Then the Jade Fall happens, an enormous green meteor makes landfall, exploding into blinding emerald light. When the light fades, Lauren has survived, and so has Hydro World, but as she looks around, only two of her friends, Bobby and Lisa, are there-everyone else has vanished.

Lauren and her friends meet more survivors, and it seems only a fraction of parkgoers survived the Jade Fall. Lauren attempts to lead the survivors out of Hydro World, assisted by the park's central computer, which goes by the name Leviathan. Soon they find the world around them has been altered-often in seemingly impossible ways. Hydro World has become a place where water can burn, gravity can change, and more.

In the gloom of the desolate park, new life begins to assert itself. Some are benignly beautiful, but others are unspeakable abominations with too many eyes and too many mouths. Worse for Lauren, she slowly becomes aware of her own impossible changes to her body, developing frightening powers which she tries to keep hidden from her fellow survivors-at first. With extreme power the others lack, she balances on the edge of survival and becoming yet another of Hydro World's monsters.

"I'm afraid of the things I can hear, the things I can do. And most of all, I'm afraid that when I'm in the moment doing those things, I'm not afraid at all. I'm afraid that I love it."