Chapter 8 is told from the perspective of Allegra Patel, the cabin manager on the Hobart-to-Sydney flight. It is her twenty-eighth birthday and the day has been plagued with small misfortunes: her period arrived a week early, the flight was delayed due to a broken cockpit seat belt requiring an engineer to fly in from Sydney, and her crew members each present their own challenges. Her friend Anders is weakened by an aggressive intermittent fasting regimen, veteran crew member Kim is unhurried and oblivious, and new hire Ellie is overeager and a stickler for rules.

While Allegra is in the lavatory dealing with her period cramp and reapplying lipstick, multiple call buttons begin chiming from the front rows of economy class. She reflects briefly on her career—how she achieved her dream job as a flight attendant despite her mother wanting her to be a dentist, her memories of training with Anders, and her awareness of the risks and dramas that can unfold on flights. Anders once had a passenger die mid-flight, and Allegra has been keeping a careful eye on the elderly couple aboard this flight.

Emerging from the lavatory, Allegra checks the Flight Attendant Panel and sees multiple active call buttons clustered in the first rows of economy. She finds Kim obliviously serving business class and proceeds through the curtain to economy. Sue and Max O'Sullivan alert her that an older woman is walking the aisle predicting passengers' causes and ages of death. The well-dressed anxious man seated near 4D confirms that the woman sits across from him and that the seat is currently empty.

Allegra moves down the aisle to intercept the woman but is repeatedly delayed—first by a passenger in a sequined caftan who needs help with an overweight carry-on bag, then by the heavily pregnant passenger who casually reports she was told she won't make forty. More call buttons chime, voices rise in consternation, and the baby starts crying again. Anders and Ellie remain absent. The pregnant woman eventually steps aside, and Allegra resumes her approach toward the gray-haired woman, who continues pointing at passengers and making pronouncements, leaving a wake of unease through the cabin.