Recaps

JD handed over the watchtower to Nick, sharing warnings about the canyon and practical survival advice before departing. Nick began learning the defenses and preparing for his year on duty, while trying to understand the threat posed by the Hollow Men.

• JD told Nick that the canyon’s defenses had rarely been triggered, warned him to guard the climbable cliff beneath the watchtower, and explained that the Stray Dog Program would activate if the jamming devices failed or the tower fell.
• JD shared advice about surviving the winter, hunting and fishing, and gave Nick a homemade still and a potato vodka recipe to pass on.
• Nick said goodbye as JD left for a helicopter pickup, then learned about his one-ton supply airdrop, monthly radio reports, and ban on other outside communication.
• Nick inspected the bunker armory, found vast ammunition stores and other equipment, and carried a Barrett M107 up to the watchtower.
• Nick spent the following days patrolling and maintaining the defenses, investigating their strength as he suspected the Hollow Men were connected to his mission to save the world.

Nick prepared his tower for winter, stocked food, and used sturgeon migrations to narrow down the canyon’s location to eastern Europe. After making his first routine radio report, he faced the loneliness of a life with little to do and no contact with the tower keeper across the canyon.

• Nick renovated the lookout tower’s top room, expanded the vegetable plot, and gathered firewood and food for winter.
• Nick found migrating sturgeon near JD’s waterfall and concluded the canyon was probably in the Caspian Sea, Black Sea, or Aral Sea region.
• Nick made his first routine radio report, answered the authentication questions, and learned to call again in thirty-one days.
• Nick inspected the turrets and Big Ears and found that his daily duties left him with most of each day free.
• Nick read messages left by former tower keepers, including JD’s note about keeping himself good company and Captain Bradford Shaw’s message about traveling far.

Nick spotted the woman living in the east tower and recognized her as the heroine of The Queen's Gambit, whom he needed to rescue. During a storm, he tried to contact her across the gorge, but she replied that they were not allowed to communicate.

• Nick used his observation binoculars to watch the woman working at the base of the east tower and recognized her face from The Queen's Gambit.
• Nick wondered how he could rescue her, since he did not know what danger she faced or how to cross the gorge.
• During a torrential storm, Nick noticed the woman sitting by a lit window in the east tower.
• Nick fired a shot into the sky to get her attention and held up a board asking her name.
• The woman returned with a board saying, "We're not allowed to communicate!"

As the weather turned cold, Nick and the girl in the East Tower watched each other from afar without speaking. After seeing her celebrate a birthday alone, Nick finally received a written question from her but answered by repeating the rule against communication.

• Nick spent two weeks hunting rabbits, a deer, and a wild boar, then salted the meat after his attempts to cure their hides failed.
• As November brought colder rain, Nick finished preparing his winter supplies and kept warm while working on a liquor recipe.
• Nick and the girl in the East Tower secretly watched each other and each put up a scarecrow in their vegetable patch.
• Nick saw the girl blow out candles beside a bottle of vodka and realized he had not celebrated his own birthday in decades.
• After a gunshot, the girl held up a board asking Nick his name, and Nick replied, "We're not allowed to communicate!"

Nick and Dahlia celebrated her birthday across the gap between their watchtowers, where her unexpected skill with a sniper rifle revealed she was more than a reckless drinker. Their exchange was interrupted when Nick spotted dark figures climbing the cliff, and Dahlia prepared the East Tower’s heavy machine guns to fight them.

• Nick introduced himself to Dahlia and wished her a happy birthday, and she drank a bottle of vodka before playing music and dancing on her terrace.
• Dahlia asked Nick to dance and then offered to teach him to use his Barrett, but Nick admitted he was still learning.
• Dahlia shot Nick’s aluminum flask from more than three hundred meters away with her SVD, impressing him with her marksmanship.
• Nick spotted dark figures climbing the cliff beneath the East Tower and fired at them with his M4A1.
• Dahlia stopped the music, raised the East Tower’s machine-gun platform, and stepped onto it to confront the climbers.

Nick and Dahlia fought off the Hollow Men climbing the canyon cliffs, then watched the sunrise after a night of gunfire and explosions. Dahlia called it her best birthday ever, while Nick realized he had fallen for her despite believing they could have no future together.

• Nick and Dahlia spotted the Hollow Men climbing toward their watchtowers and opened fire across the canyon.
• Nick killed several Hollow Men with his M4A1, and a falling monster detonated a proximity mine that blasted others from the cliff.
• Nick and Dahlia used their heavy machine guns while mines and automated turrets joined the fight, wiping out the attackers within minutes.
• At dawn, Nick saw that a mine fragment had wounded Dahlia, and she stapled the wound shut and bandaged it.
• Dahlia held up a board saying it had been her best birthday ever, and Nick reflected on his feelings for her and their lack of a shared future.
• Nick considered the repairs and ammunition resupply required after the battle.

Nick and Daliya repaired their defenses after the attack, then spent the winter strengthening their bond as Daliya taught Nick advanced marksmanship. As Christmas approached, Nick planned to surprise her with a Christmas tree.

• Nick replenished the six automated turrets, and he and the injured Daliya later repaired the fence and rehung proximity mines while covering each other.
• A strange jet-powered drone rose from the canyon, triggered a turret to aim at it, and then flew north without being fired upon.
• Nick and Daliya questioned each other about the unfamiliar drone, while their regular reports brought no further response from their superiors.
• As winter set in, Nick made potato liquor and exchanged daily greetings with Daliya across the canyon.
• Daliya taught Nick advanced ballistics, and he learned to hit a soccer-ball-sized target at about 1,500 meters with a Barrett M107.
• Nick began considering making Daliya a Christmas tree as a surprise gift.

Nick marked Christmas with a light-covered tree for Dahlia, then spent the following months improving his shooting and preparing to cross the gorge. As spring arrived, he began converting a rocket warhead into a homemade rope launcher for his next surprise.

• Nick set up a Christmas tree below his watchtower and greeted Dahlia with a sign, bringing her to tears.
• Nick shot the tip off a bottle with a .50-caliber rifle, and Dahlia cheered as he watched from nearly a kilometer away.
• As the weather warmed, Nick admired a white flower and decided it was time to prepare Dahlia’s second surprise.
• Nick took a high-explosive rocket into the workshop, removed its fuze and charge, and began making a rope launcher to cross the gorge.

Nick prepared a rocket-powered line thrower to cross the gorge and, after finding Dahlia upset on Valentine’s night, hinted that he wanted to reach her. The next morning, Dahlia launched a pilot line across the gap and used a pulley and powered ascender to cross to Nick’s side.

• Nick modified three RPG rockets with safety ropes, preparing to test them as a way to cross the gorge.
• On February 14, Nick saw Dahlia crying alone and waited until she came out to ask if she was okay.
• Nick hinted that he wanted to travel across the gorge to her, and Dahlia smiled at the suggestion that they break the rules.
• The next morning, Nick began setting up anchors, but Dahlia fired a line thrower from the opposite side and sent a pilot line across.
• Nick secured a static rope across the gorge, and Dahlia crossed using a pulley and powered ascender before greeting him.

Nick and Dahlia reunited in person, embraced, and shared a meal at the West Tower. As they discussed their pasts and how they had ended up there, Nick redirected the conversation toward the place beneath them.

• Nick welcomed Dahlia, and they embraced after she admitted she had come to see him immediately.
• Nick prepared a Chinese meal and vodka for Dahlia, and they toasted their first time together.
• Nick and Dahlia sat on the West Tower's observation terrace and speculated about their location near Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
• Dahlia told Nick that her father had worked for the KGB, trained her to shoot, and that she later did work for the GRU without being one of its members.
• Dahlia guessed she had been sent there after a botched job, while Nick said he did not know why he had been sent; he then turned the conversation toward what lay beneath them.

Nick and Dahlia discussed the Hollow Men, and Dahlia admitted she had been sad because February 14 reminded her of her father. As they shared Nick’s bath, she revealed her hopes for a Prince Charming and asked him to make breakfast for her tomorrow.

• Nick asked Dahlia what she thought the Hollow Men in the canyon were, and she recalled her father warning her not to seek too much truth.
• Nick realized Dahlia had been sad because February 14 reminded her of her father, and she confirmed that she missed him.
• Dahlia asked to use Nick’s bathtub, and they heated water and tidied the kitchen together.
• While Dahlia bathed, she told Nick about her 3,540-meter sniper record and her hope to meet a man who could surpass her.
• Dahlia wrapped her arms around Nick from behind and asked him to make breakfast for her tomorrow.

Nick and Dahlia grew closer as she shared her grief over her dying father, but their reunion ended in disaster when an explosion severed her rope and sent her falling into the gorge. After seeing her parachute open, Nick armed himself and leaped after her to save her from the Hollow Men.

• Dahlia told Nick about her father’s cancer and his wish to die beside her mother’s grave, and Nick comforted her with a story about grief.
• Nick made Dahlia breakfast, and they discussed using a pulley and basket to send supplies across the gorge.
• As Dahlia crossed the gorge, proximity mines exploded, the static rope snapped, and she fell; she unclipped her waist rope and opened her parachute.
• Nick rushed to the armory, loaded up weapons and equipment, and jumped into the gorge after Dahlia.

Nick and Dahlia reunited in the mist-filled canyon and fought their way through its living trees and monstrous inhabitants. After they were surrounded by Hollow Men, mounted riders attacked, and Dahlia was knocked flying by a cavalry saber.

• Nick landed beside a river, headed east through the strange forest, and fled after his machete wound a screaming tree and stirred up unseen creatures.
• Nick followed pistol shots and rescued Dahlia from her tangled parachute as a human-headed centipede fell from the tree.
• Nick and Dahlia watched the tree roots trap and consume the centipede, then armed themselves and planned to search west along the cliff for hanging ropes.
• Roars from the Hollow Men surrounded them as the mist thickened, and Nick shoved Dahlia aside to evade two mounted attackers.
• Nick shot a horse as the first riders disappeared into the mist, while Dahlia fired at the other rider.
• Two more mounted Hollow Men charged with rusty cavalry sabers, and Dahlia tried to block one with her rifle before the impact sent her flying.

Nick and Dahlia fought off Hollow Men in the canyon, then discovered evidence that elite soldiers from several nations had entered the place and encountered its horrors. They crossed a grotesque scorched landscape and reached an abandoned town split by a deep fissure, leaving the cause of the canyon’s mutations unknown.

• Nick fought a Hollow Man cavalryman with his Bolo knife, while Dahlia recovered and shot another rider and horse.
• Nick and Dahlia found a shoulder patch identifying one creature as a member of the US 82nd Airborne Division, and Dahlia recalled seeing Hollow Men in Special Air Service and Alpha Group uniforms.
• Nick and Dahlia left the yellow fog and crossed scorched ground covered with charred trees bearing skulls and stretched human bodies.
• Nick and Dahlia waded through a stream and found an abandoned town surrounded by postwar vehicle wrecks.
• Nick peered into a deep fissure splitting the town and wondered whether something had emerged from underground and caused the devastation.

Nick and Dahlia took shelter in a church, where they discovered its congregation had died by suicide and a nest of Human-Headed Spiders attacked them. The chapter ended with Nick ordering Dahlia to open fire as the spiders swarmed her.

• Nick and Dahlia escaped the Hollow Men cavalry by entering a vine-covered church and waited for the hoofbeats to fade.
• Nick found dried corpses wrapped in cobwebs in the pews, and Dahlia identified cyanide as the cause of their deaths.
• Nick reassured Dahlia while they rested and replenished ammunition, but strange noises soon came from inside the church.
• Nick warned Dahlia not to look up, but she saw hundreds of Human-Headed Spiders descending from a nest in the ruined roof.
• The spiders landed on Nick and Dahlia, and Nick shouted for them to open fire as a swarm lunged at Dahlia.

Nick and Dahlia fought through a church overrun by Human-Headed Spiders and foul Hollow Men, then escaped into a bunker that might hold the gorge’s secrets. After Dahlia asked Nick to hold her, he resolved to get her out alive and protect her from whatever awaited them beyond the gorge.

• Dahlia fired at the Human-Headed Spiders while Nick fought them off and carried her toward the church entrance.
• Four foul-smelling Hollow Men burst into the church, and Nick and Dahlia drove them back as the spiders attacked them too.
• Dahlia blasted a hole through the church wall with a grenade launcher, and she and Nick fled across the graveyard and along the road.
• With more Hollow Men howling around them, Dahlia spotted a bunker, and the pair forced their way inside past a barricaded steel door.
• Nick noticed signs that someone had broken into the bunker long ago, and he and Dahlia agreed to explore it.
• Dahlia asked Nick to hold her before they continued, and Nick promised they would make it out alive while privately resolving to keep her safe.

Nick and Dahlia explored a ruined secret laboratory and recovered a film reel that revealed the canyon’s origins as a joint Allied and Soviet biochemical weapons project. The film showed that an earthquake caused a toxic-agent leak and a catastrophic outbreak of mutations, while the researcher on screen was the corpse at the laboratory bench.

• Nick and Dahlia entered a damaged bunker and found signs that strange organisms and human remains had been chemically treated.
• They cleared a laboratory and discovered grotesquely mutated corpses, including one holding a film canister labeled “May God forgive us.”
• Dahlia found propane cylinders connected to a backup generator, and Nick started it to power the laboratory.
• Dahlia repaired the projector, and Nick and Dahlia watched a film explaining that the bunker had been a secret biochemical weapons research base.
• The researcher on the film described an earthquake-triggered toxic-agent leak that fused plants, animals, and people into monsters, then revealed her own mutated body.

Nick and Dahlia uncovered Black Lake’s secret research into the canyon’s mutated life-forms and learned that its hired operatives may have been expendable test subjects. Nick concluded that the mission to save the world might require destroying Black Lake, and he and Dahlia vowed to make the company pay if either survived.

• Dahlia and Nick watched footage showing that researchers had failed to develop a treatment for the biochemical agent, then decided they should leave quickly.
• Nick and Dahlia found a hidden computer room and discovered that Black Lake had continued research in the canyon long after the original project began.
• Nick read files revealing that Black Lake had collected the laboratory’s Final Samples and later pursued longevity research using the canyon’s Hollow Men.
• Nick and Dahlia realized Black Lake may have hired them because they were expendable, and Dahlia asked Nick to promise they would make the company pay.
• Nick suspected that saving the world meant destroying Black Lake in its entirety.

Nick and Dahlia uncovered Black Lake’s Stray Dog nuclear contingency and shared their feelings while the Magic Movie Ticket offered a way for Dahlia to leave the world with him. When they emerged from the bunker with evidence in hand, a disciplined group of Hollow Men confronted them.

• Nick discovered that the Stray Dog Plan would detonate a nuclear bomb to destroy the canyon if its jammers failed, and he removed the hard drive containing evidence against Black Lake.
• Nick told Dahlia he came from another world and urged her to survive, but Dahlia told him she did not want to live without him.
• The Magic Movie Ticket revealed a Couple Pass that could let Nick take Dahlia with him after they completed the mission, and Dahlia agreed to leave with him.
• Nick and Dahlia packed the hard drive and film evidence, then opened the bunker door and found a tall Hollow Man beside a bonfire with more than a dozen riders behind it.
• Dahlia prepared to attack, but the Hollow Man leader silenced its followers, and Nick lowered her gun so they could see what the group wanted.

Nick fought and killed the leader of the "Hollow Men" after it offered a Willys jeep in exchange for Dahlia, then he and Dahlia gunned down the pursuing cavalry. The nameplate on the leader's corpse identified it as B. Shaw, possibly Captain Bradford Shaw, leaving them to wonder whether anyone had ever escaped the canyon.

• The leader of the "Hollow Men" pointed at Dahlia and offered Nick a rust-covered Willys jeep, then challenged him to a duel.
• Nick defeated the leader by breaking its ankle, cutting off its hand, killing the snake in its chest, and beheading it.
• The "Hollow Men" cavalry charged, so Nick and Dahlia fired their rifles and grenade launchers, killing the riders and their mounts.
• Nick found a nameplate reading "B. Shaw" on the leader and suspected it was Captain Bradford Shaw, prompting Dahlia to wonder whether anyone had ever left the canyon alive.

Nick and Dahlia traveled through the canyon in a Jeep pulled by plant horses, then entered a forest to retrieve their fallen ropes. They found the ropes hanging above a writhing cocoon nest containing trapped, half-melted human figures, and Nick planned to free the ropes before ending their suffering.

• Nick and Dahlia used the plant horses to pull their Jeep past an abandoned military camp and a tower-mounted nuclear bomb.
• The plant horses stopped at the forest’s edge and turned hostile, so Nick and Dahlia shot them and prepared to enter on foot.
• Nick rigged a C4 booby trap on the Jeep before he and Dahlia searched the woods for the fallen ropes.
• Nick and Dahlia found both ropes hanging in a mutated tree beside a huge nest woven from glowing vines and cocoons.
• Nick discovered that the cocoons contained agonized humanoid figures and told Dahlia they would retrieve the ropes before ending the victims’ torment.

Nick and Dahlia escaped the cocoon nest after Nick’s climb disturbed it and the pursuers triggered their C4 trip mine. As they ascended the cliff on a powered rope ascender, Hollow Men rapidly climbed after them, forcing Dahlia to warn that they had to kill the creatures before reaching the mines and automated turrets near the top.

• Nick climbed through the dormant cocoon nest and recognized JD among the grotesque figures, realizing the nest was producing Hollow Men.
• Nick cut the first static rope, then tried to retrieve a second rope when a branch snapped and the tree and cocoon nest began shrieking and contracting.
• Nick cut the rope and swung down as transparent vines lashed at him; the pursuers triggered their C4 trip mine, and Dahlia set the tree ablaze with vodka and a grenade.
• Nick and Dahlia fled the burning nest as Hollow Men poured into the woods, then attached themselves to a powered rope ascender and began climbing the cliff.
• Hollow Men rapidly climbed after them, and Dahlia warned Nick that they had to stop the pursuers before they reached the proximity mines and automated turrets near the top.

Nick and Dahlia escaped the Hollow Men by climbing out of the gorge, then discussed leaving their old lives behind and going to Nick’s world. As night fell in the West Tower, Nick explained his unusual abilities, and Dahlia suggested an eccentric use for Fake Death Revival.

• Nick and Dahlia fought off the Hollow Men climbing after them, then cut the rope and escaped the gorge.
• Dahlia asked Nick whether his claims about his world were true, and he told her Portland was peaceful and that he was an ordinary cop there.
• Dahlia told Nick she wanted to stop killing and had planned to leave for France to open a restaurant, while Nick invited her to come with him.
• After night fell, Nick explained his unusual abilities, including Fake Death Revival, and Dahlia proposed using it in a way that startled him.

Nick and Dahlia prepared for the nuclear blast and discussed whether their world was real, with Dahlia insisting they follow their original plan. Three days later, Nick used Rivi’s identity to lure older Ripley into revealing her concern about a talking Hollow Man, then signaled that their plan could proceed.

• Nick and Dahlia discussed hiding places and how to survive the nuclear blast, then worried about whether the Magic Movie Ticket’s world was fictional.
• Dahlia told Nick to follow his original plan and said she would act according to her own wishes.
• Three days later, Nick contacted the military as Rivi and claimed he had captured a Hollow Man that could talk and repeated Captain Bradford Shaw’s name.
• After Nick mentioned a military drone had flown out of the canyon, older Ripley ordered him to keep the Hollow Man contained and promised doubled pay.
• Nick ended the radio call, wrote that everything had gone smoothly, and carried the message toward the observation terrace.

Ms. Bartholomew’s forces arrived at the Canyon seeking Levi Kane and the Hollow Man, only to discover the supposed creature was a scarecrow and two rabbits. As Black Lake’s sixteen Big Ears were destroyed, Ms. Bartholomew recognized the Stray Dog Plan; a flashback revealed Nick and Dahlia had designed the trap to draw Black Lake’s leaders into the Canyon and kill them with a nuclear bomb.

• Ms. Bartholomew learned that Levi Kane and his East Tower counterpart were missing, while her forces found a tarpaulin-covered figure beside the West Tower.
• Ms. Bartholomew ordered a soldier to uncover the figure, revealing a scarecrow labeled “Hollow Man” and two rabbits instead of the promised creature.
• Ms. Bartholomew ordered the drones to find Rivi, but explosions and tracer fire destroyed all sixteen Big Ears across the Canyon.
• Ms. Bartholomew and the Black commander identified the attack as the Stray Dog Plan.
• Three days earlier, Dahlia questioned Nick about how he planned to destroy the Big Ears, and Nick explained that their real goal was to lure Black Lake’s senior executives into the Canyon with the promise of a talking Hollow Man.
• Nick planned to use a nuclear bomb codenamed Stray Dog to kill the executives and create enough chaos for their escape.