Kel­lan Had Drawn His Face, as the nar­ra­tor awoke ear­ly to the sound of foot­steps, hur­ried and pur­pose­ful, sig­nal­ing the start of anoth­er gru­el­ing day aboard the ship. After being escort­ed up to the upper deck, the nar­ra­tor was intro­duced to the paint crew, which gath­ered in a space that dou­bled as a com­mis­sary for the med­ical staff and oth­er ship per­son­nel. The crew, made up of five indi­vid­u­als, was infor­mal­ly led by Beezie, a tena­cious woman who, despite her ini­tial skep­ti­cism about new­com­ers, rec­og­nized that the task of scrap­ing the walls was no one’s idea of a pleas­ant job. Beezie’s lead­er­ship, although unyield­ing, served as a nec­es­sary anchor for the team, which includ­ed Ver­lyn, a teen with alope­cia; Didi­er, an old­er man marked by the pas­sage of time and scars; and Har­ri­et, a fierce, res­olute woman whose phi­los­o­phy was that every­thing one cre­at­ed would leave a last­ing impact. This belief res­onat­ed with the nar­ra­tor, cre­at­ing a sense of pur­pose amidst the oth­er­wise tedious work.

Though the crew spent most of their time scrap­ing and paint­ing, they were occa­sion­al­ly joined by Burke, a guard whose intim­i­dat­ing pres­ence was soft­ened by his gen­uine inter­est in the crew’s lives. Despite his role as a fig­ure of author­i­ty, Burke showed a sur­pris­ing warmth by encour­ag­ing Ver­lyn to share an odd and amus­ing sto­ry about a dog trans­for­ma­tion from his child­hood. This bizarre tale, which tem­porar­i­ly divert­ed the crew’s atten­tion from their task, led to a momen­tary reprieve from the relent­less work. How­ev­er, Beezie, who was far more focused on com­plet­ing their work, became increas­ing­ly irri­tat­ed by these dis­trac­tions. It was Burke who, in addi­tion to being a guard, also intro­duced the nar­ra­tor to Mar­cel, a jan­i­tor whose arrival brought a breath of fresh air to the crew. Marcel’s pres­ence had a calm­ing effect on every­one, and his kind­ness became a cor­ner­stone of the crew’s emo­tion­al well-being, offer­ing them a small but sig­nif­i­cant escape from the oth­er­wise grim real­i­ty they faced.

As the nar­ra­tor worked, the top­ic of “the twelve”—a group that had recent­ly escaped—was raised among the crew. This dis­cus­sion sparked inter­est and curios­i­ty, espe­cial­ly from those work­ing below deck. The air, thick with the fumes from clean­ing solu­tions, began to stir a sense of unease, which was only height­ened by the ten­sion sur­round­ing the sur­vivors’ escape. The shift in mood was abrupt­ly altered when a young jan­i­tor entered, bring­ing with him a fresh breeze that seemed to clear the air. The crew, sud­den­ly lighter in spir­it, began to spec­u­late about Marcel’s back­ground and whether he had any roman­tic ties to oth­er crew mem­bers, par­tic­u­lar­ly Tove, the cook. Marcel’s qui­et charm and the fact that he brought with him a tray of pas­tries fur­ther endeared him to the crew, allow­ing them to briefly for­get the exhaus­tion and hard­ship they had been endur­ing. As they indulged in the sweet treats, the sense of cama­raderie grew, and when the nar­ra­tor men­tioned a young girl named Sol, Mar­cel promised to keep an eye out for her, his words light yet filled with a sub­tle sense of under­stand­ing and kind­ness.

Lat­er, the nar­ra­tor was sum­moned to per­form for Wer­ryck, who had vis­i­bly improved in his phys­i­cal health. Werryck’s con­ver­sa­tion, which began as a pro­fes­sion­al dis­cus­sion about Sol’s progress, soon became more per­son­al. He spoke warm­ly of Sol thriv­ing under her cur­rent care, offer­ing a glimpse into the more com­pas­sion­ate side of the often-gruff Wer­ryck. The con­ver­sa­tion took a dark­er turn when the nar­ra­tor expressed con­cerns about Tom Skint, a fig­ure whose men­ac­ing pres­ence had loomed large in their lives. Wer­ryck reas­sured the nar­ra­tor that Skint had already faced the con­se­quences of his actions, but he also cau­tioned the nar­ra­tor against seek­ing fur­ther ret­ri­bu­tion for past wrongs. On the ship, Wer­ryck empha­sized, pow­er dynam­ics were cru­cial, and any attempt to seek revenge would be futile. Instead, he advised the nar­ra­tor to focus on play­ing music, as expect­ed of him, and not to be dis­tract­ed by the com­plex web of inter­per­son­al strug­gles and pow­er plays. This inter­ac­tion with Wer­ryck served as a reminder of the shift­ing alle­giances and the con­stant need for adapt­abil­i­ty aboard the ship, urg­ing the nar­ra­tor to find a bal­ance between the harsh real­i­ties of their envi­ron­ment and the fleet­ing moments of hope that occa­sion­al­ly arose.