In Chap­ter 185 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch wakes up in an oper­at­ing room with a sense of dis­ori­en­ta­tion rem­i­nis­cent of his child­hood, as he strug­gles to recall where the last year of his life has gone. For a brief moment, he hopes he could sim­ply return to the past, pic­tur­ing the famil­iar sights of his hometown—Misty Mey­er with Chuck, and his moth­er tak­ing a nap after a night shift—yearning for a chance to relive past mis­takes in a less con­se­quen­tial man­ner.

As he takes in his sur­round­ings, he notices win­dows look­ing out at sparse tree­tops and a clear blue sky dot­ted with flow­ers. The room is stark yet busy, with a sil­ver trol­ley and a com­put­er posi­tioned next to a clus­ter of strange lights over­head, allud­ing to an alien atmos­phere. His dis­ar­ray con­tin­ues until he stands up, inad­ver­tent­ly send­ing the trol­ley rolling clat­ter­ing­ly across the floor.

A man seat­ed at a white desk notices him and offers reas­sur­ance, explain­ing that Patch’s daugh­ter is else­where with Keep­er Jen, and they’re cur­rent­ly involved in feed­ing meerkats. He informs Patch that he faint­ed, a com­mon occur­rence at the zoo when sum­mer heat leads to dehy­dra­tion and poor sun pro­tec­tion.

Patch attempts to explain that his faint­ing spell may have been trig­gered by the pres­ence of snakes, but the man, exhibit­ing a calm demeanor devoid of humor, con­tin­ues to probe for details regard­ing Patch’s health. He inquires if Patch is feel­ing sick or tak­ing any med­ica­tions. Patch reas­sures him that he isn’t, yet the man advis­es him to vis­it a doc­tor for a check-up, empha­siz­ing that it’s wise after such inci­dents.

As Patch ris­es, acknowl­edg­ing a slight headache, he ques­tions whether the man is a doc­tor and learns that he is not—his role is focused on ani­mal care. The man hands Patch a bot­tle of water, briefly men­tion­ing the neces­si­ty of clear­ing him out due to a wolf suf­fer­ing from tuber­cu­lo­sis. It is only then that Patch notices the name on the door: Jim­my Wal­ters, the man who has attend­ed to him .