Chap­ter 13 opens with the pro­tag­o­nist, dis­turbed by a vivid and unset­tling dream, unable to return to sleep despite shar­ing a bed with Eight. His mind rac­ing with anx­ious thoughts, he decides to leave the warmth of the bed and head to the cafe­te­ria in search of solace through read­ing. As he walks through the cold, emp­ty cor­ri­dors, the silence around him only ampli­fies his sense of iso­la­tion. The cor­ri­dors, void of life, mir­ror his inner empti­ness, height­ened by the gnaw­ing hunger he feels due to their zeroed-out rations. Despite the harsh real­i­ties of their sit­u­a­tion, he finds him­self brows­ing through archives, stum­bling upon a file on New Hope—a colony that col­lapsed after a bru­tal civ­il war decades ago. The war was fought over a sim­ple yet pro­found ques­tion: was a native bird species sen­tient, or was it mere­ly a food source? This seem­ing­ly triv­ial ques­tion spi­raled into a con­flict that tore the colony apart, leav­ing behind a frac­tured soci­ety. The pro­tag­o­nist is left with lin­ger­ing thoughts on how frag­ile soci­etal con­structs can be, and how quick­ly a sit­u­a­tion can descend into chaos when deeply held beliefs are test­ed, mak­ing him ques­tion how close their mis­sion is to unrav­el­ing.

As he sifts through his thoughts, he receives mes­sages from both Eight and Cat regard­ing upcom­ing duty shifts, their con­cerns about their roles under­scor­ing the ten­sion from their recent activ­i­ties. Cat express­es frus­tra­tion about their secu­ri­ty duties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the inhos­pitable con­di­tions of their assigned plan­et, Nifl­heim, which has only height­ened their anx­i­eties. The pro­tag­o­nist, while under­stand­ing her dis­tress, brush­es off her con­cerns, sug­gest­ing that their sit­u­a­tion could be worse than it appears. Despite his dis­missal, Cat’s frus­tra­tion con­tin­ues to sim­mer, and she alludes to a deep­er exam­i­na­tion of per­son­al sur­vival instincts, hint­ing at the emo­tion­al toll their dan­ger­ous duties are tak­ing on her. The con­ver­sa­tion reveals the inner strug­gle both char­ac­ters face, try­ing to bal­ance their sense of duty with their sur­vival instincts. While Cat grap­ples with the real­i­ty of their dan­ger­ous work, the pro­tag­o­nist offers lit­tle reas­sur­ance, empha­siz­ing how the harsh­ness of their envi­ron­ment is part of the broad­er sur­vival strug­gle they face on Nifl­heim. It becomes increas­ing­ly clear that both char­ac­ters are not just bat­tling exter­nal threats but are also ques­tion­ing their own abil­i­ty to endure the men­tal and emo­tion­al toll of their mis­sion.

Lat­er, dur­ing a rou­tine patrol, the pro­tag­o­nist and Cat encounter a ter­ri­fy­ing crea­ture known as a creep­er. The ten­sion reach­es its peak when Cat is forced to kill one in self-defense, but the sit­u­a­tion quick­ly esca­lates as more creep­ers are detect­ed, clos­ing in on their posi­tion. The protagonist’s world becomes even more dis­ori­ent­ing as he suf­fers a seizure-like episode, his con­scious­ness flick­er­ing between the present moment and blur­ry, frag­ment­ed visions of humans. These dis­tort­ed flash­es fur­ther cloud his under­stand­ing of what is hap­pen­ing around him, blur­ring the line between real­i­ty and the ter­ri­fy­ing hal­lu­ci­na­tions he is expe­ri­enc­ing. The chaot­ic encounter with the creep­ers, com­bined with the protagonist’s men­tal and phys­i­cal state, inten­si­fies the sense of dread and con­fu­sion, leav­ing both char­ac­ters on edge and unsure of how to pro­ceed. As the dan­ger mounts, the protagonist’s abil­i­ty to stay ground­ed in real­i­ty becomes increas­ing­ly com­pro­mised, lead­ing to more ques­tions about his own health and the mys­te­ri­ous forces at play.

When the pro­tag­o­nist regains con­scious­ness in a med­ical facil­i­ty, he learns from Cat that they sur­vived the ordeal only thanks to the pylons and her swift actions. Although his sur­vival is noth­ing short of mirac­u­lous, med­ical tech­ni­cian Burke express­es deep con­cerns over the protagonist’s con­di­tion. Despite there being no vis­i­ble trau­ma, Burke remains puz­zled by the cause of the protagonist’s col­lapse, rais­ing doubts about his phys­i­cal and men­tal well-being. The pro­tag­o­nist is cau­tioned about the poten­tial risks asso­ci­at­ed with his ocu­lar implant, a sophis­ti­cat­ed piece of tech­nol­o­gy that inter­faces direct­ly with his brain. Burke the­o­rizes that the implant may have been the cause of the seizure, but offers no imme­di­ate solu­tions, leav­ing the pro­tag­o­nist to con­sid­er the dan­ger­ous impli­ca­tions of rely­ing on such tech­nol­o­gy. The uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ing his con­di­tion adds anoth­er lay­er of ten­sion to the already per­ilous mis­sion, as the pro­tag­o­nist begins to ques­tion whether the tech­nol­o­gy meant to enhance his abil­i­ties is actu­al­ly endan­ger­ing his sur­vival.

As the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on his recent expe­ri­ences, he receives mes­sages about din­ner plans from Eight, sig­nal­ing a brief return to nor­mal­cy amid the chaos. Despite the chal­lenges they face, the small moments of connection—like shared meals—seem to offer a sense of com­fort in a world increas­ing­ly defined by dan­ger. How­ev­er, under­ly­ing ten­sions about resources begin to emerge, as inter­per­son­al con­flicts start to sur­face, par­tic­u­lar­ly in regard to the shar­ing of food and sup­plies. These grow­ing dis­agree­ments fore­shad­ow the dif­fi­cul­ty of main­tain­ing any sense of uni­ty as sur­vival instincts push indi­vid­u­als to pri­or­i­tize their own needs. As the chap­ter clos­es, it becomes evi­dent that per­son­al rela­tion­ships will play a piv­otal role in how the crew nav­i­gates the harsh envi­ron­ment of Nifl­heim. The grow­ing divide between the char­ac­ters high­lights the com­plex­i­ties of sur­vival in a hos­tile envi­ron­ment, where not only exter­nal threats, but also the dynam­ics between indi­vid­u­als, will deter­mine the fate of their mis­sion. These inter­per­son­al chal­lenges set the stage for future con­flicts, as the pro­tag­o­nist and the oth­ers will have to nav­i­gate not just the dan­gers of their sur­round­ings, but the com­plex­i­ties of their own rela­tion­ships as they strive to sur­vive.