Donald wakes in a wheelchair being pushed through a cold underground facility lined with cryogenic pods. The squeaking chair, the aged hallways, and the sight of false names on pod displays make the passage of time feel brutally real. Medical staff tell Donald he has been asleep for seventy years, help him stand, collect samples, and give him a bitter drink while his mind struggles through fragments of dreams and memory.

After the exam, the staff take Donald by elevator to a small, locked room furnished like a cell. Donald asks why he is awake at all, because his last clear memory is of being put to sleep permanently. When the doctors move to give Donald pills, a white-haired old man stops them, and Donald recognizes him as Thurman, the "Thaw Man" from his buried memories.

Thurman confirms that Donald remembers at least part of who he is and presses him to recover the rest. Donald identifies himself as Donald Keene, and Thurman says that is exactly why Donald has been awakened: they need answers that only his restored memory may provide. Thurman leaves a folded report for Donald to study, promises food once Donald is stronger, and says someone wants to see him before locking the room behind him.

Alone, Donald cannot rest. He tests the locked door, remembers hearing that a silo has fallen, and wonders why that disaster would justify waking him. When Donald unfolds the report, it triggers a deeper collapse of forgetting: Donald recognizes the document as one he wrote and signed under another name, Troy. With that realization, Donald remembers Helen, the old world, the bombs, the silos, a troubled boy connected to silo 12's destruction, and his own far greater guilt in helping bring about mass death. Overwhelmed, Donald falls to the floor and weeps pale blue tears as the full horror of his past returns.