Inside the activated box, Jason and Amanda find a repeating corridor of doors—an apparent mental visualization of quantum superposition and the wave function’s possible outcomes. They test a door, entering a devastated parking garage and ash-choked city, then return to the box. Amanda explains no pilot ever returned; the drug session defines a one-way journey. They catalog supplies and take more of the compound, confirming that each drug session resets the corridor-door connections.

As they explore, they discuss adjacency in the multiverse—accessible worlds likely branch near their own timeline. Opening a door back to the hangar, they witness alternate versions of themselves attempt an escape. Leighton’s men intervene; the alternate Amanda is shot dead and the alternate Jason is tased. Exposed, Jason and Amanda flee back into the corridor as the drug nears its end, shaken by the sight of Amanda’s death in another reality.

With time expiring, they try new doors: a void, a wolf-threatened lot, then, after decoherence collapses the corridor, a blizzard world. Leaving the box, they become lost in lethal cold. On the brink of death, Jason finds a house half-buried in snow and hauls Amanda inside. They discover signs of starvation in the abandoned home and survive the night by the fireplace, using sleeping bags and scavenging supplies. In the aftermath, Amanda laments losing her old life, while Jason reflects on their near-fatal mistakes and the finite supplies.

Jason observes their earlier choices and states of mind seem correlated with destinations—the ruined city when terrified, the hangar scene mirroring his speculation. He hypothesizes their emotions are the “controls,” shaping which adjacent worlds the doors open to. Determined to return to the box buried under snow, he uses a compass to detect its magnetic field, digs it out, and they re-enter.

In darkness as they wait for the drug, Jason confronts the likelihood that Amanda’s Jason abducted him and swapped lives. Amanda describes her Jason’s obsession with the path not taken and how he could justify the act. She warns Jason to control his rage to avoid steering them into dangerous worlds. As the drug takes hold and the corridor reappears, they inventory their remaining supply—44 ampoules—and commit to intentional, emotionally disciplined navigation to find Jason’s home.