After ransacking the house, Kirsten and August set out again. When they stop to rest, August, who planned to become a physicist before the collapse, tells Kirsten about his belief in multiple universes while they scan the magazines they collected. They find a picture of Lydia, Arthur’s third wife, as well as a picture of Miranda leaving the Elgin Theatre two weeks before the collapse. Kirsten and August go on to imagine a series of parallel universes, including ones in which there was no Georgia Flu, one where Station Eleven was real, and one where Kirsten does not have any knives tattooed on her wrist.

They arrive at the outskirts of Severn City and decide to stop for the night. August suddenly realizes that the scar on the man they met was a mark used by the prophet, in the shape of an airplane.

Sometime during the August before the pandemic, Arthur calls Miranda at her office in New York to tell her that his father died. Miranda is surprised but responds sympathetically. When she asks what prompted him to call her for the first time since their divorce, he responds, “You know where I’m from” (207).

In October, two weeks before the pandemic, Miranda arrives in Toronto.