A climber's line goes dead as she runs out of food and water on the tower.
The episode opens with Kiri's guide reporting that contact has been lost with another climber who entered a tunnel. The guide is helpless, lacking instructions for this scenario. A character named Ike tells the guide they need to let her go. Meanwhile, Kiri's own narration describes climbing above the cloud layer into a realm of blinding snow and perpetual brightness. She observes that the tower's architecture has become increasingly bare and narrow — no carvings, no rest stops, just a staircase that tapers toward the summit. She reaches the second-to-last phone checkpoint and speaks with Ike. Ike confirms only one more phone remains before the top. Kiri reports constant dizziness and nausea, feeling out of sync with time. Ike shares that more people than ever have been calling the tower, all sharing dreams of climbing it. Kiri eats old sugar rations left by builders. She then speaks with a friend named Chris about what might await at the summit. Their conversation is honest and tender, acknowledging shared fear of the future. Chris reveals they too have been dreaming of the tower. Kiri reflects that the tower had been a kind of blind spot — invisible until suddenly impossible to ignore, like seeing one's own nose. She describes her decision to climb as something essential and old within her, not a conscious choice. She refuses to let Chris feel guilty for not coming with her, saying she needed someone to keep her tethered to the real world. In a final monologue, Kiri describes seeing ghostlike figures of other climbers ahead of her in the haze. She admits she has always been afraid, every moment since waking to sleep, and that she once naively hoped it would get better. She resolves to keep moving despite exhaustion, noting her legs seem to carry her without her conscious input.
