The World Abridged

The old world is dead, swallowed by a blanket of black fog that turned humanity into its own worst enemy. It's been two hundred years since the Great Magic Calamity tore the fabric of reality apart and let the toxic gas spill in. Water ran red, the sky went black, and the sun disappeared behind it. Those caught in the gas turned into something less than human, bodies twisted and souls warped by rage. In one year, eighty-two percent of the human race was wiped out, turned into beasts, or declared missing — the single greatest catastrophe humanity has ever known. The survivors adapted. They donned rebreathers, and from the ruins of dead nations, Cest Abridgement rose as a united government, building massive white bridges across the globe, stretched high above the gas in clean air. Now, settlements cling to the sides and legs of those bridges like tumors of a bygone age. Up top, along the bridges themselves, live the bridge toppers — clean air, steady work, Cest's protection. Below, hanging just above the fog line, are the Rivets: the settlements too poor, too small, or too forgotten to earn a place topside, left to scrape by in its shadow. Thomas has spent his whole life down there. And when honest work doesn't pay enough to get his sister out, he's found there's always coin to be made in the dark — for those willing to take the fall.