For three weeks, the girl has been in her dorm, working away at her Shakespeare paper. Past her dorm window, she can see high waters all around the island, full of backpacks. She figures that many of her peers are already dead. Since all electronics have been downed, she has been working off of a printed copy, as well as the typewriters she stole from a friend’s dorm. Periodically, she forages from other dorms, taking food and other supplies like books to burn as fuel. However, there’s only so much to go off of, and she predicts she’ll run out soon. However, she only cares about lasting as long as her paper.

The girl’s paper compares two of Shakespeare’s plays, assessing how two pivotal protagonists confront their own mortality and impending doom. Just as she runs out of food, she finishes her paper. She gets ready for the long hike to the English building on the other side of campus. Normally, it would take twenty minutes, but it takes her hours to navigate all of the dead bodies and the fallen trees. She sees trees with nooses and bodies hung from them. Animals are picking away at the bodies still left.

Eventually, the girl gets to the English building. She walks inside and sees no one save for a few pests here and there. On the second floor, she finds her professor’s office, beside the door of which is a box. However, instead of placing her paper inside of the box, she sees that her professor’s office’s door is slightly open. She says hello, and her professor says hello back. She goes inside and has a seat with him. She says that she wanted to finish her paper rather than evacuate. The professor asks her why she bothered, and she said she wanted to.

Outside, storm clouds gather. The girl and the professor briefly talk about the comparison of Shakespeare’s plays in her paper, how some characters sought to find good even when their doom was impending, a lesson which she has taken to heart. Together, they share a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter. Just like they do at universities like Oxford and Cambridge, the professor asks the girl to read out her paper.