The movie starts on a wet autumn afternoon in a little resort on the south coast of France, and it opens with a passage from Lewis Carroll, which suggests that the protagonist is similar to Alice from the Alice in Wonderland stories.
Mellie, who has recently tied the knot with Toni, an airline navigator who is currently abroad at work, witnesses a mysterious man alighting from a bus. She notices the man watching her when she is trying on dresses for a wedding the following day while she is in a store. After she returns home, he enters the house under the cover of darkness, ties her up, and rapes her. After she manages to break free of her captor and realizes that he is still inside the house, she pulls out a firearm and ends his life.