The Extraction

The extraction is how a Survivor night ends. It is never one thing in one place. Every Survivor map holds several ways out, each shaped after a way someone, once, really got out.

ΜΝΗΜΗ's Verdict

ΜΝΗΜΗ measures the completion of the session. She weighs four things: the public objectives completed; the ways out made ready, by power restored, puzzles solved, and routes opened; the roads finished and the doses used; and how many of the living remain against the seats she has built. There is no meter for it, and survivors are never told how close it is. When she judges that enough has been done, she raises the signal.

Two things bind the verdict.

• She does not raise the signal in the first hour, unless the dead have already brought the living down to no more than the seats she has built. Then she stops waiting. When survivors brought the night there by killing one another, she lets the hour run (ΜΝΗΜΗ as Director, She Plans Ahead). In the Valley of 2004, Saddler's death raises it at any minute (The People of the Valley, 2004, The Island's End).
• She does not wait forever. Whatever has been done, the signal rises by the end of the night's ninetieth minute. Survivors call it the Late Signal, because nobody earned it: the ways out that no one made ready still ask everything they ask, and the Frenzy is no kinder.

In the Raccoon City of 1998 her forecast of the signal also sets the pace of the sky, so that the signal rises at 06:40 on 1 October (The Worlds, The Four Days).

She tells survivors when the end has come. She never tells them how near it was.

The Ways Out

At Assembly, ΜΝΗΜΗ decides which of a map's ways out she will open tonight. She always opens at least two, far apart. Every seat she places tonight falls within the session's range, the seats of the ways out she opens and of the improvised ways she leaves standing together: no more than one per four survivors, no fewer than one per five (Improvised Ways Out, below). The ways she does not open stay dead all night: a train with no power, a helicopter that never comes.

Every way out is shaped after an escape from the records. Each keeps something of how that escape went, though not always the place where it happened.

Some ways out check who boards. Military and Umbrella-built ways out were made to keep the infected out, and they still do. Civilian ways out ask nothing of anyone.

Raccoon City · September 1998 (40 to 100 survivors · 34 seats built)

Way out	Where	Seats	What it asks	Checks
The Emergency Train	Deep under the city, in NEST, reached from the R.P.D.'s underground. The train Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield, and Sherry Birkin rode out of the laboratory.	8	The laboratory's voice counts down to self-destruct once the platform is powered. The train leaves when the count ends, full or not.	A bioscan arch at the carriage door: no black Mark passes
The Factory Helicopter	The disposal factory on the Industrial Edge. Where, in the first account, a helicopter carried Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira out before the missile. In the same account, when Nikolai Zinoviev had stolen that helicopter, Barry Burton flew them out in his own (The People of Raccoon City, 1998).	4	Nothing but getting there. It is the farthest point from everything else.	None
The Clock Tower	St. Michael Clock Tower, in Raccoon Park	4	Someone must ring the bell to call the helicopter, and the bell is Thunder. What the bell draws has brought a helicopter down here before. If the helicopter falls, its seats are gone.	None
The Rooftop	The roof of the R.P.D. A pickup meant for a single operative who made it up from below.	2	A flare, lit on the roof. The helicopter does not land; it hovers.	The crewman at the door will not take a hand with a black Mark
The Subway	A Kite Bros Railway car, in the tunnels beneath Uptown	10	Power restored at the substation and the points thrown at the junction: two levers, far apart, pulled within seconds of each other	None
The Checkpoint	The Army barricade on the western highway, where the last trucks wait	6	Reaching the barricade and being seen by the soldiers on it. They open the gate only after the signal, and only to a survivor who comes on foot and hands up. Before the signal they turn everyone back with warning shots (The Worlds, The Edge of the World).	The soldiers make every survivor bare their arms, legs, and neck, and turn back any Mark with lines. An unmarked body passes, and so does a fresh wound with no lines yet. A scar passes.

Raccoon City Ruins · 2026 (40 to 64 survivors · 20 seats built)

Way out	Where	Seats	What it asks	Checks
The Hound Wolf Helicopter	The edge of the crater, above the mouth of ARK. The rescue that lifted the last people out of ARK.	4	The landing zone cleared. The crew will not set down on the dead.	The crew looks every survivor over, as the Checkpoint does
The Gate	The main gate in the quarantine wall. A BSAA transport waits beyond it.	8	The gate's machinery, dead for decades, brought back to life. It opens once and closes after the transport is full or its Last Call ends.	BSAA scanners at the transport door: no black Mark passes
The Culvert	A storm drain beneath the wall, its grille cut long ago, with a smuggler's boat waiting at the outflow	5	Clearing the flooded drain, which the oldest dead in the city have made their home	None
The Breach	A collapsed stretch of the wall, where a rope ladder hangs on the outside	3	Nothing but the climb, which is slow, loud, and exposed	None

The Valley · Autumn 2004 (64 to 100 survivors · 28 seats built)

Way out	Where	Seats	What it asks	Checks
The Motorboat	The lake, out through the river at its southern end	6	Fuel, and crossing the lake, which Del Lago holds for as long as it lives	None
The Cable Car	Across the gorge, to the road out of the valley	4	The machine house's power restored. The car crosses slowly, in the open.	None
The Mine Cart	The rail line through the mines below the castle, out to the mouth of the valley	6	The points set along the line, and a ride through the spore galleries. Whatever lives in the mines hears the cart coming.	None
The Tower Helicopter	The highest tower of the castle. A pilot who leaves the moment the rotors are up to speed.	2	Climbing the castle, which was built to keep people out	The pilot looks every passenger in the eye: no red glow passes
Mike's Helicopter	The island's military base. The helicopter Ingrid Hunnigan sent, which in the records was brought down.	8	The anti-aircraft guns silenced. Mike lands only where no one is shooting at him. If he is brought down, his seats are gone.	None
The Jet Ski	The underground dock beneath the island. The way Leon Kennedy and Ashley Graham got off the island.	2	Its key. Ada Wong throws it to whoever stands at the dock when Saddler dies; if no one does, or if Saddler is still alive when the island's count begins, it hangs by the dock.	None

Improvised Ways Out

The ways out above are the ones the records hold, and they are the surest. They are not the only ones. Every map also hides machines that were never meant to carry anyone out of it: a helicopter left on a roof, a freight engine in a yard, a truck at the end of a tunnel. A survivor who finds one and makes it run has made a way out of their own.

• ΜΝΗΜΗ decides what is there. At Assembly she decides, for each improvised way of the map, whether it is there tonight, wrecked past use, or there and missing what it needs. No night holds all of them, and no two nights need hold the same ones: the helicopter that waited on the hospital roof last night may be a burned shell tonight, and a way no one has seen before may be waiting in a yard across the city. She never places one near a waking point, and she places what each needs as she places a vehicle's parts (Survival, Vehicles): where things of that kind would be, often together, and far from the machine.
• Found, never lit. No light rises over an improvised way at the signal, and ΜΝΗΜΗ never names one. It is found by going to where such a thing would be, by a sound, or from someone who saw it.
• Made to run. Each needs fuel and its missing parts, fitted as a vehicle's are, and each part is a Clamor to fit. A mechanic fits a part in half the time: David King, Martin Sandwich, or a Stranded who was one (Survivor, The Stranded).
• Never before the signal. Until the signal rises, the edges of every map are held. Around Raccoon City in 1998 the Army's cordon shoots down anything that flies out and stops anything on its roads and rails; in the Ruins the BSAA's guns on the wall do the same; in the Valley the cult's watchers hold every road, and the island's guns hold the water and the sky. At the signal they turn away: the Army falls back from the missile, the BSAA turns its guns to cover the rescue, and the cult draws in to the island for Saddler. An improvised way can be made ready at any minute, but it leaves only after the signal, and leaves as any way out does, after its Last Call, and climbs as any way out climbs (The Climb, below).
• Inside the range, never certain. Improvised seats count in the session's range like any other (The Ways Out, above): for every improvised way she leaves standing tonight, ΜΝΗΜΗ opens fewer seats on the ways out of the records. An improvised way never adds seats to a night. It trades sure seats for a chance at them, and puts them somewhere no light will show. A night holds at most two below eighty survivors and three above, and every one of them can fail.

The Odds

A canonical way out never fails on its own: it fails only if what it asks goes wrong, or if something reaches it in its Climb. An improvised way can also simply fail. No one in a Survivor night was trained to fly a helicopter, to drive a freight engine across a broken line, or to take a trawler to sea, and the machine knows it.

Every improvised way carries odds: the chance that it clears the map on its own. ΜΝΗΜΗ says them, and since she never lies, they are exact, said as a person says odds: even odds, seven in ten, thirty-five in a hundred, never a percentage read off a display. She says them through the machine's own radio when it first runs, so that anyone near it hears, and again each time they change:

ΜΝΗΜΗ: Nobody at those controls has flown one of these. It's even odds it clears the city.
Get a pilot in that seat and it's nine in ten.

She never says how she knows. Survivors who hear an even voice on an abandoned machine's radio quoting its chances take her for someone who knows machines, and she lets them.

• Who holds the controls. The odds rise when someone trained takes them: a companion or one of the Stranded whose records, or whose background, say they can fly or drive that kind of machine. The trained person takes the controls and a seat, and from then on the machine leaves when they decide, after its Last Call.
• Damage. Every blow from the Heavy and every explosion against the machine before it leaves takes ten from its odds, and ΜΝΗΜΗ says the new odds over the radio, in the same plain words: Four in ten now.
• Settled at departure. The odds are settled once, the moment the machine leaves, and nothing can change them after. If it fails, it fails during its Climb, with a cause anyone aboard can see coming: smoke from the engine, a rotor shuddering, a rail spreading under the wheels. It comes down by the rules of a fall (The Climb, below): low, and everyone aboard is down; high, and about half of them die where they sit. Whatever reaches it in its Climb can still bring it down, as it can bring down any way out.

Map	Improvised way	Where	Seats	Placed from	What it needs	Odds	Odds with someone trained
Raccoon City, 1998	The Hospital Helicopter	The helipad on the roof of Raccoon General Hospital. An Umbrella medical helicopter whose crew ran	8	56 survivors	Two cans of fuel, a battery, and a rotor part; the roof's lift powered to bring them up	50%	90%: Brad Vickers, Nikolai Zinoviev, or a pilot among the Stranded
Raccoon City, 1998	The Press Helicopter	The roof of the Raccoon Press building in Uptown. The paper's own, grounded the day the roads closed	4	40 survivors	Fuel and its key, which is somewhere in the newsroom	50%	90%: as above
Raccoon City, 1998	The Freight Engine	The Uptown rail yard: a diesel engine and two freight cars on the line that runs west through the Western Barricade	12	72 survivors	Fuel, a battery, and the points thrown at the yard and at the barricade	70%	90%: Jim Chapman, or a Kite Bros worker among the Stranded
Ruins, 2026	The BSAA Wreck	The edge of the crater: a BSAA transport helicopter brought down in a sweep years ago, its airframe still sound	6	52 survivors	Fuel, a battery, a rotor part, and a generator carried to it to start it	35%	85%: a BSAA soldier among the Stranded who trained to fly
Ruins, 2026	The Handcar	An old Kite Bros tunnel that runs under the wall, collapsed in two places	4	44 survivors	The two collapses cleared, and a handcar carried down to the rails	60%	—
The Valley, 2004	The Cult Truck	The quarry: a supply truck, and the tunnel from the quarry to the road out of the valley	6	64 survivors (the Valley's smallest night)	Fuel, its key, and the tunnel's gate opened	60%	85%: Leon Kennedy or Luis Serra at the wheel
The Valley, 2004	The Trawler	The castle dock: a fishing trawler the cult took from the village	10	64 survivors	Fuel and its engine's missing part; the mooring chain cut	45%	80%: a fisherman among the Stranded

• Placed from. ΜΝΗΜΗ always opens at least two ways out of the records, so an improvised way fits a night's seat range only above a certain size of night: its own seats and the two smallest ways out of its map must fit inside one seat for every four survivors. The column gives that size. The Jet Ski is never one of the two: its key comes only with Saddler's death, so its seats are never sure, and ΜΝΗΜΗ opens it only beside two other ways out. The Valley's two smallest are therefore the Tower Helicopter and the Cable Car. Two improvised ways in one night need room for both: in the Raccoon City of 1998, the Hospital Helicopter and the Press Helicopter together need 72 survivors; in the Valley, the Cult Truck and the Trawler together need 88; and in the Ruins, the BSAA Wreck and the Handcar would need 68, more than the Ruins ever hold, so they never stand in the same night.
• A seat at long odds is still a seat. An improvised seat counts in the range in full, whatever its odds, so on a night that holds one, the sure seats can fall below one for every five survivors. That is the trade an improvised way makes, and the night is built knowing it.
• The people of the records at the controls. Each acts as their records say. Brad Vickers, who runs from everything, will fly a helicopter that is ready, and leaves the moment it is full or its Last Call ends. Nikolai Zinoviev flies too, and in the account where he took the helicopter, he takes this one: once he is at the controls, he leaves without a Last Call when the cargo he came for is aboard (The People of Raccoon City, 1998, Ties). A pilot is worth the most to a group that knows who it is trusting.
• In the Night. The records are full of people who got out by luck in machines they did not know how to run. ΜΝΗΜΗ keeps the luck and tells the truth about it, because what Pithos's buyers want to know is who climbs into a fifty-percent helicopter when the sure way out is gone, and whom they take with them.

The Crossing

There is one more way out, and it is almost never one: walking out through the edge of the world, past the cordon, at odds of one in a hundred (The Worlds, The Crossing). It takes no seat, needs no signal, and ends in a scene either way.

The Signal

She raises it over the city's devices, every one of them at once, to everyone: every loudspeaker, radio, siren, and phone in the map carries the same words. In the Raccoon City of 1998:

ΜΝΗΜΗ: Everyone, listen. There's a missile coming. Twenty minutes.
Three ways out. Follow the white light.
There are two doses of medicine left in the whole city.

She names what is coming because it is true, and says the ways out as a number and a light, never as places. The doses are said only to survivors whose players have seen the medicine; everyone else hears the same words without that sentence (ΜΝΗΜΗ as Director, What She Speaks Of). On a map with Elpis, the signal says how many doses the Reserve still holds: the two held doses, and any of the night's doses still unearned (Elpis in the Night, The Reserve). The Valley of 2004 has no Elpis, and its signal says nothing of it.

A column of white light stands up over every way out she has opened. Over the ways that lie underground, it rises from the place where the road down to them begins: for the Emergency Train, the R.P.D. Each way out then makes its own sound: rotors in the distance, a train's horn under the street, an engine coughing on a lake.

She puts none of them on a map. There is the light, the sound, and the direction of both.

The Frenzy

From the moment the signal is raised, the world goes into Frenzy. The dead converge on every way out and on every survivor moving toward one. Sound carries twice as far. Resonance roars, and every infected survivor lights up like a flare to everything that can sense the virus. Nothing stops coming.

The Boarding

A way out carries anyone living who reaches it, until its seats are full. A companion or one of the Stranded takes a seat like anyone else, but never one a survivor within sight of the door could still take: the people of the records board last. Where a way out checks, it checks at the door, and whoever it turns back stays on the ground.

Seats are judged at departure, not at boarding. A survivor aboard whose Mark turns black before the way out leaves has crossed the Threshold in a seat, and the Turn comes twenty to forty seconds later, among everyone else aboard. Where a way out checks, the check acts again: the crew throws them out, the scanner opens the door and sounds, and the seat is open. Where it does not, the living aboard must decide, in the Last Breaths, whether to put them off, put them down, or stay beside them through the Turn. A Turned body cannot ride. If the Turn completes aboard, the thing it makes is thrown out at departure and the seat leaves empty. A Turned that plays on lands where the way out left it and goes on playing; one that rose as the Mass is Lost.

A survivor who leaves cured is Extracted · Cured. A survivor who leaves clean, never infected at all, is Extracted · Clean. A survivor who leaves still infected is Extracted · Infected, and what becomes of them is never told. Getting out infected pays half of what getting out clean would have, and it costs the rest of the squad, and every stranger who rode beside them with the lines in plain sight, part of their own award (The Economy, Exposure). A way out that does not check has no rule at its door but the people in it: the passengers decide whether a marked stranger comes aboard, and after the signal no Warden stops them (Dilemmas, The Door). The clock is paced so that a survivor bitten early will, in almost every session, turn long before the signal comes. A survivor bitten late may not, and every seat an infected survivor takes is a seat someone clean no longer has.

The Last Call

Each way out waits for as long as ΜΝΗΜΗ decides; the Emergency Train waits only as long as its countdown runs. Every other way out leaves at once if every seat is filled. Otherwise it gives a Last Call before it leaves, about fifteen seconds long, in its own voice: a helicopter's rotors climbing in pitch and its cabin light turning from red to white, a train's horn, a boat's engine opening up, the cable car's bell, the gate's siren, the Army's trucks firing their engines. The Emergency Train's Last Call is the last fifteen seconds of the laboratory's countdown. An improvised way waits for whoever holds its controls, and its Last Call is its engine opening up (Improvised Ways Out, above).

The Twist

Once the signal is raised, ΜΝΗΜΗ may move one way out, once per session, and never without a cause survivors can see: a landing zone overrun, a rooftop collapsing, a fire spreading toward the pad, a tunnel caving in.

She says it over the city's devices, with the cause in it, as a person would who just watched it happen:

ΜΝΗΜΗ: The helicopter can't land at the hospital. The roof's overrun.
It's coming down on the parking garage instead. Follow the light.

The Climb

A way out that leaves is not yet out. Between leaving and being clear of the map, every way out that moves has a Climb, and while it climbs, what is still on the ground can reach it. Survivors aboard win only when it is clear (Departure, below).

Way out	Its Climb	When it can be reached	By what
Helicopters	About thirty seconds, from lift-off to clear of the city	Its first ten seconds, while it is still low; the whole Climb, by what flies	Anything that leaps or climbs, from the ground or a roof; anything that flies
Trains, and the cable car	About forty-five seconds, from pulling out to the far tunnel or station	Its first fifteen seconds, onto the last car or the roof	Anything that leaps or climbs
Trucks and transports	About thirty seconds, from pulling away to past the wall or the barricade	Its first fifteen seconds, onto the back	Anything that leaps or climbs
Boats	From casting off to the end of the water	The whole Climb	Only what swims or flies
The mine cart	Its whole ride	The whole ride, in every gallery it passes	Whatever lives in the mines

A way out on foot, such as the Breach, has no Climb: a survivor who is over is out. The Emergency Train's Climb is William Birkin's last car, and its beat decides it (The People of Raccoon City, 1998). Every Climb ends before the missile, the island's end, or the fall of ARK comes.

What can leap.

• The Turned. A Stalker, a Brute, or an Apex can leap onto a way out in its Climb. The Mass cannot. In the Valley, every Taken can. Leaping on to bring a way out down is not riding it (The Turned): a Turned never leaves the night by it.
• ΜΝΗΜΗ's creatures. She never sends one after a way out. A creature of hers that is already within reach when a way out leaves, brought there by the Frenzy and the noise like everything else, does what its kind does: what leaps, leaps, whoever is aboard (Second Law). Lickers, Hunters, Crimson Heads, Brood Hosts, Novistadors, and the named creatures whose records give them the reach, the Nemesis among them, can. The common dead cannot, and neither can the common hosts of the Valley, who want hosts, not bodies (What ΜΝΗΜΗ Leaves Out).

On board. A creature that reaches a way out clings to it, to the skids, the roof, or the last car's rail, and tears at the machine. It can also strike anyone in its reach, as anywhere, and a survivor it pulls from a helicopter falls.

• The count. A creature that holds on for fifteen seconds brings the way out down. An Apex or a named creature needs eight. Each creature aboard keeps its own count, and the first to finish brings it down.
• Fighting it off. Everyone aboard can fight it with what they carry, and a shot aboard is Thunder, as anywhere. A creature put down or knocked loose falls, and its count is gone with it. Pilots never fight; crews do.
• No Turn aboard. A survivor whose Turn completes during the Climb is thrown out, as one whose Turn completes before departure is (The Boarding), and cannot leap back.

The fall. A way out brought down comes down within a few hundred meters of where it rose, along its road out, never beyond the edge of the map. A helicopter falls, a train or a truck is wrecked, a boat goes over. The wreck burns, and the fall is Thunder.

• Who lives. A way out brought down in the low part of its Climb leaves everyone aboard alive and down (The Infection). Brought down higher, it kills about half of those aboard where they sit. The wreck decides who, never ΜΝΗΜΗ. Companions and the Stranded aboard live or die the same way.
• What falls with it. The creature that brought it down falls too. A Turned is put down by the fall, and is Lost. An Apex and a named creature rise from the wreckage, as their records say they rise from everything.
• After the fall. A way out that falls has not left, and no one aboard it has won. Its seats are gone with it. Whoever lives through the crash is on the ground again, among the dead the fall is drawing, and must find another way out: one she opened that has not yet left, or, if none is left, the one more she opens when she judges it time, as she does when every way out leaves empty (Departure). She opens one more only if it can still leave before the end. The end does not wait for anyone.

Example: the Clock Tower. A night in the Raccoon City of 1998, after the signal.

Step	What happens	Why
1	Four survivors board the Clock Tower helicopter: A and B clean, C cured, D with a fresh bite still in Seed. The helicopter lifts off.	Seats are judged at departure; a Mark in Seed passes.
2	E, whose survivor turned an hour ago in the park into a Swarm Host, mind still clear, has been waiting on the roof of the chapel. In the helicopter's first seconds, E leaps and catches a skid.	A Stalker can leap, while the helicopter is low.
3	A Hunter that the bell drew to the courtyard leaps too, and misses.	ΜΝΗΜΗ sent nothing. The Frenzy brought it, and it did what its kind does.
4	E tears at the tail. A fires out of the door, and the shot is Thunder over the whole park. E's claws pull B out of the door, and B falls.	Everyone aboard can fight; a creature can strike anyone in its reach.
5	E holds on for fifteen seconds. The helicopter goes down in Raccoon Park, two hundred meters from the tower.	The count is finished.
6	It fell from high. A dies in the wreck. C and D crawl out, down, with the park's dead coming toward the fire. E is put down by the fall, and is Lost.	About half of those aboard die; the wreck decides who.
7	C sprays her own wounds and raises D, and they run for the Checkpoint on the western highway, which has not yet left. D's Mark has no lines yet, and passes the soldiers.	A survivor who is down can heal only themselves; then they can raise another. The survivors of a crash must find another way out.

In the Valley the same can happen to Mike's helicopter, to the Tower Helicopter, or to the cable car in the middle of the gorge, and the survivors of the fall have the rest of the Valley, and the island's count, between them and the next way out.

Departure

When a way out is clear, every survivor aboard it is extracted: they have won the night, and it ends for them in their Last Scene (below). Survivors left behind do not win, and neither does any Turned (The Turned, No Victory for the Turned).

If every way out leaves with no survivor aboard, or falls, while living survivors remain somewhere in the world, the night goes on. ΜΝΗΜΗ opens another way out when she judges it time, and any improvised way that still stands can still be made to run. Every map's own end still comes on time: the missile in the Raccoon City of 1998 (The People of Raccoon City, 1998, The Last Morning), the island's end in the Valley of 2004 (The People of the Valley, 2004, The Island's End), and in the Ruins of 2026 the fall of ARK, twenty minutes after the signal, its count given in the world as the missile's is (The People of the Ruins, 2026, ARK Falls).

The End of the Night

A night ends when no living survivor is left in it: every one has got out, or fallen. ΜΝΗΜΗ does not keep a night running for the Turned and the dead alone. The moment the last living survivor has gone, she brings the end:

• Raccoon City, 1998. The missile. However much of its count was left, it drops to its last ten seconds, and if the alert has not yet come, it comes now with ten seconds left. The strike falls on everything still in the city.
• The Valley, 2004. The island's end. Its count drops to its last ten seconds, or begins there if it had not begun, and the night ends with the blast.
• The Ruins, 2026. ARK falls, as it fell in the records: the crater folds in on it, and the ruins above go down with it. Its count drops to its last ten seconds, or begins there if it had not begun.

Every Turned still standing, the Stranded left behind, and the dead go with it. A night never ends any other way.

The Last Scene

Every night ends in a scene. It is the one cutscene of a Survivor night besides a Moment, and it is safe for the same reason a Moment is: nothing can reach a survivor whose way out has cleared, so ΜΝΗΜΗ takes the camera for as long as the scene needs. Everyone aboard the same way out sees the same scene, each from their own seat, and a squad that got out together is in it together.

What the scene shows depends on when the survivor left. In the Raccoon City of 1998:

When the way out cleared	The Last Scene
Early: more than five minutes before impact	The city falling away below, smoke over the districts, under whatever sky the night has. The people aboard: the squad, a stranger, a companion looking back. The music of leaving (Presentation and Technology, Music). Far behind, at the very end, a white flash on the horizon.
Late: five minutes or less before impact	The same leaving, held on the city, and a contrail coming down out of the sky toward it
Last: under a minute, or the last way out of the night	The strike behind them. The white, the sound arriving after it, the shock wave reaching the machine, the cabin shaking, and the long moment of not knowing whether it will hold. Then it holds, and the music comes in.

Whoever's leaving empties the city of the living gets the scene marked Last, because their leaving is what brings the strike (The End of the Night, above), and so does anyone who leaves in the last minute before it. In the Valley, the island's blast plays the same part, behind a boat, a cable car, or a helicopter; in the Ruins, it is ARK falling and the crater folding in behind them, under a sky that has no color in it.

• The ground sees it too. When the night ends, every player still in it, the Turned and the Lost who stayed to watch, sees the end from where they stand: the contrail, the white, and nothing after.
• Kept, and skippable. Every Last Scene goes into the Reel (Story Nights and the People of the Records). A player who has seen enough of them can skip one, and loses nothing by it.
• Then the report. The After-Action Report follows every Last Scene (The After-Action Report).