The novella is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the entire planet and people are being destroyed by something called the "yawning". The main character is a girl living in her damaged house with her ill and religious mother. The mother eventually dies and the girl is left alone in the house having to fear for her life from intruders and neighbors who often come by. She is looking out the window to a bunch of diseased children playing with a diseased dog.
The plot turns to her sitting in a bath tub and the merging of herself and the house begins. The novella vividly describes the destruction of her body and becoming a merged entity together with the house. Different rooms represent different periods of her life. She can't go through the door, only look through the keyhole on the outside. She sees herself as a baby and as an old sickly woman. The novella finally ends with her looking outside the window until finally becoming suffocated by the house.
