In the ear­ly hours after a dis­turb­ing dream, the pro­tag­o­nist, who is shar­ing a bed with Eight, finds it impos­si­ble to return to sleep. Frus­trat­ed, he decides to head to the cafe­te­ria for some read­ing. There, he encoun­ters the empti­ness of the cor­ri­dors, which align with his crav­ing for food he can­not afford due to zeroed-out rations. As he brows­es through archives, he stum­bles across a file on New Hope, reveal­ing a com­plex his­to­ry of a colony that had col­lapsed after a bru­tal civ­il war decades ago over whether a native bird species was sen­tient or mere­ly a food source. This rev­e­la­tion stirs thoughts on the fragili­ty of soci­etal con­structs and the ease with which descent into chaos can occur.

As Eight and Cat con­tact him via mes­sage regard­ing duty shifts, the ten­sion of their recent activ­i­ties looms in the back­ground. Cat express­es frus­tra­tion about their secu­ri­ty roles, lament­ing the inhos­pitable con­di­tions of their plan­et, Nifl­heim. The pro­tag­o­nist dis­miss­es her wor­ries about armor sug­gest­ing their sit­u­a­tion could be worse, while Cat strug­gles with the nature of their dan­ger­ous duties, hint­ing at a deep­er exam­i­na­tion of per­son­al sur­vival instincts.

Lat­er, while on patrol, the duo engages with a crea­ture known as a creep­er. Cat kills one, but the sit­u­a­tion esca­lates when they per­ceive more approach­ing. Amidst the chaos, the pro­tag­o­nist expe­ri­ences a seizure-like event, flash­ing between con­scious­ness and blur­ry visions of humans, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing his grasp on real­i­ty.

After regain­ing con­scious­ness in a med­ical facil­i­ty, the pro­tag­o­nist learns from Cat that they sur­vived a poten­tial­ly dead­ly encounter only due to pylons and Cat’s quick actions. The med­ical tech­ni­cian, Burke, express­es con­cerns over the pro­tag­o­nist’s phys­i­cal state, although there’s no vis­i­ble trau­ma, mak­ing it uncer­tain why the pro­tag­o­nist blacked out. Despite cau­tion­ing him about his ocu­lar implant—a tech­nol­o­gy inter­fac­ing direct­ly with his brain—Burke can­not offer imme­di­ate help.

As the pro­tag­o­nist con­tem­plates his expe­ri­ences and the impli­ca­tions for their mis­sion on Nifl­heim, he receives mes­sages about din­ner plans, indi­cat­ing a dynam­ic between him and Eight. This reflects the con­cern of main­tain­ing nor­mal­cy amid the back­drop of per­ilous sur­vival. The chap­ter clos­es as inter­per­son­al con­flicts about shar­ing resources emerge, fore­shad­ow­ing how per­son­al rela­tion­ships will influ­ence their sur­vival in this harsh envi­ron­ment.