You wake up in a bed in a dark room with no memory of where you are or how you got there. In the darkness, you think you see shapes and you daydream of being in the light. When you sit up in bed, sharp pain shoots through your spine and a woman’s voice tells you that she will take care of you and to get some rest before tomorrow. 

In the morning, you ask Dr. Kuhn if she is in the room but she says she is not because they are isolating you to protect your compromised immune system. You tell her you are feeling no pain and you ask her if you are blind or if the room is just dark. Dr. Kuhn reports that you asked the same thing yesterday and reminds you the answer is both, but that your eyes should respond to the treatment. Dr. Kuhn asks you what you remember and you draw memories to the surface of living in a small, brown house and you remember Dr. Kuhn from before, too. 

You ask Dr. Kuhn to play ocean sounds again and she says she will after you play a word association game with her. The doctor asks you to add visuals to words like water, house, and bird. Your eyes itch — an indication that they’re healing — and you find a treadmill in the corner of the room and recall a fact to Dr. Kuhn that the treadmill was invented to torture prisoners in England. You jokingly ask if you are going to be tortured with it, and she does not laugh and tells you that you are not a prisoner. Because of how long you have been asleep, Dr. Kuhn says it’s important to get moving again. 

Dr. Kuhn instructs you to walk and you clumsily fall and are thrown onto the floor. Crying, you apologize, and the doctor instructs you to take three deep breaths and get back on the machine. You begin to doubt Dr. Kuhn’s integrity, but you comply and fall two more times. When you finally find a balance, your mind begins to drift to memories of the brown house and a crab-apple tree. Dr. Kuhn tells you it’s been thirty minutes and the machine stops. 

Dr. Kuhn tells you that you were born in Rhode Island and were an inconsistent sleeper in an effort to help you remember your childhood. You do not remember your parents and Dr. Kuhn tells you you are far away from Rhode Island now. She begins to order you to quicken your walk to a jog on the treadmill. You remember that Dr. Kuhn’s first name is Anne and a song you liked. Dr. Kuhn tells you that the song has a special significance for the both of you, but does not elaborate. 

One day, you wake up having suddenly regained vision. Dr. Kuhn slowly turns on the lights as your eyes adjust. She directs your attention to a screen that depicts a peaceful scene of an empty field of green grass that you think you remember. 

You are put on a more intense exercise plan and your jog turns into a run. You don’t fall anymore. Dr. Kuhn asks you to play the word association game again and you tell her you want to leave the room or learn more about why you are here. The doctor tells you she will start telling you more about your situation soon and you become angry, but you play the game and associate the word “gone” with the word “us.”

You approach a blue screen and touch a red dot on it at Dr. Kuhn’s instruction. You drag the dot through a maze on the screen and the doctor rewards you with a virtual reality headset. You put on the headset and see the neighborhood you used to live in. You keep asking Dr. Kuhn if there is anyone with her and she says no because there has been a global pandemic and everyone has been isolated. 

Dr. Kuhn shows you video footage of your mother playing with you as a child. You remember her laugh and how she resumed her career as a real-estate lawyer when you started school. You want to know what your face looks like, but the doctor doesn’t allow you to look at your reflection. Dr. Kuhn asks you to recall your family’s beach trips and you tell her how every Sunday you would drive down to Narragansett Town Beach. 

You wake up the next morning to a long wooden table in the room and Dr. Kuhn says she will introduce activities that will help with manual dexterity because of your career working with your hands. You wonder how she got the table in while you were asleep and you resolve to stay awake. Dr. Kuhn gives you building supplies and asks you to make a table. You threaten to hurt yourself with the tools if she doesn’t give you more information. She tells you that you are close to being able to leave and that soon you and her will go back to the brown house where you live together. 

You watch home videos of Dr. Kuhn from when she was a young child playing with her older brother, Matt, to her life post-college graduation at family holidays. Dr. Kuhn grows upset and you ask if she’s okay. In the last home video, which you filmed, you’re following Dr. Kuhn through the house you bought together. The doctor is giving a house tour that ends in a room that used to be a nursery. Dr. Kuhn replays the video two more times, with her saying her lines the second play through and you your lines on the last showing. 

You wake up severely congested and experiencing worsening symptoms, which does not surprise Dr. Kuhn. You are only able to walk on the treadmill and Dr. Kuhn shows you an instructional video about how to build a fence. One day, Dr. Kuhn tells you that she’s coming into the room but that she will appear older than you remember. She has gray hair that reaches past her shoulders and there are wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. You ask if you are as old as her and she says no and tells you to come with her to the house. 

On your way out, you pass other laboratories that Dr. Kuhn says you don’t have clearance to learn about. She tells you the scientists who used to work in them have since cleared out because of the pandemic. Outside of the building, you smell the ocean and you walk together to a replica of the house you used to live in. You ask Dr. Kuhn why everyone else has gotten sick and left and she hasn’t and she refuses to answer. She asks you to build a fence with her instead. 

You eat dinner made with ingredients from Dr. Kuhn’s garden and you ask her what your relationship is. She tells you that it has changed over time but that right now you are partners. After dinner, she leads you to a master bedroom where the nursery used to be and helps you change into pajamas and stays with you in bed until you fall asleep. In the morning, you wake with an aching body and catch your first glance at your reflection and see you are not the person from the videos Dr. Kuhn showed you. You look out the window and see the doctor below, wheeling someone on a gurney. She sees you and blocks the person’s face from view. 

You ask Dr. Kuhn who you are and she tells you it was all a fever dream. She puts you back in bed and locks the door. In the morning, she takes you downstairs and hooks you up to an IV to rehydrate you. The doctor leaves the room and when she returns she is wearing a flannel shirt and jeans she asks him to act out a scene with her from their past life. You ask her if she vaccinated herself to avoid getting sick and she gets offended. She asks you to return to the facility and when you refuse she asks if she can bring you back to life when you die as a clone. You tell her no and realize you are a clone. 

You ask her how many clones before you there have been and she replies that there have been too many. She grows angry and replaces your IV bag and your arm turns warm and your consciousness ebbs away. 

You wake up in a bed in a dark room with no memory of where you are or how you got there.