The chap­ter begins with Will, whose hand is described as a “mole in the dark,” fran­ti­cal­ly search­ing through his pock­ets as fear grips him. He is aware that a mul­ti­tude of poten­tial futures, rep­re­sent­ed by “mil­lion old men,” threat­en his father, Charles Hal­loway. As he grap­ples with the dark, Will knows that time is run­ning out to pro­tect his dad. He must act swift­ly, as these imag­ined fig­ures of the future could over­whelm Hal­loway, threat­en­ing to con­sume him with the weight of harsh real­i­ties of aging.

Dri­ven by urgency, Will retrieves kitchen match­es from his seem­ing­ly bot­tom­less pock­ets. He lights a match, bring­ing a momen­tary blaze of illu­mi­na­tion. The stam­pede of fears and the loom­ing pres­ence of time giants halt, star­tled by the light. They gaze back with mem­o­ries of past fig­ures, their mouths agape in aston­ish­ment, now set­tled in tem­po­rary still­ness. Will’s match rep­re­sents a fleet­ing chance against a relent­less tide of pos­si­ble futures that plans to suf­fo­cate his father.

In a moment of des­per­a­tion, Charles Hal­loway utters “No!” as Will strug­gles against the impend­ing dark­ness that aris­es once the light is extin­guished. Will thrusts the match for­ward, but the reflec­tions in the mir­rors cre­ate a ter­ri­fy­ing array of ver­sions of him­self and his father that depict their poten­tial down­fall. The imagery is sym­bol­ic of all the years grap­pling with exis­tence, threat­en­ing to impose anguish and oblit­er­a­tion on both men.

As the match flick­ers, Will’s emo­tion­al plea inten­si­fies, urgent­ly declar­ing his love for his father. The burn­ing flame casts shad­ows on Halloway’s tense form, clos­ing in on despair and uncer­tain­ty. Despite the crip­pling fears they face, they share a vital con­nec­tion that defies the pas­sage of time. The moment crys­tal­lizes into a pow­er­ful resolve as Charles Hal­loway opens his eyes to con­front Will, the flame, and the con­gre­gat­ed reflec­tions of him­self. Sud­den­ly, the grav­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion weighs heavy, yet an inner strength surges. He releas­es a cry—an answer that echoes through the chaos—and the prover­bial Witch, emblem­at­ic of their fears and strug­gles, feels the weight of that sound as it rever­ber­ates through time.

Wait­ing ai