Content Warning: This section discusses suicidal ideation, sexual assault, child abuse, violence, and murder. Stigmatizing language about mental health is reproduced in quotations only.

In 1969, a sheriff in Arroyo, Arizona, finds a dead woman in a bathtub in a mansion. She has a pillowcase on her head, but he can see blood seeping through the fabric. From another part of the mansion, he hears screaming—they’ve found the killer, who has murdered at least six women and Mayor Victor Cross. As deputies break down the wall in which the culprit is hiding, the sheriff thinks about how much he hates this town. He feels ill, so he sits down on the stairs. The Spiral Staircase’s song “More Today Than Yesterday” plays loudly nearby. The sheriff hears multiple gunshots—his men shooting the killer—as he dies from a heart attack. Nearby, at the same time, a baby girl is born.

The narrative jumps forward to April 4, 1975. The mansion has been turned into a museum. The curator arrives for work. When she enters the mansion, she is immediately frightened because there is broken glass everywhere. She investigates and finds a little girl crouched in the hallway, singing “More Today Than Yesterday.