Chap­ter 185 begins with Patch’s abrupt awak­en­ing in a ster­ile, unfa­mil­iar oper­at­ing room, his mind rac­ing with con­fu­sion and the feel­ing of hav­ing lost track of time. As his eyes strug­gle to focus, he real­izes that he can­not recall the events of the past year, and this dis­ori­ent­ing real­iza­tion sends waves of anx­i­ety through him. In a moment of fleet­ing hope, he imag­ines being able to reverse time and return to his home­town, reliv­ing the sim­pler, less com­pli­cat­ed days of his past. He longs for the com­fort of his child­hood memories—Misty Mey­er and Chuck, his mother’s qui­et rest after her exhaust­ing night shifts—wishing he could undo the mis­takes that led him to this point, to a life that feels increas­ing­ly dis­tant and out of his con­trol. This long­ing for the past high­lights his inter­nal bat­tle between the inno­cence of his ear­li­er years and the painful con­se­quences of his present exis­tence.

As Patch attempts to ground him­self, his gaze falls upon the stark­ness of the room, con­trast­ing sharply with the faint beau­ty of the out­side world vis­i­ble through the win­dows. The tree­tops and the clear blue sky seem serene, but the ster­ile envi­ron­ment sur­round­ing him feels for­eign and cold, ampli­fy­ing his sense of iso­la­tion. His focus shifts to the clin­i­cal details—the sil­ver trol­ley beside him and the strange clus­ter of lights above—adding to the over­whelm­ing sense that he is in an alien world, dis­con­nect­ed from every­thing famil­iar. He makes an attempt to stand, only to inad­ver­tent­ly send the trol­ley clat­ter­ing across the floor, its noise a jar­ring reminder of his dis­ar­ray and a sharp intru­sion into the silence of the room. This chaot­ic noise mir­rors the tur­moil inside his mind, reflect­ing his emo­tion­al and men­tal dis­ori­en­ta­tion in the face of the uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing him.

At this moment, a man seat­ed at a white desk observes Patch’s strug­gle and offers calm reas­sur­ance. He informs Patch that his daugh­ter, along with Keep­er Jen, is else­where, engaged in feed­ing meerkats, offer­ing some com­fort with the news of her well-being. The man attrib­ut­es Patch’s faint­ing to the sum­mer heat, which is com­mon in the zoo due to dehy­dra­tion and lack of prop­er sun pro­tec­tion, fur­ther paint­ing a pic­ture of Patch’s frag­ile state. Although Patch attempts to explain that the faint­ing might have been caused by the pres­ence of snakes, the man dis­miss­es his the­o­ry, instead focus­ing on Patch’s gen­er­al health. This exchange adds a lay­er of detach­ment to the sit­u­a­tion, as the man’s tone lacks any humor, fur­ther increas­ing Patch’s dis­com­fort. The sense of unease grows as Patch real­izes that while he is being tend­ed to with care, he is still at the mer­cy of cir­cum­stances that feel entire­ly out of his con­trol.

The con­ver­sa­tion moves for­ward, with Patch express­ing his con­cern about a slight headache, yet still unsure about the man’s role in his recov­ery. When Patch final­ly asks if the man is a doc­tor, he learns that he is not, but instead works with ani­mal care—an unex­pect­ed rev­e­la­tion that deep­ens his sense of dis­ori­en­ta­tion. The man offers Patch a bot­tle of water and briefly men­tions that the room must be cleared because a wolf is suf­fer­ing from tuber­cu­lo­sis, a mat­ter of press­ing con­cern that momen­tar­i­ly shifts the focus back to the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion. As Patch strug­gles to make sense of his envi­ron­ment, his atten­tion is drawn to the name on the door: “Jim­my Wal­ters.” This star­tling dis­cov­ery brings a wave of recog­ni­tion, though it leaves Patch with a sense of con­fu­sion about the man’s con­nec­tion to him. It’s an unset­tling moment, as the past, in the form of some­one he has known, now re-enters his life in a con­text com­plete­ly removed from the famil­iar. Patch’s inter­nal tur­moil only deep­ens as he tries to rec­on­cile the pres­ence of a fig­ure from his past with the strange, sur­re­al cir­cum­stances he now finds him­self in. The chap­ter ends on this note of uncer­tain­ty, leav­ing read­ers with a haunt­ing sense of unre­solved ques­tions and emo­tion­al dis­ar­ray that mir­rors Patch’s own con­fu­sion.