In 1971, a young girl, Lucie Jurin, escapes from a disused Slaughterhouse where she has been imprisoned and physically abused for more than a year. The perpetrators and their motivations remain a mystery. Lucie is placed in an orphanage, where she is befriended by a young girl named Anna Assaoui, who quickly discovers that Lucie believes that she is constantly being terrorized by a ghoulish creature - a disfigured, emaciated woman. Even so, Anna comforts Lucie every time she has a nightmare.