In this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tor reflects on a recent event that has left a pro­found impact. They are grap­pling with the absence of Kel­lan, who had been liv­ing with them like a broth­er but has now left unex­pect­ed­ly, leav­ing no note or indi­ca­tion of his depar­ture. The nar­ra­tor feels a mix of dis­ap­point­ment and bit­ter­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly because Kel­lan had pre­vi­ous­ly expressed desires to leave.

Lark, anoth­er char­ac­ter in the sto­ry, attempts to light­en the mood, but the nar­ra­tor’s feel­ings are bruised. As they con­verse in the shop, the atmos­phere is dis­rupt­ed by a sud­den and vio­lent wind­storm that sweeps through their area, caus­ing chaos out­side. Dur­ing this storm, they wit­ness var­i­ous objects being tossed around, and the crazi­ness of the winds stirs an under­ly­ing ten­sion, draw­ing their focus out­ward.

After the storm pass­es, they embark on a search for Vix­en, a dog who has been swept away, and this quest takes near­ly two hours. The search sym­bol­izes the unpre­dictabil­i­ty and tur­moil in their lives. Upon return­ing home, the nar­ra­tor is relieved to find the house seem­ing­ly intact but quick­ly dis­cov­ers dis­ar­ray inside, indi­cat­ing an intru­sion rather than mere storm dam­age.

Chaos reigns as they enter the kitchen, real­iz­ing draw­ers have been pulled out, cup­boards emp­tied, and fur­ni­ture over­turned. The sud­den switch from relief to hor­ror reveals that oth­ers had invad­ed their home. The nar­ra­tive builds ten­sion as the pro­tag­o­nist rush­es upstairs, find­ing more destruc­tion, lead­ing to a cli­mac­tic moment when they dis­cov­er Lark’s injured form. The chap­ter con­cludes with a vis­cer­al depic­tion of Lark’s injury and the stark, eerie imagery that under­scores the tur­moil of their exis­tence, as the nar­ra­tor feels the crush­ing weight of their cir­cum­stances against a back­drop of a strange, storm-bat­tered world.