Inside his bedroom, a little boy,�Tommy Conlon, hears a scratching sound coming from beneath his bed. He calls to his father, Jeffrey, and tells him about something he saw reflected in the bedroom mirror, but Jeffrey dismisses it as a figment of his imagination. He�leaves the room... and holds the door shut as Tommy screams for help.

Back at Quantico, overeager young FBI accountant Agent Leyla Harrison shows Scully a photograph of a 30-something woman who stabbed herself to death with a pair of scissors. The woman's son, Tommy Conlin, told investigators that a monster took over his mother, and that his father knows all about it.�He�also claimed that the same creature killed Spanky, the family cat. Tommy and his father have since moved to a remote Pennsylvanian mountaintop.

Scully dismisses Leyla's fears that the supernatural is somehow involved, but Leyla convinces Doggett and�Reyes that the boy's life is in danger, and the threesome head for Pennsylvania.� On arrival they speak with Jeffrey Conlon, who�seems to have been burying something. After speaking with Tommy, Doggett and Reyes conclude that something is amiss - then blood spits out of the dashboard of Doggett's car as he tries to start it.

Back at her apartment, Scully is approached by Gabe Rotter, a friend of Leyla's, who produces a box containing Spanky's corpse.� He explains that Leyla said she would go out with him only if he gave it to Scully, who is understandably repulsed, until something catches her eye.

Stranded in Pennsylvania, Doggett, Reyes and Leyla hear Tommy cry for help. Doggett and Reyes run to the boy's room, pushing Jeffery aside.��Inside they discover two creatures resembling giant deformed earwigs. Doggett draws his gun and opens fire, blasting a creature in two, but it regenerates into two new monsters�which disappear beneath the wall molding.

After an autopsy on Spanky,�Scully concludes that it chewed a hole in its own stomach. She notes the similarity to the way Mrs Conlon stabbed herself to death.�She also discovers a strange cavity, as if something had lived inside the cat.�

Doggett digs up bits of mirror in the area where Jeffrey buried something. Jeffrey explains that his son was afraid of the mirror.�Suddenly, Coogan, the local Sheriff, alerted by a call from Scully, pounds on the front door. When Doggett answers, Coogan tells him it's too cold to leave. Jeffrey Conlon warns that the man standing in front of Doggett is not the sheriff. Coogan suddenly draws his gun and aims at Conlon. A scuffle ensues, Doggett hits Coogan in the ribs... puncturing�his chest.

Reyes pushes a wooden spoon into the sheriff's body,�finding no organs inside. A�little later, Tommy shows Reyes a bunch of drawings he made of the earwig creatures,�the sheriff holding a gun... and of a screaming Reyes with a creature exploding out of her stomach.

The sheriff's body suddenly disappears, and Reyes cries out for help, a bulge appearing in her stomach. Trying to confront�Tommy, Doggett tumbles through a seemingly infinite blackness after breaking down a door in search of him. When he lands, dozens of the earwig creatures attack him. Conlon makes his way to his son's room, where�Doggett�appears and explains that the�strange events surrounding the agents must mean that is that everything is imaginary. Conlon's wife stabbed herself�because she believed the creatures were real.

Doggett realizes that the only way to save Reyes and Leyla is to beat the little boy at his own game.�He splashes gasoline around the house, as Tommy watches.� Tommy exclaims that Doggett�wouldn't dare to light a match. But Doggett does, and drops�it into a pool of gasoline, which ignites.

Suddenly, both Reyes and Leyla return to normal. Doggett picks up Tommy, whose clothes are smoldering.�He explains that he played upon the little boy's imagination by using water instead of gasoline. Later, Tommy is transported to a psychiatric facility, where his mind is busied with television.

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