Critical Event Summary E01
 

Anna (33) is running for her life. Her chest heaving as she gasps in the arctic air. It feels like her throat is tightening, choking her against the relentless bite of the Swedish arctic winter. Her pregnant belly rises and falls with frantic urgency, her breath condensing in the icy air.

She quickly gets back on her feet and her eyes dart toward the hunting blind. With trembling limbs, she scrambles up the ladder and curls into a fetal position on the wooden platform. Holding her breath, she squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself to disappear.

Below, a man comes to a halt in the snow. He follows her tracks to the base of the ladder, his breath steady as he quietly draws a gun. Step by step, he ascends the ladder. Anna is found.

BAM! A single gunshot shatters the forest's stillness. Birds scatter into the sky, their wings echoing in the sudden, deafening silence.

Three days earlier:

Jonas unlocks the door to his and Annas apartment and stumbles into the cluttered hallway, crowded with newly delivered boxes of baby supplies and scattered shoes. With a sigh, he begins tidying up, calling out for Anna. There’s no reply.

On the balcony, Anna sits wrapped in a blanket, staring blankly into the cold winter air. The dark, unshakable dread that she doesn’t want to be a mother has gripped her once again. She hears Jonas calling her name but takes a moment to compose herself before responding. When Jonas steps onto the balcony, visibly concerned about her sitting in the cold, she offers a faint smile. “I just needed some fresh air,” she says softly. He gently kisses her forehead and asks how “Bug” is doing—their affectionate nickname for the baby.

The next day is Anna’s birthday, a day she dreads. To her, it’s a harsh reminder of the family and friends she lacks, her loneliness, and the life in Stockholm that hasn’t turned out as she had hoped.

On her way home from lunch, she calls Jonas, who claims to be at work. In truth, he’s at home, visibly shaken after a disturbing phone call. After hanging up, he unlocks his desk drawer and retrieves a white envelope lying next to a second phone. From the envelope, he pulls out a sheet of paper, staring at it intently before scribbling random letters on a fresh piece of paper. He then tears up the original, replacing it with the new one before locking everything away again.

That evening’s birthday celebration is lacklustre. Guests exchange idle small talk, relying on alcohol to lift the mood. When Anna heads out with her best friend and neighbour Eva to fetch more wine, they have a brief encounter in the stairwell with an gritty man who appears to be their new neighbor. Meanwhile, Jonas seizes the chance to check his secret phone. His expression as he reads the messages confirms the news is bad.

The following morning, Jonas is making breakfast, visibly preoccupied. Anna steps out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her head, when the doorbell rings. She peers through the peephole and sees the new neighbor. The moment she unlocks the door, it flies open, and chaos erupts.

Anna is thrown to the floor, her bathrobe falling open to reveal her pregnant belly. Jonas rushes to defend her but is no match for the imposing man—a hardened enforcer demanding “the list.” With terrifying efficiency, the intruder goes to town on Jonas down. Horrified and cornered, Jonas desperately gestures toward his desk in the home office. Without hesitation, the enforcer then shoots him in the stomach, strides to the office, forces open the locked drawer, and retrieves the envelope.

Anna screams in sheer terror and cradles Jonas as he struggles to speak, repeating, “Bug.” He bleeds out, and before she can process his final words, the enforcer looms over her, convinced she’s involved after finding only gibberish on the new list.

Dragging her by the hair into the kitchen, he then begins to strangle her. Anna’s flailing hand finds a corkscrew on the floor, and she drives it into his neck. Blood spurts as the man collapses, dying within moments and leaving Anna trembling and drenched in blood.

Within an hour, Anna has lost her husband and taken a life. Now she sits in shock, cradling Jonas’s lifeless body in her lap. As the pool of blood underneath him spreads, she notices the strange note slowly becoming submerged. Absentmindedly, she reaches out and picks it up, her hands trembling. 

Suddenly, a phone begins to vibrate somewhere. The sound continues, and Anna, in a haze, walks into the home office and finds the phone. A cold voice warns her of the consequences for her and her child if she goes to the police. Dropping the phone in shock, she stumbles out of the apartment down the stairwell down to her neighbour’s Eva, only to find her dead too. Panicked, Anna leaves Evas apartment, narrowly avoiding two men heading upstairs. She flees the building, gets into her car, and drives north. As the hours pass, the landscape transforms, with the snow thickening and the world around her growing colder and more desolate.

Deep in the Lapland forest, a man emerges with his dog, heading toward a cabin. It’s Anna’s estranged uncle Louie (65), whom she hasn’t seen in decades. Freja barks, and Louie sees Anna stumbling through the snow, bruised and broken. He helps her inside as she collapses.

Later that evening, Louie listens silently as Anna recounts the horrifying events. She places the bloodstained list on the table. Louie studies the strange cipher, his brow furrowed.

After Anna falls asleep, Louie examines the list again. On a whim, he uses the word “Bug,” which Anna said Jonas repeated before his death, to decode it. The letters shift into numbers—coordinates. Pulling out a map, Louie plots a location just as Freja barks again, and he barely notices movement outside.

Meanwhile Anna, unable to sleep, freezes as the lights suddenly go out. She calls for Louie, but there’s no answer. Trembling, she moves toward the door, which flies open as Louie appears. The very moment he pulls her down on the floor, a gunshot shatters window above her, crushing the illusion of refuge. 

Louie orders Anna to run to the old hunting blind while he distracts the intruder. Turning to Freja, he gives her a somber command, then pries the door open. Freja charges outside, buying time for Anna to make a run for the forest, while Louie runs in another direction. With eerie perfection, the hitman elminates Freja, but the split second that takes affords Anna and Louie the chance to flee the house.

Anna makes a frantic escape, mirroring the opening scene. She reaches the hunting blind and hides, but the hitman quickly catches up and begins climbing the ladder. A single gunshot echoes through the forest, and we now realize it’s the hitman who’s been shot. Louie stands behind him, hunting rifle in hand.

Fearing more attackers, Louie and Anna hastily prepare to flee. While Anna hurriedly packs the car, Louie pockets the hitman’s phone and disposes of the body with grim efficiency. He reveals to Anna that Jonas’s list contains coordinates for Denmark, Norway and Iceland. And though he'd sworn to never return there, he concludes Copenhagen is the only starting point that makes sense. 

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END OF EPISODE 1​​​​