STEM, when unstable, responds to strong mental forces, manifesting their contents in reality. Lily's disappearance has upset the system's stability. STEM abhors a vacuum, so uniquely strong personalities impose their wills upon the landscape.

Stefano and Theodore, the game's main antagonists, most conspicuously alter the world as they please, but their control is not absolute, as Ruvik's had been. STEM bends to other influences as well, including Sebastian's. He creates pocket universes within STEM, including his safe room, and he uses many of these spaces to re-enact his memories and avoidant coping skills from The Evil Within.

345 Cedar Avenue is one such place. A stray resonance containing his voice leads him to the house. Once inside, his unconscious mind authors a liminal space in STEM. Beacon's bent gurneys and water-damaged paint flicker in place of furniture and wallpaper. He paces through memories of the interlude between games, pursues a sedated vision of himself — his Other — and ultimately re-walks spaces from Beacon itself.

Sebastian progresses from general to specific recollections of Beacon. He first renovates a space from Union with Beacon's aesthetic, and he wanders an area that resembles Beacon but exists in Union. Abstractions give way to the concrete when he remembers his fear of confinement, expressed in the bloody words "You cannot keep me here," after which he overwrites Union with exact copies of levels from The Evil Within.

Sebastian's vision begins when he sees his Other trapped inside a television. When he pursues his Other, he treads the same space himself, effectively stepping into the television, as the videogame character that we know from The Evil Within. His memory regresses, returning to his time with the player from the first game. Sebastian and the player begin their metanarrative reunion.