Content Warning: In general, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead includes alcohol addiction, anti-gay bias and slurs, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and a death by suicide.

Part 1 begins with Gilda disoriented from a car crash. Her arm is broken, but she is unable to feel it. She pretends to be unconscious or dead in order to avoid interacting with the woman who hit her. While pretending to be unconscious, Gilda thinks of her pet rabbit, Flop, whom she had from ages eight-10. Flop suddenly died when she was 10 and began her lifelong obsession with the fragility of life and her own death.

Gilda drives herself to the hospital in her crumpled car, not wanting to bother emergency paramedics. She’s a regular at her local emergency room. She frequently visits when having panic attacks, believing that her heart is going to give out. Eleanor, Gilda’s girlfriend of a few months, worries about the accident, but Gilda acts as if it didn’t happen.

Gilda soon loses her job at a bookstore due to her worsening depression. She runs out of money, and her apartment becomes dirty. Gilda’s parents are unsupportive, while her brother Eli has his own mental health conditions and can’t support her.