A young scavenger prepares for his journey to take his parents' ashes to a rumored ocean on top of the mountain. While he is working up his courage to do so, he stays with his cybernetic friend Nat and helps her fix things. She asks him to take the ashes of six of her friends up the mountain as well. The scavenger starts toward the mountain on his motorcycle, and considers how all the stories his parents told him about the ocean ended in grief and tragedy. None of the travelers found relief by drinking from ocean, which was supposed to help them survive.

Many were lost and never returned from the ocean. These tales include one about a widow who tried to take eight jars of ashes to the haunted ocean despite knowing it would not make her feel better. Another centers on a farmer who lost his love and helped dig a stork out of the mud so it would guide him to the ocean, even knowing it would only sharpen his grief. The young man's sense of loneliness is heavy as he endures many obstacles, despite the short distance of the path. At one point he narrowly avoids being shot by drones or people who are hunting. He later encounters a park ranger bot who is stuck in the mud. The scavenger fixes up the bot and asks it to guide him, which it does reluctantly, knowing the fate of those who have traveled to the ocean before. It takes him back down the mountain and then up through other paths, but the pair continues to hit dead ends. When they reach yet another dead end, it seems hopeless until the scavenger spots a tiny path through.

The young man finally reaches the lake at the top of the mountain, which looks like an ocean because of an optical illusion. There are jars of ashes all around the shores. With a heaviness, he realizes that his parents were telling their own stories intermingled with those of other people. He thought he was his parents' only child, but realizes that he is actually the child of the farmer and the widow who had both made the journey before him. Their grief remained with them in ways he saw growing up. The scavenger scatters the ashes of his parents, who died in a robbery. He hopes to see their ghosts - like in the stories - so that he can tell them he is sorry for what happened, but does not see any. Right as he is about to drink the water, the scavenger stops. He realizes that he does not have to drink the water and be haunted. He has been carrying his family's stories all this time, but decides that does not mean he has to repeat their tragic stories.