Ted wakes under the train’s bright ceiling lights, disoriented and chilled, and his thoughts drift to his father’s prolonged illness and death when Ted was fourteen. He reflects that the deepest fear is abandonment, not solitude, and that his anger was really at God for depriving him of memories beyond a whispered nightly ritual, “Good night, ghosts.” He considers how a parent’s mere presence acts as ballast for a child.

The conductor gently checks on Ted, noting he sounded like he was crying. Ted deflects with an allergy excuse, and the conductor offers help and mentions ongoing mechanical issues. Ted then realizes Louisa is gone; on her seat is a drawing of the artist as a young man, inscribed to Ted with skulls and the message, “I hope the birds sing for you.” Her backpack is missing, though the painting, ashes, and Ted’s suitcase remain.

When Ted asks, the conductor explains Louisa got off at this station about ten minutes earlier, despite his warning that the area is unsafe. Ted bolts off the train, clutching the drawing, calling Louisa’s name repeatedly—first as an order, then a negotiation, then a prayer—only to be met by darkness. He remembers the artist teasing that Ted is an introvert who hates being alone, and recalls Ted’s ritual of checking a gold watch to prompt the artist’s pills; the artist had engraved their initials—Joar, Ali, Ted, and the artist—on the watch and refused to let Ted sell it.

Ted sprints through the station and onto the street, where a young man with a lilting dialect offers help and leads him toward a car with another man smoking beside it. Ted, uneasy, folds Louisa’s drawing into his pocket. As the men press him toward the open car door, Ted tries to back out, insisting he does not need help.

The encounter turns violent: one man grabs Ted’s arms while the other strikes him. They fail to force him into the car but steal his engraved watch and search his pockets for a wallet, which is still on the train. Ted’s cries escalate from anger to pleading, and the assailants kick him in the head. As he blacks out, he hears a ringing like telephones and realizes calls will be coming for him tomorrow.