The new silo seems brighter to Juliette now that she has taken her helmet off. She heads downward to get away from the toxic air and stench on the top floor. She marvels that this silo is the same as her own thinking, “the Gods built more than one” (267). She uses the knife to remove her cleaning suit and underclothes, which still seem contaminated with the outside air and reek of the rotten soup. Naked, she heads further down through the silo. She reflects hopefully that the abandoned silo has plenty of air as well as canned food in the cafeteria.

Juliette enters the nursery on the 13th floor, feeling as if she is “pushing open a door on her youth” (270). Seeing the nursery reminds of the dead bodies she saw outside. She wonders what happened at this silo. For the first time, she realizes “the reality of her solitude and the tenuousness” (271) of her survival. On the 14th floor, she takes a table cloth from a conference room and fashions clothes for herself. Suddenly, she feels “deathly tired” and goes to sleep on the landing, wondering vaguely whether “this might be the sort of nap one never woke up from” (272).