In the middle of the desert, Michael wakes up without knowing how he got there, only getting short flashes of his old life in New York. Suddenly he hears a gunshot and barking dogs and notices an old man running away from an armed group. Michael runs to pick the man up and takes him into a cave, where the dying man asks him to tell someone named 554 that he got away.
After burying the body, Michael sees a light in the distance and follows it until he arrives in a small town. He stops a cab and asks the driver to take him to a train station, but the confused driver just says that this is The Village and that he only does local destinations. Michael jumps out of the cab and walks into a nightclub, where he tries to ask for help.
A woman can’t understand what he’s saying but before she can ask, Michael hears barking dogs and runs outside to get in the cab again. Hearing the driver refer to himself as 147, Michael asks to be taken to 554 and he’s dropped at a house with that number, only for the neighbor to send him to a diner. 554 is the waitress and when she hears Michael’s story, she identifies the old man as 93, a drunkard that talked about crazy stuff.
At that moment Michael hears the dogs again and runs inside an old building to then break a window to escape. As he looks down at The Village and a man in white, he keeps having flashes from New York and falls off. This causes him to dream about being trapped and the man in white calling him 6.
Later Michael wakes up in the hospital and discovers his doctor is 313, the woman from the club. When Michael is feeling better, he’s taken to see 2, the man in white who keeps calling him 6 and asking about 93. Michael wants to go home but 2 says there’s no New York only The Village, and hands him a new ID.
Afterward Michael is taking to apartment 6, which looks just like his New York home. Then he tries buying a map at the store, but it only shows The Village. While he wanders around, 313 tries to chat with him, but Michael ignores her when he notices 2 towers in the distance.
He decides to steal 147’s cab and drives out to the desert, where he climbs some dunes and discovers the desert never ends. A memory shows Michael at a diner in New York. Lucy approaches him to borrow his phone and Michael flirts with her to invite her to his apartment.
In the desert, 313 finds Michael unconscious and takes him back in her car, saying she wants to help him with his delusions. When he’s back in The Village, Michael goes to 93's apartment and finds a hidden drawing in a bottle. At that moment 2 arrives and asks about 93 again, but Michael insists he wants out.
2 tells him there’s no out and calls him crazy before leaving. Then Michael opens 93’s drawings and finds the Big Ben in London, which means 93 was killed because he knew something. Michel asks 554 for an explanation and she tells him that 93 claimed his drawings were from his other life before The Village.
Meanwhile a public broadcast announces that 93’s body was found dead in the desert. Michael searches for 554 and convinces her to share more information. 93 was sure he had another life before the Village and that they were all prisoners.
554 has dreams too and reveals a drawing of the Statue of Liberty while saying there are many people in the Village who have dreams like this. At 2’s home, he gathers some medicine and feeds it to his sleeping wife M2 while his son 11-12 wonders why 6 believes there is another place. That night Michael visits the empty grave where 93 will be buried.
313 approaches him and Michael tells her about his meeting with Lucy. The next morning Michael goes to 93’s funeral and tries to tell anyone that 93 had found a way out, but 2 quickly kicks him out. Afterward Michael heads to the diner and hears the radio mention a gas explosion in Brooklyn right before the diner explodes.
As he passes out, Michael has a vision of faces offering a testimony. He quickly wakes up and rushes to check on 554, who says 93 told her to follow the towers before the doctors take her away. Sadly 554 dies at the hospital.
313 tells Michael he should’ve stayed away from 554 and that things like this sometime happen, but the Village just moves on. Then Michael goes to 2’s home and screams that he’ll find a way out before running into the desert. When he tries following the towers, he’s suddenly caught by a white hovering ball known as Rover, which causes him to have visions again.
Hours pass as Michael lies unconscious in the desert and dreams of going to his apartment with Lucy, he also remembers being at the beach as a child. He’s found by 16, who brings him back to the Village. 2 claims that 16 is Michael’s brother and when Michael denies it, 16 shows him a picture of them as kids.
He also mentions how Michael got the scar on his arm. Michel denies it all but keeps having flashbacks of the beach. Afterward 16 takes Michael to his home and introduces him to his family, who treat him as a beloved relative.
Since 16 insists on therapy, he attends a session and can’t stop thinking about Lucy while talking to the therapists. She had borrowed his phone but never made a call. However he tells the therapists about the beach instead since they don’t know what that is.
After Michael leaves the clinic, 16 tells him he got him back his job and Michael becomes a driver for the sightseeing bus tour. While he drives, 16 provides commentary on the sights for the passengers. At the same time 2 visits the clinic so he can get a report from the therapists.
Furious at their comments, he throws a grenade at them, saying he doesn’t believe in therapy. He only needs 6 to assimilate. Back to Michael, he drives the bus into the desert while noticing a passenger keeps winking at him.
Suddenly he notices an anchor in the sand and goes off-road to check it out, talking about the ocean. However 16 just calls it a desert folly and drags Michael to an abandoned train station, reminding him they used to play there when they were children. Michael admits it feels familiar.
Later Michael meets with 313 for dinner and he tells her about boats. He also keeps thinking about Lucy, who had admitted she didn’t need a phone, she only used that excuse to talk to Michael. He thought it was curious that he met her on the day he quit his job, but she called it a coincidence.
Days pass and Michael continues to work for the tour bus, feeling stuck in a routine. One afternoon they stop at 2’s house and he comes aboard to announce that 16 and his family have won a holiday trip to the resort. After work Michael goes to see 313 and discovers she stole the drawings from his pocket.
313 apologizes and admits she likes the idea of other places, she just doesn’t want to lose him. This triggers another memory in which Michael told Lucy he was a suspicious person. He worked at a company called Summakor observing security footage and collecting data on people, so started to see the world in patterns and numbers.
That night, 11-12 asks his father about his childhood because he can't remember it. 2 just says that memory is fickle and that 11-12 should never doubt his family. Meanwhile Michael dreams of the beach and remembers seeing his brother walking into the ocean.
The following day Michael takes 313 to the train station and tells her that he feels a strange connection to the place. Matching a memory from the beach, he digs out an old box. There’s a picture with a note he wrote as a child and signed it with the name 6.
313 thinks this is proof The Village is real while Michael insists it's a trick, but now he's unsure. He thinks about Lucy and how he told her that during his work, he noticed too many people changing and sent a report. The only answer he got was “cease and desist”, which is why he quit.
Lucy admitted that she worked for Summakor too and mentioned that they still controlled him. Later the winking woman approaches Michael to tell him she goes on those bus trips because once she heard the ocean waves. Michael asks 147 to take them to the desert and they visit the anchor, unaware that 2 is spying on them.
They see the towers but can’t hear the ocean. At that moment Michael sees the bus drive by and remembers the resort appointment. Minutes later Michael is driving the bus to take 16 and his family to the vacation they won.
As they cross the desert, Michael sees the towers and starts driving toward them while hallucinating that 2 is behind him. Concentrating on his memories of the beach, he keeps going only to find the anchor again. Michael freaks out on the sand and suddenly appears tied to a post, where 2 pours water at him before inserting a grenade in his mouth.
At that moment 16 snaps him out of it and Michael wakes up inside the bus. He apologizes to 16 and begins accepting he may be insane, only for 16 to admit they aren’t brothers. The group arrives at the resort and while the rest of the family has fun, 16 talks to Michael in private.
16 says “they” made him lie and he was rewarded with this vacation for his family. He’s very scared of them but doesn’t know what they want Michael for, only that it has to do with “the other place”. Later 16 joins Michael and the winking woman on their search for the ocean.
Eventually they finally find it and an excited 16 runs into the water, but soon Rover appears and brings him down. Michael watches feeling helpless and remembers he lost his brother as a kid the same way. When Michael tries to bring 313 to the ocean, there’s nothing but sand left.
Later he tries telling 16’s family about the death, however they’re too busy laughing at the TV. Soon nurses appear to restrain him and take him to the clinic, where 2 mocks Michael until he calls himself 6. Sometime later 6 wakes up outside an old building in the desert.
909 picks him up in his truck, warning him this isn’t a safe area. 6 comes along while thinking how Lucy tried to escape his apartment and he had to catch her. Meanwhile 313 starts having dreams and drawing what she saw.
Eventually 6 arrives at a golf course to meet 2, who explains 909 is one of his spies in the Village. He calls spies “undercovers” and their job is to find and report people who dream of another place. 2 wants 6 to work as an undercover and 6 accepts even though 2 admits it’s a trap.
His first mission is to watch 1955, a history teacher who has been turned in by one of his students. 6 starts working as a teacher in the school as cover. During history class, he learns there has never been a citizen 1 and the concept of 2 is an act of humility.
During breaks 6 tries to talk to 1955 about weird dreams, but he denies having any. Later while having coffee with 313, 6 asks if anyone here lives in fear. She tries denying it but she’s obviously very nervous.
At last she admits that if anyone acts different they get “the treatment”. 313 also announces they must stop seeing each other because anyone that gets close to him dies. Meanwhile 2 gives M2 a different kind of medicine that wakes her up.
They share affection and a meal before she goes catatonic again. 909 and 6 watch 1955 all day and night but can’t find proof of everything. 6 also starts teaching surveillance class and gets creeped out by how the kids keep an eye on their families.
He decides to give them a new task: they must find out who they’re working for. One night 909 and 6 see 1955 hang a towel outside, which 909 thinks is a coded signal. Then the duo climbs on 1955’s roof and drills a hole to spy on him with a tiny camera.
When 909 gets a phone call he asks 6 to fetch coffee from his truck. 6 looks at 909's notes and discovers he is 909's secondary mission, also that 313 is a suspect. When 6 returns to the roof, 909’s phone rings again and the noise alerts 1955 of their presence, so he self-deletes.
The duo picks the body and drops it at the entrance of the hospital before driving away. The next day, 147 plays with his daughter and notices a huge hole in the ground. Meanwhile 6 goes to 313’s house and finds a camera in her roof.
At the same time, 2 goes to his garden and finds a hidden camera too. He calls 909, who immediately blames 6. 2 wonders if his son has been hanging out with 6 since he’s been behaving strangely lately.
In the evening, 6 follows 909 to a bar and discovers he’s secretly dating 11-12. This makes 6 think of Lucy, who informed him that he made too many questions and that’s why Summakor wanted to stop him. Afterward 6 visits 1955 in the hospital and asks for help to find other dreamers but 1955 says he doesn't know anything.
Suddenly 6 hears drilling and rushes outside to run after the spy, but the person is gone. On top of a tree, his student 1100 watches. The next day 2 gives 6 a new mission: he must spy on 909.
Afterward 6 he goes to 313 to warn her about the camera in her house. 313 answers by showing him pictures of him and 909 on a roof, which were sent to her anonymously. She thinks he’s been spying on her and tells him off.
Next 6 follows 909 and watches him meet with 11-12. 909 thinks they shouldn’t see each other for a while because 2 is suspicious. 6 bursts in and asks them to take all surveillance off of 313, or he'll tell everyone about their affair.
When 11-12 returns home, 2 tells him he doesn’t trust 909 and he may send him to therapy to get his secrets. 11-12 has no choice but to visit 909 to tell him his father knows. 909 knows what’s coming and says “it’s ok” before 11-12 repeatedly stabs him.
Meanwhile 6 goes to 313's house and discovers she’s being taken away in a black van. Desperate, he goes to 909’s for help and finds him bleeding to death. 909 asks if the dreams are true and 6 confirms it.
A memory shows Lucy asking Michael for the real reason why he quit, concluding he changed the same way people he watched changed. In the evening 6 finds 11-12, who tells him 313 was sent into the tunnels for treatment. 6 asks 11-12 to send him there too.
The next morning, 11-12 dresses 6 up to make him look like a patient and the black van takes him away. In the tunnel, 6 finds 1100 and she helps search for 313 while dogs keep barking at them. They find her quickly but when they try to leave, Rover swallows them all.
Then men in white drop 6 at his apartment. Meanwhile 2 rewards 1100 for her spying with ice-cream. She admits she’s been spying on him too, so 2 sends her to treatment.
Later 11-12 finds a huge hole in the garden, but 2 dismisses it as an “ambient anomaly” due to the weather. 6 dreams of Lucy and how she begged him to come back to the company, mentioning the name Curtis. Michael got nervous and kicked her out, but she left her number before leaving.
Regretting his attitude, Michael called her and heard her phone outside, so he ran down the hall and discovered she collapsed on the ground. He woke her up and Lucy said she felt sick so she asked to be taken inside before hugging him. In The Village, 6 wakes to the sound of a woman on TV announcing it's time for him to be romantically matched.
He also finds a matchmaking service card that he takes to 313, who explains this is how they do things here and he should try. 313 is having weird urges around her scalpel. 6 decides to go to the matchmaking office and is very skeptical of the process.
He almost leaves but freezes when the system matches him with 4-15, a blind woman who looks just like Lucy. In the memory, a black van passed by the street while Lucy said she looked at his file, then she kissed him. In the clinic, 2 tells 313 he knows she’s a dreamer and blackmails her by asking her to betray 6.
The next day 6 meets 4-15 at the diner. She says she lost her sight at six while she was asleep, probably as result of trauma. 6 listens to her while he remembers snuggling Lucy before they got dirty.
These flashbacks keep mixing with him almost kissing 4-15 and he calls her Lucy, insisting they already met. 4-15 accepts the kiss but says things are moving fast and leaves. Meanwhile 11-12 steals samples of his mother’s medicine, which 2 sees on camera.
Then 11-12 takes the samples to 313, asking her to discover what it is. He also asks if 6 is crazy and she says he isn’t. Later 147 shows 6 and 313 the hole in the ground before deciding to report it.
While he’s on the phone, his daughter goes out to play and falls into the hole, instantly vanishing. The men in white arrive in the black van to stop 147 from going after her, and his wife blames him for leaving the door open. Soon the men in white fill the hole.
In the middle of the night, 313 injects a clear liquid into 6 and 4-15 under 2's supervision. The next day 6 visits 4-15 at her home at meets her father, who already wants them to marry. Meanwhile 313 meets with 11-12 and tells her what the medicine is: one is a powerful sedative, another a hallucinogen, and the third is made of unknown contents.
Soon 2 invites 313 to his home and shows her M2, asking if there’s any way to reverse love. 313 says it must be possible. That evening, 6 tells 313 that he’s sure the black van takes him away every night.
313 denies it while admitting she’s jealous of 4-15. Soon the black van takes a sleeping 6 away to the clinic, where 313 injects him with a different syringe this time. As 6 wakes up, 2 arrives and explains that his feelings for 4-15 have been artificially created using Gene Symmetry Therapy, meaning they injected him with 4-15’s genes.
2 asks if 6 would still like to marry 4-15 and he says yes. Later 6 keeps thinking about waking up next to Lucy in New York while in the present he asks 4-15 to marry him. On the wedding day, 313 shows up at the church to tell 6 his feelings for 4-15 won't last but he ignores her, so she kisses him instead.
An upset 4-15 runs to the desert and 6 follows her, only for Rover to knock her out. As 6 runs to her, he remembers Lucy telling him to stay away because it’s dangerous. 6 makes 4-15 repeat her name until she finally admits she’s Lucy.
She explains she pretended to be blind so he wouldn’t suspect he’s the woman from his past and that she came to love him before kissing him. 6 freaks out and claims he’s cured of her, so 4-15 admits 2 brought her to break 6’s heart. Then 4-15 says she’s glad he’s cured of her and leaves.
Afterward 6 visits 147, who is considering jumping in a hole to look for his daughter. 6 convinces him not to do it as 4-15 shows up and jumps instead. In the memory, Michael went out to buy breakfast and when he came back, he watched his apartment explode.
He ran into the building but the firefighters wouldn’t let him enter his place. Lucy left a message in his phone, saying they were selling tickets for his execution but called it a promotion, so she advised him to stay away from Summakor. However he went back to the company anyway.
In the Village, 6 goes to 2’s home and yells at the entrance, accusing him of killing 4-15 and swearing revenge. Nearby, a man that looks like 6 watches him. That night 2 goes to the bar to see 11-12, who calls his father a liar and demands to know where The Village is.
2 tells him The Village is inside M2’s mind and that she volunteered for the sake of her son. Then 2 gives 11-12 the key to the medicine cabinet, offering him a day with M2. Meanwhile 313 dreams of a girl with a box over her head.
When she wakes up she finds 6 sitting on her bed. He asks why she kissed him at the church and kisses her now, but 313 is haunted by the nightmare and pushes him away. In the morning, a desperate 6 appears at the clinic asking for help finding 41-15.
313 wonders why 6 wasn't worried about 4-15 last night and 6 says he never went to her house. Furious, 313 kicks him out. Afterward 6 runs into 147, who tells him he doesn't want another fight and leaves in his cab.
A confused 6 returns home and finds his apartment in shambles, there’s also a receipt from the shop on the floor. On the mirror, someone has written "be seeing you". A memory shows Michael trying to get back into the company, but his cardkey was deactivated so he had to get a new one.
Next, 6 goes to the store and asks the shopkeeper what the receipt was for. After some hesitation, the shopkeeper responds it was for a knife. After 6 leaves, the shopkeeper calls the clinic.
Then 6 finds 147 and tries to convince him that his earlier fight was with an impostor. Suddenly the other 6 appears on the street and 6 chases him into a building, where he finds the words “kill 2” written in blood. His copy called 2x6 jumps on him and holds his knife to his throat while telling him to kill 2.
6 pushes him off and 2x6 disappears. Moments later 2’s bodyguards are beating 6 up for trying to get into the house. He tries warning 2 that a copy of him wants to kill him, but 2 says that’s just how 6 feels.
Then 2 walks through town while getting rid of his accessories. At the same time a message on the speakers informs citizens that a 2 impersonator is around, so they should report him if they see him. The fake 2 goes to the shopkeeper to get cigarettes, which are supposed to be banned.
After 2 leaves, the shopkeeper calls the clinic. Meanwhile 11-12 wakes M2 up with the black medicine. They have lunch together and M2 claims she saw everything 11-12’s ever done growing up in her mind.
M2 hopes that 11-12 will see that the Village has all he needs, but he says it doesn’t have her. 6 approaches the 2 copy to warn him about the killer again, but the man calls himself un2 and doesn’t take him seriously either. After 6 leaves, un2 notices the other 6 nearby.
At that moment he’s found by 147, who takes him to his house for some cake. Soon the black vans with the dogs appear and un2 runs away. Back to 6, he goes to see 313, saying the injections may’ve split him in two.
However 313 is still angry and ignores him. The memory shows Michael going to see the access guy, who turned out to be the shopkeeper. They had a conversation that matched the knife chat and Michael predicted what the access guy would say, leaving him shocked.
Then Michael asked him for a card that would send him to the Purpose Floor. Meanwhile Un2 finds 313 and says he’ll take her to the other place whether she likes it or not. When she returns home, 6 visits her and comforts her with a kiss, but 313 notices another 6 outside and runs away in confusion, ending up in the desert.
As M2 spends time with 11-12, more holes appear in The Village. 11-12 wants to go to the other place but M2 explains people who were born in The Village can’t leave because they don’t exist in the other place. Only those who come from there can return.
Upset, 11-12 runs to the desert and throws the key in the sand. When he returns to the Village, 6 asks 11-12 where his father is to protect him. 11-12 can tell this is actually 2x6 wanting to kill 2 but answers anyway because he’s decided he hates his father.
Then he returns to the desert to get back the key and puts M2 to sleep. At the local church, 2x6 finds Un2, who explains he created The Village because he wanted a fresh start from the apathy and cruelty of the real world. 2x6 grabs Un2 and gets ready to kill him, but 6 appears and tells him they shouldn’t become a monster.
2x6 yells at something that isn’t really there, revealing these copies are just different parts of their consciousness fighting for control. 6 admits he must accept his inner darkness and only as one they can defeat 2. This causes 2x6 to disappear and un2 to become 2 again.
When 2 returns home, the guards capture him, but 11-12 tells them this is the real one. 2 claims that the shopkeeper was the impersonator and the man is dragged into the clinic. In the desert, 313 finds a glass door with a Summakor logo on it and goes inside.
She follows a long corridor until her visions begin again, so she runs back to the desert. In the real world, Michael and the access guy go to the Purpose Floor, where tons of monitors display profiles of Village residents. Michael recognizes them as subjects of his work.
As he watches the video of Lucy’s warning, he realizes he chose all these people to be brought into this project. While access guy leaves, Michael looks through the window and realizes this is the tower in the desert. He can see 6 in the village and bangs on the glass, but he isn’t heard.
6 gives the towers one last look before disappearing. Then the real version of the winking woman tells Michael a car is waiting to take him to his appointment with Curtis. Sometime later new houses are built and new people arrive in the Village on the bus.
6 asks them where they took that bus and they just answer the Village. Moments later 6 receives a summons to the clinic and 313 takes his blood for a test, getting shocked by the results. A furious 6 runs to confront 2, showing him that he’s gotten a Certificate of Dying.
2 explains 6 never assimilated so this is his final choice: this life or no life. Feeling sick, 6 coughs while being haunted by flashbacks. 313 also continues to be haunted with visions from another life and wants to find a way to help 6.
2 tells her there is something she can do, but that she mustn’t let the girl from the other place control her. Later 6 visits 11-12 and asks him to leave the village too, but the boy refuses. In New York, 147 turns out to be Michael’s driver.
He’s taken to another tower where he meets Curtis and Helen, who are the real 2 and M2. Helen is in a dreamlike state and Curtis explains that The Village is an experiment happening in her mind. She’s a biochemist who gave up her reality so that broken people could have better lives.
Curtis confirms Michael’s profiling work brought the best people to the project. In the village 11-12 enters his parents' bedroom and puts a pillow on M2’s face until she’s dead, then he hugs her. In the Clinic, 2 mocks a dying 6 with the details of his upcoming funeral while 313 listens from afar.
When 2 returns home he finds M2 dead and 11-12 missing. He rushes to the bar with his men, only to discover his son has self-deleted. Devastated, 2 carries 11-12’s body and takes it home, where he puts it inside a glass coffin.
Holes begin to open around town again while 2 goes to see 147, appealing to his sympathy because they’ve both lost a child. 2 tells 147 there's something he can do to end the pain, but 147 must help by saying that 6 is the one when the time comes. In New York, Curtis takes Michael around the city and shows him the positive effects The Village has had on suffering people.
Michael claims Curtis doesn't have the right to help people without their consent but Curtis ignores it and offers Michael an opportunity to help him with the experiment, giving him a pass to the Purpose Floor. In the village, 313 tells 2 that she wants 6 to live at any cost. 2 shares his plan and makes 313 promise she’ll give herself to 6 to save him.
Afterward 6 is brought to the clinic and keeps seeing visions of being trapped in a corridor while 2 says he wants the Village in him. Rover appears above them and 2 claims it was brought by 6’s fear, pointing out that the door to leave has always been there and 6 refuses to see it. Unable to accept this, 6 runs away.
Sometime later the citizens gather for 11-12's funeral. 6 attends looking healthy and tells 2 that there are more holes appearing so they should free the people. 2 tells the funeral crowd that 11-12 self-deleted and that 6 was right, they’re all prisoners.
A hole appears in the ground and people panic, but 2 claims he doesn’t know how to fix it. A kid throws a rock at 2’s face until he claims that 6 is the one with the answers, and 147 repeats it as promised. The whole crowd begins chanting that they want 6 and 2 takes out the pills, saying the only way to shut the holes is for a dreamer to take M2's place.
In the real world, Curtis takes Michael to a church where he reveals the real 313 is clinically insane because of her childhood trauma. The only thing that helps her is the Village. 6 is ready to take the medicine, but 313 takes it first saying this is for him.
A desperate 6 kisses her to try to take the medicine back but it’s too late. 313 and her real counterpart collapse at the same time. Then 2 announces he gives 6 the village before pulling the pin from a grenade, disappearing with the explosion.
In New York, Curtis goes home to find Helen awake and healthy, so they can start over. On the Purpose Floor, Michael takes a seat as the new head of Summakor. In the desert, 6 and a sedated 313 look out on The Village and 6 admits it’s beautiful.
