Rex closes the Compound hatch before Eddy and Gram can get inside, trapping them outside.

Terese tells Eli she might hate Rex and believes people are still alive outside the Compound.

Eli's mother shows him that the flour has turned gray and spoiled, threatening the family's food supply.

Eli enters Eddy's unused room and discovers Eddy's old laptop hidden inside.

Eli finds a note in the chapel Bible addressed to Phil and dated only months earlier.

Rat poison is discovered in the livestock feed, and all of the Compound's animals die.

Rex claims he used a recovered Internet signal to download music files from a surviving music mogul.

Lexie tells Eli that the Supplements were created by Rex as a potential food source for the family.

Rex takes Eli to a hidden lab and proposes cloning a human, saying Lexie has already agreed to be a host.

Eli connects Eddy's laptop to the Internet in the hallway outside Rex's locked office.

Eli chats with Eddy online and learns the nuclear attack never happened and Eddy is alive in Seattle.

Rex discovers Eli using the laptop in the hallway and immediately confiscates it.

Eli confronts Rex and demands the door code, and Rex admits the Compound was a fabricated experiment.

Eli punches Rex in the face and Rex falls off his stool, striking his head on the floor.

The Compound explodes and Eddy climbs out of an FBI helicopter to reunite with Eli.

After a supposed nuclear attack, Rex Yanakakis locks his family inside the Compound he built, closing the hatch before Eli's twin Eddy and grandmother Gram can enter. Six years later, Eli uncovers growing signs that the family's food supply is failing and that Rex is hiding something far bigger than spoiled flour. Suspicious of his father's secrets, Eli finds Eddy's old laptop and eventually connects it to the Internet, discovering that Eddy is alive and the nuclear attack never happened. Confronting Rex, Eli forces him to admit the Compound was a fabricated experiment designed to test the family's survival under pressure. Eli strikes Rex and races to decode the exit before Rex can stop him, ultimately escaping with his family as FBI helicopters arrive and the Compound detonates behind them. The story ends with the family reunited with Eddy on the surface, but Rex's body is never found.

The headline events driving Eli's escape from the Compound.

Eli remembers a family trip to Hawaii where Eddy saved him from falling off a cliff near a waterfall.

Rex gives Eli a copy of 'On the Beach,' a novel about nuclear war aftermath, as a birthday gift.

Eli listens to his mother play cello in the Compound and thinks about Gram and her difficult past.

Eli calculates that the hydroponic garden will run out of grow bulbs before the family's fifteen years are up.

Eli's mother tells him the Monet in her room is the real painting, proving Rex knew the attack was planned.

Rex tells Eli the hatch has a fifteen-year time-lock and refuses to share the early-exit code with him.

Rex secretly feeds the children breast milk at snack time as a hidden experiment without their knowledge.

The Supplement Quinn wakes Eli by touching his face, breaking six years of self-imposed physical isolation.

The family finds a storage tub labeled with Eddy's name, filled with his favorite jerky, and shares it together.

Eli's mother confides that she has never been so miserable and is no longer sharing Rex's room.

Eli enters the yellow room for the first time and meets the Supplement Lucas, who resembles Eddy.

Lucas shows Eli a nesting doll that he says contains a hidden mystery inside.

Gram gets online and tells Eli that the tabloids were right about Rex and his family history.

Eli asks Lexie to shave his head completely off, signaling his decision to fight Rex and free the family.

Eli reunites with Gram for the first time since the family was locked inside the Compound.

While the main plot builds toward escape, a quieter layer of events reveals the emotional and domestic reality of six years underground. Eli carries memories of Eddy's generosity alongside guilt for his own past selfishness, and small discoveries inside the Compound deepen his distrust of Rex before the confrontation arrives. His mother drops careful hints about Rex's deceptions, and the reappearance of Eddy's belongings keeps grief alive even as Eli grows more determined. Eli's first contact with the Supplements forces him to confront the moral horror behind Rex's plans in a way that lectures and arguments never could. Once the family turns against Rex, members begin bridging emotional distances they have maintained for years, finding unity in shared defiance. The story closes not with triumph alone but with reunion, as Eli finally reconnects with Gram after years of believing she was lost.

The secondary moments shaping life and secrets inside the Compound.

Eli remembers switching birthday gift tags as a child, and a clown tells him he is the evil twin.

Eli discovers that Terese has secretly moved out of her room, deepening the mystery of the yellow door.

Rex catches Eli snooping inside his private office and becomes visibly angry, revealing his excessive need for secrecy.

Eli remembers how Terese's smuggled kitten triggered Eddy's allergies on the night the family entered the Compound.

Eli discovers that the CDs Rex gave him have fake labels pasted over recently burned discs.

Eli realizes the Internet signal from Rex's office reaches into the hallway, giving him a plan to connect.

Eli remembers overhearing Phil tell a woman that Rex enjoys making people do things they do not want to do.

Lucas tells Eli that Eddy is going to come and rescue them from the Compound.

Lexie gives Eli exactly one day to prove the outside world still exists before she joins Rex's cloning project.

Eli's mother confronts Rex after learning Eli spoke with Eddy, and Rex admits leaving Eddy behind was not the plan.

Rex reveals he deliberately left the kitten for Terese to find so that Gram and Eddy would be stranded outside.

Rex tells Eli the Compound idea came from the time Eli turned off a propane valve to keep his father home.

Eli confesses to his mother that he intentionally lured Eddy toward the Range Rover on the night the family escaped.

Rex, weakened by ergot poisoning, tries to recite the door code but passes out saying only the word 'turducken.'

Eli spots a half-empty Tums wrapper in the Hawaii surf and becomes nervous, fearing Rex may still be alive.

Beneath the surface of daily life in the Compound, a series of discoveries and confessions slowly dismantles every lie Rex has constructed. Eli's memories expose his own past cruelty toward Eddy, fueling the guilt that shapes his every decision underground, while small physical clues like fake CD labels and a misplaced painting reveal that Rex has been deceiving the family from the start. A chance recollection of Phil's words at a Christmas party crystallizes what Rex is capable of, and connecting to the Internet transforms suspicion into certainty. The confrontation in Chapter 15 unleashes a cascade of devastating admissions, including how Rex engineered the night the family entered the Compound and why he built it in the first place. Eli's own long-held secret about luring Eddy away finally surfaces, releasing years of shame. The pool ends on an ominous note when a small piece of trash on a Hawaiian beach suggests the family's ordeal with Rex may not truly be over.