While visiting the small town of Yonwood, North Carolina, eleven-year-old Nickie makes some decisions about how to identify both good and evil when she witnesses the townspeople's reactions to the apocalyptic visions of one of their neighbors.
Ember, built as a last refuge for the human race, is running out of power two hundred years later, but twelve-year-old Lina thinks there may yet be hope when she finds part of an ancient message that may hold a key to getting out of the city.