David Dunn is an ordinary Philadelphia security guard. He is the sole survivor of a rail disaster. To the surprise of the authorities and the media, the man came out unscathed, without the slightest injury or trauma. Troubled by this event, Dunn enters an identity crisis. Who is he ? Why did he survive? It is in search of answers that he meets Elijah Price, a handicapped misanthropist stricken with the disease of the bones of glass.