Pi spends the entire day perched on an oar, barely moving to keep his balance while staring at the horizon, convinced rescue will appear. The long wait becomes a tense, breathless boredom, dominated in his memory by the buzzing of flies circling the lifeboat.

Pi notices the flies behaving in lazy loops and frantic spirals, sometimes venturing toward him. He cannot tell whether they came with the lifeboat or with one of the animals, likely the hyena, but he observes that they vanish within two days, with some eaten by the hyena and others likely blown away by wind.

As evening approaches, Pi’s anxiety rises because darkness will make him harder for ships to spot and could make the animals more dangerous. Night falls with no moon and clouded stars, and Pi feels swallowed by an abstract blackness where even the sea and his own body seem to disappear.

During the night, the hyena snarls and the zebra barks and squeals, accompanied by a repeated knocking sound from the far end of the lifeboat. Terrified, Pi soils himself but realizes the hyena seems to be staying away from him, while closer noises—heavy breathing and wet mouth sounds—suggest movement he refuses to face as Orange Juice.

Pi also hears brief, sudden flapping and swishing from the water beneath him, reminders that struggle and predation continue outside the boat as well. The night drags on minute by minute, and Pi endures it in fear and vigilance.