The film opens with a childhood "abduction" scene, later a memory that the main character (Eric Rainer) flashes back to. Then we encounter adult Eric in the midst of a panic attack: He stumbles outside and stares up at a "Darkening Sky", the stars gradually, impossibly blinking out. When a neighbor (Harold) interrupts and snaps him out of it, Eric cuts the conversation short and goes back inside, where his girlfriend (Lisa) announces that she is tired of his obsession with Alien Abduction—Eric is laboring on a thesis dismissing UFOs as a "modern mythology"—and she breaks up with him. This tips Eric into a removed state of mind; as he focuses on her lips moving, everything fades to silence. Next we encounter Eric returning from a late-night jog. He falls asleep on the sofa and has a nightmare of alien abduction, climaxing with a vision of a strange creature carrying Lisa away.
