Marianne is on a populated subway in New York to meet her lover, Phillip, when she suddenly gets the sensation that something is off. When the subway makes a stop at a station that resembles none she's ever seen, her fears are confirmed. At the next stop, she exits the subway, hoping that she can just climb the stairs and return to aboveground New York. However, after an hour of searching, the only thing resembling stairs she can find is an ominous spiral staircase unlike any other in the subway system. She exits through it and finds herself in a desolate, mostly abandoned version of New York that she is unfamiliar with, with all the streets rearranged in unfamiliar manners and Times Square not where it always has been. A man pipes up to her, telling her that if she turns around she can return, but Marianne is confused and begins questioning him. He responds that she can no longer return and tells her his name is Benjamin. Marianne begins to panic, asking him where she is and why she can no longer return. Benjamin explains that the place they find themselves in is a location outside of time, one comprised of all the possibilities of reality that almost came to be, but never did. He says that the people who come here are those who sought it out, but that most are able to return to their realities if they make it back in time--a luxury Marianne lost when she questioned him rather than return immediately. Benjamin introduces the world to her, telling her that there are some other people and that their lives are comprised of foraging. They forage because they can never create anything, can never be anything, since they now exist outside of time. In addition, they cease to feel anything and can only cling to their memories because their new reality is everlasting foraging and isolation. At first, she has trouble giving up her old life and Phillip, but slowly Marianne comes to accept her new reality and sets off to live it.