The Abandon 2024

In a harrowing battlefield encounter, our protagonist, Jonathan Rosenthal, who plays Miles Willis, faces a devastating loss as he watches his fellow soldiers fall around him. Confronted with the brutal reality that he cannot defeat the enemy alone, Miles makes the difficult decision to withdraw from the chaos and seek safety. During his retreat, he is critically wounded by a gunshot, hitting his abdomen and rendering him weak and vulnerable. Lying injured in the midst of the blood-stained battleground, Miles is convinced that death is imminent. As he struggles to stay conscious amidst the excruciating pain, he witnesses an air strike—the bright explosion looming toward him feels like the end.

But instead of dying, Miles unexpectedly awakens inside a strange, box-shaped room—an environment that appears confined and yet oddly surreal. At first, he believes he is being held here temporarily, calling out for help, but no response comes. Realizing he is completely alone, Miles begins to treat his bullet wound, trying to slow the relentless bleeding. As time drags on, it becomes painfully clear that this room is designed to torment him, turning from cold to blazing hot and back again, with its behavior growing increasingly bizarre. The room itself seems alive, responding to unseen forces, even rotating wildly and causing Miles and his scattered belongings to be thrown about. When the spinning finally ceases, Miles finds himself on a different floor with some of his belongings, including a satellite phone and a strange telecom device.

Desperation pushes him to attempt communication, but the room’s walls block all signals. He watches helplessly as the satellite phone, beyond his reach, remains out of grasp. When the room again spins and shifts, Miles manages to seize the satellite device, and unexpectedly, he receives a call from a woman named Damsey, who Tamara Perry plays. She explains that her phone number was written on her wall, a clue that led her to contact him. Damsey reveals that she is a teacher stuck in this same bizarre space, and she confides that she frequently endures physical abuse from her husband. As their conversation deepens, Miles opens up about his traumatic childhood—his father, also in the army, used to lock him up, and he could hear his mother suffering from relentless brutality. Miles admits that his past, combined with the horrors of war, sometimes causes him to lash out at loved ones, a truth Damsey tries to comfort him over.

As their dialogue continues, the environment grows more unsettling. The room spins and sinks unpredictably, and Miles begins to measure the intervals of these disturbing motions. Through their conversations, they piece together that time behaves strangely here, and neither of them knows why they were brought to this place. Miles soon realizes that Damsey is from the year 2020, whereas he is from 1991—clues that this space was created by an advanced, possibly extraterrestrial, race attempting to observe human behavior under extreme conditions. This suggests that these walls are a form of experimentation, meant to explore how humans react to trauma and isolation.

Amidst their growing understanding, they receive another call—this time from a man with a distinct accent. He warns Miles against solving a mysterious math problem that appears on the wall. Both Miles and Damsey, who are adept with numbers, try to write down solutions, but the walls seem to be reacting, erasing their work as if an invisible third party is trying to prevent them from finding answers. The unknown caller hints that these beings may want to see if humans are capable of solving the equation, possibly to gauge their worthiness or to determine if they can be manipulated through knowledge of higher dimensions, notably the fourth dimension.

As they get closer to solving the puzzle, the environment’s hostility intensifies. The walls start to sink faster and faster, and visions of violence against loved ones—Damsey’s husband abusing her and Miles witnessing himself doing the same—manifest as psychological torment. Damsey falls into a dark place, feeling her abuser has gained control of the space, while Miles tries to remind her that their tormentors are only using illusions to manipulate their minds. Despite their fear and despair, they understand that their primary goal must be escape, regardless of what the cost may be.

With the environment collapsing around them, Miles calculates the necessary constant to solve the equation, urging Damsey to let go of her trauma and focus on the task at hand. Soon, they reach a breakthrough—the solution is 1, symbolizing that unity among humans is essential; it demonstrates that humanity’s strength lies in working together as one despite differences and conflicts. As Damsey finally writes down the answer, Miles places his hand on the wall, and suddenly, everything dissolves. He finds himself inside a fourth-dimensional space, capable of perceiving other beings and exploring the deeper layers of reality, highlighting the profound power of collective human consciousness.

The climax reveals Miles awakening back at the original battlefield site, just before the event where he initially lost consciousness. He observes the military preparing for an airstrike, and as he moves to a higher vantage point, he sees the U.S. Army scrutinizing the sky—an enormous, unseen entity looms above. The figure remains shrouded in mystery, but the implication is clear: by solving the puzzle, the beings from the fourth dimension have now become aware of Earth. Their interest hints at a potentially catastrophic invasion—destined to threaten the entire human civilization—unless humanity can unite and confront the unknown force. This ending underscores the idea that human unity and resilience are the keys to overcoming even the most incomprehensible threats from beyond our understanding.