Stefan wakes up alone in the middle of the street, a crashed car and burning school bus in front of him. He rushes into the bus to rescue anyone who may have survived and the police arrive soon after. When EMTs check him out, he can’t remember his name. 

In Texas, Damon sits over Stefan’s lifeless body in the airfield where he fell. Valerie surveys the wreckages from Mary Louise and Nora’s crash and finds the remains of the Phoenix sword. Damon and Valerie argue over what to do next. She believes Stefan is gone. Damon believes he isn’t. She agrees to help find Rayna but decides to do it on her own instead of with his help.

In what he believes to be Hell, Stefan is accused of being drunk and asked to walk a straight line. Rayna calls Matt to ask for help. He and Valerie learn that all the vampire souls in the stone are free and Damon finds Stefan walking down the road.

Police call Stefan “Marty,” and he learns that he was driving the bus that crashed. Rayna can hear all the souls she ever trapped inside the stone. They’re all inside whichever dead body they found first. 

Matt calls Alaric to warn him that Rayna’s souls are free. Valerie shows up on his doorstep with the huntress. Rayna and Valerie need his help hunting down all the vampires she put down.

Damon gives the vampire he believes to be Stefan one of his journals. Stefan says he’s famished.

In the Arkansas woods, the real Stefan finds a cabin and lets himself in. Because he’s in a human body, it works, but he’s weak and sick.  And handcuffed. He has about three days to live.

Damon knows his brother isn’t his brother when Stefan feeds off a waitress. Damon learns that his real brother is on a very short timeline for survival because he jumped into a human body. Stefan learns that he’s in the body of an alcoholic and that there’s a manhunt on for him. 

Valerie does a spell to help Rayna focus on Stefan and they all learn he’s trapped in the body of Marty Hammond. Stefan isn’t happy about being trapped in the body of a human. He hot-wires a truck and leaves the cabin.

Fake Stefan continues to pretend to be real Stefan, but Damon knows he’s faking it. Fake Stefan suggests he and Damon go “carousing” together and then jumps out of the moving car, apparently on the way to Memphis.

Stefan finds a camper and asks to borrow a phone to make a call. The camper hears a radio bulletin and drives away, leaving Stefan alone in the woods just as the blizzard begins to fall.

Damon compels an Arkansas police officer to believe he’s Matt Donovan in order to get information about Stefan. The police plan to wait for the blizzard to kill their fugitive. In his near death, Stefan begins to hallucinate Damon.

As the blizzard continues building, Damon scans data boards to find his brother. The camper comes into the station. Damon takes over the investigation and learns that the camper lost her phone in her scuffle with Stefan. Damon calls his brother and while Stefan is freezing to death, he asks Damon where his instincts are. They share their resentments and anger and Stefan gets up to start walking.

Valerie and Alaric wait in a diner as everyone else does the hard work of tracking down Stefan’s soul and his body so they can be reunited. They discuss their shared interest in Stefan and Caroline. Alaric fell in love with Caroline and proposed; Caroline said yes because it was right for the girls.

After discussing a moment from their childhood, Stefan collapses. Damon finds him moments later and carries him to safety. Stefan begins to bleed and learns that his real body is in danger. Valerie gets a vision of Stefan’s body in Memphis and Alaric remembers an Urban Legend about a killer on a University campus.

Fake Stefan arrives at a fraternity house and gets himself invited inside.