Chapter 136 begins with the protagonist returning to his old house, a space that holds the weight of many unresolved emotions and memories. Surrounded by items from the past—old newspapers, fragmented catalogs, and yellowed maps—he finds himself once again lost in the chaos that once brought him closer to Grace. The shelves sag under the weight of these reminders, filled with remnants of a time when life seemed more tangible. Among the clutter, he finds carefully pieced-together outfits and mismatched images that he’s collected over the years—faces cut from magazines, hairstyles painted with a brush, and words scribbled in notebooks. These items, created in the solitude of the night, serve as a strange form of preservation, allowing him to relive memories of Grace in a distorted and fragmented way. The passage of time, however, has faded the sharpness of these memories, leaving him with only hazy remnants of what once felt real.

As he stands amidst these relics, the protagonist is forced to confront the absurdity of his obsession. His attempts to preserve Grace’s memory have only served to tie him down, trapping him in a cycle of remembrance that prevents him from moving forward. In this moment of reflection, he begins to feel the weight of his actions—he has clung to these things in an attempt to keep the past alive, but in doing so, he’s only kept himself locked in a painful present. The realization dawns on him that Grace is gone, and his desperate attempts to hold onto her are futile. In an effort to regain some control over his life, he decides to purge the collection that has kept him in limbo for so long. Each item he discards is a step toward letting go, a painful but necessary action that will free him from the grip of his past.

With a deep breath, he begins the process of destruction, taking the remnants of his former life outside and setting them ablaze. As the flames consume the objects that once defined his memories, the protagonist is filled with a strange sense of release. The smoke rises into the sky, and with it, so do his memories—slowly fading into the air, becoming part of the past he can never retrieve. As he watches the fire burn, he is overwhelmed by the sight of his former life crumbling to ash, and yet, in the destruction, there is a catharsis. The memory of Grace, however, remains with him, haunting him even as the physical remnants of their shared past are lost to the fire. Her voice, so vivid in his mind, calls out to him from the past, reminding him of the days when she tried to save him, when she vowed to pull him from the darkness he’d fallen into.

Her words echo in his mind, “Wake up, Patch. I’ll try and pull you out. I’ll try and keep you with me.” These words, filled with love and desperation, reverberate in his ears as the smoke swirls upward, carrying with it the weight of his grief. The realization that he has been left behind by Grace, that her promise was never fulfilled, crashes down on him like a wave. Yet, as the fire rages on, he begins to understand that the path to healing isn’t about holding on to what’s been lost but about finding the strength to move forward. With the ashes of his past smoldering in the fire, the protagonist stands still, his heart heavy but strangely clear. He looks up at the night sky, now unobstructed by the haze of his grief, and finds a quiet peace in the vastness of the world around him, a world that continues to turn, indifferent to the loss that has shaped his life.

In this moment, the protagonist understands that the closure he seeks cannot be found in the objects of the past or in the ghosts of his memories. The fire, while it has consumed the remnants of his former life, has also offered him a new beginning—one that he must navigate alone, but with the knowledge that the past no longer holds the power to control him. His journey forward will not be easy, and the pain of loss will never fully fade, but for the first time in a long time, he feels the possibility of healing. The night sky, once so dark and oppressive, now seems vast and open, offering him a sense of freedom that he had not known was possible.