When a small town is abandoned after the mine closes down, two men with a tumultuous past refuse to take part in the exodus and prepare to spend the winter there in complete independence. On day one of the new republic, a leak in their hermetic world appears to have let in a threat from the outside. Convinced that a plague has penetrated their village-state, they decide to turn the place inside-out to stop the scourge that is eating away at them.