Several days earlier

Carl finds himself unexpectedly present in Katia's dream after a psychic connection forms between them during a potion-induced state. He witnesses a deeply traumatic memory from Katia's past: her failed attempt to adopt a terminally ill child named Annie at an Icelandic hospital, and the moment she last saw the girl before Annie died. The chapter ends with Shi Maria's dream violently colliding into theirs as she arrives screaming about not killing someone.

Carl realizes he has been pulled into Katia's dream instead of experiencing Shi Maria's dream as planned. When their hands touched during a moment of psychic openness, they created a secondary connection that bound him to her subconscious. In that brief instant, Carl glimpses the inner emotional landscapes of everyone nearby—Mordecai's deep sadness, Rosetta's tired rage, Edgar's wonder and fear at his memories, Bucket Boy's shame, and most disturbingly, Imani's entire emotional history: her escape from Detroit to a nursing job in a small town, her guilt over leaving family, her weariness with responsibility, and her secret love for Chris.

The dream takes place in an Icelandic children's hospital where Carl witnesses Katia's second-worst moment. She arrives to pursue adoption of a baby girl named Annie, but encounters her ex-colleague Fannar, a professor who had an affair with a student and faced no consequences when Katia reported him. Fannar enters the hospital to "tell the truth," sabotaging Katia's adoption. She is denied the application and retreats to a bathroom where she silently screams in anguish.

Despite this rejection, Katia visits Annie in the hospital ward. The baby is terminally ill with brain cancer and cannot focus her eyes, but she is happy and alive. Katia holds her, speaking words of despair—"I have nothing left. You were all I had"—while keeping her voice playful for the child. This is Katia's favorite memory precisely because she knows it will be the last time she sees Annie. After Annie's death, Katia learned of it casually from a nurse at a park, and her hope was extinguished. She reveals that at this moment, she felt such peace about suicide that she only stayed alive wondering if the adoption might be reconsidered, and later from fear of what would happen to Annie if she died.

Carl comforts Katia by telling her they are family, and they share a moment of connection, both having experienced finality and loss. Katia expresses worry about Daniel and confesses she loves Carl and Donut as much as she loved Annie. Before they can finish discussing Mordecai's plan, Shi Maria's dream violently intrudes, with Shi Maria bursting in screaming that she didn't kill someone, followed by an unknown voice claiming she swallowed someone whole.