Jason regains consciousness as a hazmat-clad team extracts him from a hangar and restrains him on a gurney. Leighton Vance, introducing himself as the facility’s chief executive and medical officer and a friend, shepherds Jason through decontamination—an intense, painful gas-and-wash procedure—and clears him from quarantine after preliminary labs. Jason is given a bag of personal effects and led through bustling corridors where staff applaud his return.

In a glass-walled theater, Amanda Lucas begins a recorded debrief in front of an observing team, two of whom are armed. She reveals that Jason has been gone fourteen months and is the only one to return. Pressed to recount everything, Jason struggles with fragmented memories of family night, a visit to Ryan Holder at a bar, and a violent abduction. As he questions the reality of his situation, his anxiety spikes; he worries that he is not the person they expect and that discovery could trap him there.

Jason asks for a break. Leighton escorts him to a private office bathroom. Realizing he is unlikely to be allowed to leave, Jason quietly locks the door and attempts an escape through a small, lever-latched window. As Leighton summons security and tries to force entry, Jason hauls himself through the opening and falls to an alley outside.

Ignoring Leighton’s pleas to surrender, Jason sprints through an office park toward darkness, reaching the Lake Michigan shoreline. Pursuers with flashlights fan out. Jason veers inland, scrambles over obstacles, cuts through yards and a baseball field, and eventually collapses from exhaustion. When the searchers seem to have lost him, he staggers into a quiet South Side neighborhood and a sparse business district.

At an empty intersection near a dive bar, Jason forces an off-duty cab to stop. With torn clothes and a bloodied face, he convinces the wary driver to take him to Logan Square by paying double. Examining the money clip, he finds IDs that are his yet unfamiliar, reinforcing his disorientation. He refuses the driver’s offer to go to a hospital, insisting on getting home.