Eric Simon Payne (Devil-Slayer) sits huddled on the floor on the Rosewell Sanitarium in Charles, Massachusetts, while images of his past, both real and imagined, play across his tortured mind. It is Christmas Eve, and Nurse Garcia encourages him to join the other inmates in singing carols, but he becomes agitated when he sees her appear demonic, eventually becoming the Man-Thing, burning him. Eric does come to his senses, and calms down.
In the Everglades, Ellen Brandt, hungry and tired, wearies of the wait to begin her and the Man-Thing's quest to repair the shattered Nexus of All Realities, and angrily expresses her second thoughts. Then Mr. Ternineus appears, dressed in a Santa Claus robe and carrying a long wooden staff. He enigmatically encourages Ellen to forge ahead and vanishes, leaving the staff with her. When she picks it up, she hears ancient voices emanating from it, then a Christmas feast materializes, which she eagerly tears into.
Back at Rosewell, Eric approaches fellow inmate Sorrow, who is mute, but able to communicate telepathically, in a dark corner of the room. They join hands and briefly move into another dimension where Sorrow appears in a more divine form, while Eric is garbed in his Devil-Slayer outfit. Sorrow tries to show Eric the good in the world, but he can't bring himself to accept it, and they return to the reality of the asylum. Someone in a Santa suit hands out gifts, while an orderly says he doesn't recall the institution having hired a Santa. The Santa, speaking with Termineus' voice, hands Eric a tiny demon which grows and is joined by a demon horde, overwhelming Eric.
In the swamp, the staff calls to Ellen, and it projects an image of the sanitarium, where she herself was once committed. She and the Man-Thing walk through a portal toward the asylum, but when they materialize in Charles, they find an enormous pit where the building had stood.
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