When Lena's, a biologist and ex-soldier, husband disappears she puts her name forward for an expedition into "The Shimmer," a mysterious quarantined zone that is full of mutating landscapes and creatures, but does not find what she's expecting. Upon her return Lena undergoes a quarantined debriefing. Lomax, her debriefer, questions her about her experiences during what they believe to be a period of months when Lena was on an expedition—but Lena reports that the expedition took a much shorter time. Lena appears to be the only survivor.