On November 5th, Frau grabs the notes she has been taking the past few months and decides to write a thorough report explaining how she got stuck in a cabin in the mountains. It all starts in May, when Frau goes on a vacation with two friends and their dog Lynx. Frau is not used to animals and feels awkward around the poor guy.
When they finally make it to the cabin, they settle down and the friends decide to visit the pub in a village nearby. Frau is tired, so she stays with Lynx. Bored, she tries to pet the dog, only for Lynx to snap at her.
She spends the day doing beauty care, smoking, and exchanging awkward looks with the dog. In the end she goes to bed early. The next day Frau wakes up to find Lynx crying by the door.
She lets him out so he can relieve himself and she searches the house, only to discover her friends have not come back. Worried something may have happened to them, Frau starts making her way to the village with Lynx ahead of her. Suddenly she hears him cry and rushes to his side, apparently he somehow hit his nose but she can not see the cause.
Frau keeps going but instead of following her, Lynx goes back. After a few steps, Frau bumps against an invisible wall. Confused, she touches it with her hands, confirming there is a barrier there that will not let her pass.
She could also hear a pounding, but it is just her own heartbeat. Frau thinks it is strange that no alarms were raised and no curious villagers came to look at the barrier. No matter how much she pushes, she can not go on, so she decides to go back.
Down the road, she finds and farmhouse with two people, but the invisible wall stops her from interacting with them. Her voice doesn’t cross the barrier and the farmers seem to be frozen in time, although water continues to flow from the tap. Giving up, Frau returns to the cabin and has a smoke as she realizes Lynx is now her only company.
Refusing to accept it, she goes back to the road and pushes again to no avail. Not knowing what else to do, Frau goes to bed. Suddenly she hears a strange sound and tries going outside to investigate, but when she opens the door she discovers the barrier is now blocking the house’s entrance.
Frau starts screaming only to wake up in her bed, where Lynx is already greeting her. She immediately checks the door and confirms it is alright. Then she goes out for a walk, and in the present, Frau writes down she doesn’t remember what else she did that day.
It is like the reality of the situation puts her mind in a daze. Frau returns to the cabin at two and gets her friends’ binoculars to watch over the area. The couple at the farmhouse still has not moved and she concludes they are dead, same for the villagers.
She thinks about her friends and wonders if she should have gone with them to reach the end together. At that moment Lynx begins barking and runs away. When Frau tries following him, she discovers he has found a cow.
At first she hides in fear, but then she approaches the animal and befriends her, bringing her back to the cabin for milk. Frau names the cow Bella, pointing out she is both a blessing and a burden. The following day, Frau gets in her friends’ car and drives down the road towards the village, hoping the speed will let her pass through.
She can even see an abandoned vehicle on the other side, which gives her hope. Unfortunately it doesn’t work and the car crashes against the barrier. Ignoring her bleeding wound, Frau touches the wall as she wonders the meaning behind it.
For the next ten days, Frau tries to find a solution to cross the barrier to no avail. She finally faces reality and has a breakdown in bed as she accepts that nobody is coming for her. She even considers self-deleting, but she remembers her friends have stocked up the cabin with provisions and instead decides to try to survive to thank their memory.
The supplies include tons of wood and some potatoes, so Frau brings them outside and starts her own potato farm. Lynx digs along, determined to help. As days pass, Frau winds the clocks every morning and keeps track of the date by crossing off a calendar.
On May 30th, it rains all day so Frau decides to stay inside. However she starts hearing a weird noise and goes to check with a knife in hand, only to find a wet cat meowing outside. The cat also gets adopted and now Frau has three animal companions.
Lynx has become her only friend in a world of loneliness. Eventually Frau decides to try to hunt. She has never used a firearm before and when she tries shooting a deer, she gets injured by the recoil and the animal runs away in fear.
As she wanders around, she finds the wrecked car again and checks the radio, but most of the stations have static and only one has music. She also finds a map, so she decides to follow it and try to reach the valley. Lynx comes along and they walk for many hours until they find an abandoned truck.
Frau tries approaching it, but unfortunately the barrier gets in the way and they have to go back. After lots of exploring following the map, Frau memorizes the different areas inside the barrier. Now she can take the quickest roads to the valleys, allowing her to come and go in the same day without abandoning the other animals for long.
Sometimes she finds other cabins, but they are always empty. At least she can take useful objects from them. Lying down on the grass with Lynx under the warm sun and listening to the singing birds becomes a transformative experience for Frau, who now feels more connected to nature.
This makes her feel guilty when she tries hunting again, but she needs the deer meat to survive. At night she has trouble sleeping as she remembers the way the deer rolled in pain before dying. She never takes notes about her first hunt because she feels disgusted by it.
One night, Frau has trouble sleeping because of the very loud thunderstorm. The next morning she hears a noise coming from the cabinet and opens it to discover the cat has given birth. The kitten is white so Frau names her Pearl.
She starts as a small scruffy thing, but eventually Pearl grows into a beauty. Frau realizes she spends her time concerned about the animals not to panic about her own situation and that she has replaced the responsibilities of her old working life with the responsibility of caring for her furry friends. On July 20th Frau starts harvesting the hay in the meadow while Lynx silently supports her.
It hurts her hands and tires her body, but she still carries the hay back to the cabin every day. On the way back, she always checks on the farmhouse, but the barrier is still there. Between the weather and her physical limitations, it takes her around three weeks to harvest the entire meadow.
Frau starts realizing how hard it is to survive and cries, but she still doesn’t self-delete because she doesn’t want to abandon her animals. She is hit by depression and it takes her another two weeks to go out to live again. In the forest, she finds fruits on the trees and other vegetables in the ground, allowing her to gather enough food to last the whole winter.
Now Frau and her pets enjoy much better meals. One day, Frau discovers strange clothes hanging on a tree and stares at them in fear, however it is only a nightmare. Autumn is supposed to be her favorite season, yet she has trouble sleeping and the nightmares get worse.
She catches the flu and spends most of the day tired, thankfully Lynx is always there to cheer her up. Frau is amazed by how he is never in a grumpy mood and often hugs him to thank him for his company. In the present, Frau reveals that Lynx is gone yet she still finds herself talking to him when she goes on walks.
On October 27th, the first snow falls but it only lasts a few days. Then warm winds come, making noise all day and night long. It becomes even harder for Frau to sleep.
The wind lasts three days and when Frau finally leaves the house again, she finds Pearl dead outside. The cat is given proper burial under Lynx’s supervision. Later in the middle of winter, Frau sees a fox by the stream and gets ready to shoot, but she doesn’t do it.
She can not stop thinking about Pearl’s death and how she is the only creature in the forest with the concept of “right” and “wrong”. In the end she chooses “mercy”. In the cabin, Frau brushes Bella every day, thinking of her like a sister now.
She notices the cow has become very round and wonders if she is pregnant. Eventually Frau has no choice but to go hunting again, and the feeling of the deer’s heart in her hands when she cleaned it makes it hard to sleep at night. On January 11th, Frau notices Bella is bleeding a little and keeps an eye on her all day.
In the evening, she helps Bella give birth to an adorable calf. The winter days pass full of heavy snowstorms. Frau catches seasonal depression and only leaves the bed because Lynx forces her to.
Any thoughts about self-deleting go away when she remembers she must take care of him. After winter passes, Frau decides to move to one of the cabins in the meadows. On May 25th, she gathers all her animals and they travel together to reach their new home.
Seeing the beautiful pasture, Frau has more hope for the future. From then on, she lives at peace with the animals, the stars, and the nature that surrounds her. Her memories of those days are so fresh that she doesn’t take notes.
For the first time, she feels appeased. On October 16th, Frau starts taking notes again and uses most of her time to double her wood supply. Her memories of those days are weak, and on December 10th she finds an entry that she doesn’t remember writing saying “time passes fast”.
As snow falls again, Frau becomes more philosophical and thinks about how animals and humans are forced to live their lives against their will. One day, she notices there is a white crow often flying around the house, ignored by its black family. Frau thinks the white crow is lovely and judges the other crows for their discrimination.
She also starts leaving food out for the white crow whenever its flock leaves it behind. Eventually two years pass of Frau living inside the barrier and by then she has forgotten about her old life, she has also given up hope that she will be found. In early June she and her animals move to a new house, hoping the change will help the mood.
Unfortunately she is unable to bring back the magic of the first summer. One afternoon, Frau and Lynx are coming back from a walk and suddenly Lynx hears something near their home, so he immediately runs toward it. By the time Frau catches up, she is horrified to find a strange man slaughtering Bella's son with an axe.
While Lynx jumps on the guy to stop him, Frau runs to the house to find her weapon. Unfortunately she is not fast enough and when she comes out Lynx has already been killed. Furious, Frau shoots the man dead before clinging to Lynx in despair.
Afterward Frau carries his small body to bury him while hearing Bella making sad noises because she has found her son. The man’s body is thrown off the cliff without any remorse. Incapable of feelings anything anymore, Frau leaves with Bella and the cat to another house.
Soon Frau goes back to working and the lack of Jynx means she has to be alone with her own thoughts. In the present, Frau says she has moved on and will always cherish the memories of her animals as encouragement to keep on surviving. She ends her report on February 25th because she has no more paper, and goes outside to feed the white crow.
