Stardate: 48734.2. After Chakotay and Tuvok are injured in a shuttle accident, a non-corporeal life form begins to wreak havoc on Voyager by infiltrating the minds of the crew and altering the ship's systems one by one.

Stardate: Unknown. Captain Janeway starts seeing characters and objects from her holo-novel around the ship. Soon afterwards the crew begins entering a catatonic state one by one, while only Kes and the Doctor remain unaffected.