Cliff Miyashiro arrives at a Siberian research site to continue his late daughter Clara's work studying an ancient mummified girl.

Scientists at the compound reanimate a virus found in melting permafrost, hoping to study it before it spreads to the public.

Skip takes a job as an attendant at a euthanasia park designed to help terminally ill children die peacefully.

Skip operates the Chariot of Osiris roller coaster for Dorrie's dying son Fitch on the boy's final day.

Jun contracts the Arctic plague from his cousins, falls into a coma, and awakens in a dark shared space with other patients.

Jun leads the comatose crowd in building a human pyramid to lift a mysterious baby out of gravity's reach.

A pig in David's laboratory begins repeating words and MRI tests confirm its brain is rapidly developing.

After learning he is dying of brain expansion, Snortorious asks David to harvest his organs to save other people's lives.

Dennis's mother dies while he postpones visiting her, and he uses his resources to host her viewing in the hotel's presidential suite.

Aubrey realizes she is in love with terminally ill patient Laird and kisses him three days before he dies.

Bryan holds a press conference revealing a singularity in his brain that could revolutionize space travel and enable planetary colonization.

The USS Yamato launches its mission to colonize another planet, carrying Miki, her granddaughter Yumi, and Dorrie aboard.

After over six thousand years of travel, the USS Yamato crew discovers a habitable planet and begins colonization.

Dan Paul wakes from a plague coma to find his wife and daughter dead, then emails his neighbors inviting them to a barbeque.

The world builder, who has been reincarnating throughout history, reveals her alien nature and true identity to Bryan on his deathbed.

The novel begins when Cliff Miyashiro travels to Siberia to continue his late daughter's work, where scientists have reanimated an ancient virus that soon escapes the compound and sparks a global plague. As the Arctic plague spreads, society adapts—euthanasia parks are built for dying children, scientists develop organ-bearing pigs to save the infected, and elegy hotels accommodate the grieving. Researchers like Aubrey and Bryan work independently to understand the plague, while Bryan's discovery of a brain singularity leads to a revolutionary space travel program. The USS Yamato launches and, after thousands of years, finds a new planet for humanity to call home. Back on Earth, survivors like Dan Paul emerge from plague comas into a changed world and begin the difficult work of rebuilding community. In the novel's final revelation, the alien world builder discloses that she has guided Earth's history all along, having reincarnated as Clara and Theresa to ensure humanity's survival.

The pandemic's deadliest milestones and humanity's fight for survival.

Cliff reads Clara's journals, discovering her inner thoughts, and writes her a goodbye letter in her own diary.

News of a viral outbreak hundreds of miles away reaches the Siberian compound, and the scientists begin testing positive.

Skip bonds with Dorrie and her terminally ill son Fitch after they move into the drug trial cottages at the park.

The comatose patients discover iridescent memory spheres and enter them to relive each other's most intimate moments.

A comatose man weeps over a memory of a child boarding a roller coaster, linking one man's private grief to the shared dreamscape.

David sneaks Snortorious out of the lab for a final night at his apartment, where they watch movies and eat cake.

Dennis and Val secretly help Mr. Leung perform under-the-table cremations for local families who cannot afford official services.

Ayano's robo-dog Hollywood sings in her recorded voice when Aki plays the shamisen, bringing the grieving father and son closer together.

Aubrey brings Laird's sister Orli to the body farm to help her understand how Laird's donated remains are being studied.

Bryan secretly fantasizes that the singularity in his brain connects to a parallel universe where his deceased wife and daughter still live.

Miki and Dorrie collaborate on murals aboard the USS Yamato to honor and memorialize those they left behind on Earth.

Akira realizes that Yoshiko, the virtual reality woman he has feelings for, is the estranged daughter of his printing press employer Seiji.

Mabel visits Eden Ice and works with the sculptor over years to design an ice ship to be built from her remains.

Rina steps in to help her weeping mother remove bone fragments from her grandmother's ashes during the communal urn ceremony.

The world builder reincarnates as Clara to halt the climate crisis and then as Theresa to ensure interstellar space travel succeeds.

Behind the headline events of the Arctic plague, the novel's secondary moments trace the emotional cost of surviving catastrophe. Cliff finds closure in Clara's private journals, and Skip forms a tender bond with Fitch and Dorrie in the drug trial cottages of the euthanasia park. In the shared comatose dreamscape, patients explore each other's most intimate memories, discovering grief that connects strangers across time. David steals one final night with a pig he loves like a son, while a robo-dog sings a dead woman's voice and brings a fractured family back together. Aboard the USS Yamato, Miki and Dorrie transform grief into art, painting murals that memorialize everyone they left behind on Earth. From Akira's discovery about Yoshiko to Rina's quiet act of helping her mother at the communal urn ceremony, these moments reveal that the plague's true toll is measured not in headlines but in intimacy and lost connection.

The personal losses and quiet connections that hold the story together.

Cliff finds Clara's journal in her sleep pod at the Siberian compound but discovers her purple crystal pendant is missing.

As the Siberian scientists begin falling ill, Cliff throws Clara's protective dogū statue into the crater where she died.

Skip accompanies his first dying charge, a boy named Danny, through the euthanasia park on the child's final day.

Dorrie tells Skip that Fitch's drug trial has failed and she wants to take him to the park before he worsens further.

Jun convinces the comatose crowd to build a human pyramid after a newcomer reveals he felt himself falling before arriving in the darkness.

A government directive orders Snortorious to be transferred to a federal facility for testing, forcing David to reckon with the pig's fate.

Val tells Dennis about her own failure to be present when her husband died, prompting Dennis to finally resolve to call his family.

The robo-dog repairman and his son Aki visit Ayano's ashes in a high-rise cemetery, with Aki playing the shamisen for her.

Laird stops taking his medication and takes a final day trip with Aubrey and Orli to a state park.

Theresa fiddles with a purple crystal pendant during heated debates with Bryan about whether to leave Earth behind for space.

Several USS Yamato crew members are killed by creatures on the surface of an unexplored planet, and the survivors hold a funeral.

Yoshiko murders her daughter and dies by suicide, and Akira visits their grave before resolving to call his mother for help.

Rina reveals her pregnancy to her mother during the memorial visit, and her mother responds only by asking the gender of the baby.

The world builder reveals that her alien genetics inadvertently caused the mutation that created the virus killing Annie and igniting the Arctic plague.

Colonel Barret sends a final transmission from the USS Yamato announcing the crew has found and colonized a new home planet.

The novel's most pivotal turning points are defined by private realizations and impossible choices rather than public events. A missing crystal pendant, a protective statue thrown in grief, and a drug trial's failure set the emotional trajectory of the story's earliest chapters. Characters are repeatedly forced to reckon with what they cannot control—a government order claiming a beloved pig, a friend's deathbed confession that shames a man into action, and a marriage quietly dissolving under the weight of shared grief. The middle of the novel turns on intimate revelations: a singularity that secretly represents hope for a lost family, crew members killed by alien creatures on an unexplored planet, and a woman whose virtual connection ends in devastating tragedy. Rina's pregnancy reveal and the world builder's confession that her alien genetics inadvertently caused the plague reframe both the human and cosmic scales of the story. The final transmission from the USS Yamato confirms that the long arc of human suffering and perseverance has, at last, led somewhere entirely new.

The decisions, discoveries, and emotional turning points that change everything.