Ariel is a painter who finds herself stuck in a creative slump that threatens her career as well as her own sanity. She is crumbling beneath the weight of her debilitating depression and the ever-shortening deadlines of her employers, becoming increasingly paranoid and isolating herself completely from the world. Her psychological struggles start to haunt her in the shape of a dreaded antagonistic figure called The Shadow, an archetypal oppressor figure that prevents her creativity from flourishing.

Meanwhile, her own ego takes the shape of the Astronaut, a solitary figure that roams a deserted landscape looking for something that might awaken Ariel from her creative and psychological slumber.