प्लॉट

A rookie agent asks for Scully's help in proving that a quaint crime scene photographer is a serial killer. With some help from a bored Mulder, Scully discovers the man's actual dark secret. And an old prophecy regarding Scully comes true.

Agent Scully gets paired with a new partner to investigate a singular case. Alfred Fellig, a freelance crime photographer, has a knack for arriving at crime scenes shortly after the murder and long before the police arrive. Local authorities suspect Fellig may be killing the victims himself before photographing them.—Muldernscully

A woman pushes a mail cart down a hallway, delivering mails. She realizes a man is following her, and, scared, makes a run for a crowded elevator. The man also gets in the elevator but gets off a few floors later, then runs down the stairs. The elevator cable snaps and everyone in it falls to their deaths. The man photographs the wreckage at the bottom.

Cut to an FBI office. Mulder and Scully are doing mundane office work. Scully is called to the director's office, where she is briefed on a murder investigation. A newspaper photographer, Alfred Fellig, has some inconsistencies in negatives. He's getting photos of dead people just as they die, faster than anyone would be able to get there. Scully is assigned to the case with Agent Ritter, leaving Mulder behind.

Cut-scene: The photographer is watching a man through a window. The man has a heart attack and the photographer takes his picture.

Mulder has the idea that the case is an X-File, but Scully and Ritter leave for New York. They go to the police looking for background on the photographer. Looking through a series of photo ID's, Scully realizes that his picture hasn't changed in thirty-five years.

Cut to a man running and calling for help. He is caught and stabbed to death. The photographer takes his picture. The mugger catches him and stabs him in the back, taking his camera. The photographer reaches around, pulls the knife out of his back, and walks away.

At the crime scene, Scully and Ritter find the knife with the photographer's fingerprints on it. They bring him in for questioning. He appears unharmed, and claims to have been chased by the mugger before he ran away. They suspect him of the murder because his fingerprints are there, but he shows them some cuts on his back. Mulder and Scully talk on the phone and Scully updates him on the case, although Mulder has been reading progress reports.

Ritter is on a stakeout of Fellig when Scully comes to relieve him. She realizes they've been noticed, so she knocks on his door to ask about a photograph he took. Fellig takes her on a drive around the city for an hour. They spot a hooker and Fellig says she is about to die. He always knows when people are about to die. Scully is skeptical. The woman is accosted by a man. Scully goes and arrests him before he can harm her, but the woman walks out into traffic and is hit by a truck.

Ritter is annoyed, thinking Scully blew the surveillance and possibly the case against Fellig. The mugger has come in to accuse Fellig of attacking him and Ritter believes his story and that Fellig is responsible for the murder of the stabbing victim. Ritter is certain he can get a judge to quickly issue a warrant for Fellig's arrest.

Mulder calls again and Scully confirms that it is an X-File. Mulder says Fellig is 149 years old and has been changing his name every few years, and Scully needs to get to him before he can disappear again.

Scully goes to Fellig's apartment before he can be arrested. He takes her to his darkroom and shows her a photograph that he says captures Death himself. He wants to look into Death's face so that he can die himself. After examining an old photo in the room taken by a Louis Brady, Scully calls Mulder to check if Brady was another of Fellig's aliases.

In the FBI archives, Mulder determines that Brady was a murderer in 1929. He can't reach Scully so he calls Ritter and gives him the details.

Fellig explains to Scully that he was in a yellow fever sanitarium, about to die, when he saw Death for the first time. He turned away from Death when he came, and a nurse who had been tending him was taken instead. He tells Scully she is also about to die and prepares his camera to take a picture of the moment Death comes. Scully panics at the thought of death and handcuffs Fellig to the table so he can't take the picture. Ritter breaks the door open, and seeing Fellig, fires at him. The bullet hits Fellig, passing through the camera around his neck, out his back and into Scully. Scully, dying, turns away when Death comes and Death takes Fellig instead.

In a hospital, Mulder tells Ritter he's lucky Scully didn't die. She's made an amazing recovery.