A man knocks on Alison Pope's door and drags her outside by force toward his parked van.

Kyle Boot grabs a geode from his yard and hurls it at Alison's attacker, knocking him to the ground.

After the father in 'Sticks' dies, his children sell the house and the new owners throw his lawn decorations in the garbage.

Marie sees Callie's son Bo chained to a tree in the backyard, refuses to adopt the puppy, and drives away.

Callie takes the unadopted puppy to a cornfield and abandons it so her husband will not drown it.

Jeff is injected with a drug that makes him fall deeply in love with Heather, and the two have sex while Abnesti watches.

Jeff is forced to narrate in detail as Heather receives DarkenfloxxTM, beats herself against a wall, and dies by suicide.

Jeff injects himself with his own DarkenfloxxTM dosage and dies by suicide rather than watch Rachel suffer the same fate.

Al Roosten receives pity applause at a charity bachelor auction and privately believes he has outperformed Larry Donfrey.

The narrator wins $10,000 from a scratch-off lottery and installs four Semplica Girls for his daughter Lilly's surprise party.

Eva frees the family's Semplica Girls overnight using a stepladder, leaving the family liable for over $8,000 in debt.

Mikey grabs and shoves a landlord attempting to evict his mother, putting himself at risk of arrest.

Under the influence of KnightLyfe, Ted announces Don Murray's assault of Martha to the entire attraction crowd and is immediately fired.

Don Eber leaves his coat on a bench and walks into winter cold, intending to die of exposure.

Robin's mother rescues Don Eber from the cold, and he decides inside her warm home that living for his family is worthwhile.

The ten stories in this collection each pivot on a moment of failed or achieved empathy, and this pool captures the most consequential of those moments. Kyle Boot's split-second decision to hurl a geode at Alison's kidnapper and Jeff's fatal self-sacrifice in Spiderhead represent the collection's most urgent moral turning points. The narrator of 'The Semplica Girl Diaries' wins a lottery and installs living human ornaments for his daughter's party, only to have his youngest child undo it all in a single night. Mikey returns from war to find his home life collapsing around him, and Ted's drug-fueled courage costs him everything he was trying to protect. Don Eber walks into the cold to die alone and is ultimately pulled back to life by the very community he was trying to spare from suffering.

The headline events driving each story from first page to last.

Kyle Boot finds his father's note about placing the geode and internally rebels by inventing strings of profanity.

The unnamed kidnapper imagines himself as a king with the divine right to take Alison as his conquest.

After recurring nightmares of Kyle killing her attacker, Alison is comforted when her parents ask her to retell what really happened.

Marie drives her children to adopt a puppy, reflecting on her painful childhood and her determination to spread grace to others.

Callie places a harness and chain on her son Bo to keep him safe in the backyard, viewing it as a loving act.

Jeff is brought to the Control Room and presented with the impossible choice to administer DarkenfloxxTM to either Heather or Rachel.

Abnesti declares that Jeff's refusal to choose between the two women confirms the love drug worked exactly as intended.

Divisional Director Todd Birnie sends his employees a memo using the analogy of cleaning a shelf to warn about low productivity.

Al Roosten kicks Larry Donfrey's wallet and keys under the venue risers after overhearing that Donfrey's daughter needs surgery.

The narrator takes his family to a wealthy classmate's birthday party and feels humiliated by the vast difference in wealth.

A private investigator named Jerry arrives to look into the missing Semplica Girls and camps in the family's yard late into the night.

Mikey hides in a neighbor's deer stand and watches as a sheriff and movers empty out his mother's home.

Mikey returns a mislaid MiiVOXmax device to the store and connects with a salesperson who was also stationed at Al-Raz.

Mikey's entire family assembles at Joy's house to stop him from violence; he softens when he sees his mother's frailty.

Don Eber rescues Robin from the frozen pond and strips off his own clothes to dress the shivering boy, leaving himself to freeze.

These events illuminate the inner workings of each story, providing the motivations, quiet decisions, and consequences that give the main plot its weight. Kyle's private rebellion against his father's rigid rules and the kidnapper's warped self-image as a king show what's really at stake in 'Victory Lap,' while Alison's eventual healing closes the story on a note of hard-won grace. Jeff's impossible choice in the Control Room and Abnesti's cold declaration that the experiment succeeded expose how institutional power operates through guilt rather than open force. The narrator's humiliation at a wealthy birthday party sets him on the path toward the Semplica Girls, and Mikey's fragile connection with a fellow Al-Raz veteran at a tech store hints at the community he is desperately searching for throughout 'Home.'

The scenes and reveals that fill in each story's full texture.

Kyle Boot stares at the geode at his feet, torn between his parents' strict rules and his impulse to rescue Alison.

The father in 'Sticks' strings lines of personal apologies and admissions across the lawn pole, addressed to his children.

Callie's husband threatens to drown the puppy if it is not adopted, pushing Callie to urgently find someone to take it.

Callie watches Bo playing happily in the backyard and reflects on how much she loves him after abandoning the puppy in the field.

Jeff watches Rachel dancing alone in her workroom and decides to dose himself with DarkenfloxxTM rather than let her suffer.

After dying, Jeff's consciousness rises above Spiderhead and he sees all the imprisoned subjects as victims of circumstance, not willful criminals.

Todd Birnie's memo implies that employees who fail to maintain productivity may themselves become victims of the violent work done in Room 6.

Al Roosten imagines his mother praising his moral courage to soothe the guilt he feels over hiding Donfrey's belongings.

Al Roosten imagines beating a homeless man outside his failing shop but instead simply returns the man's smile.

The narrator urges his children to dare and be brave following the sudden death of a colleague at work.

Eva tearfully confesses she freed the Semplica Girls herself, telling her father she was only following his advice to be brave.

Ted discovers his boss Don Murray sexually assaulting his coworker Martha at TorchLightNight and is asked to keep it a secret.

Ted walks home through a football field after being fired, realizing as the KnightLyfe fades that he has caused real harm to Martha.

Robin runs home to his mother after leaving Don Eber alone in the cold, knowing he should go back but feeling powerless.

Eber tells Robin that Robin saved his life and resolves to live by being present for others as his stepfather Allen once was.

Each event in this pool marks a critical pivot — a moment of decision, revelation, or emotional rupture that defines what its story is really about. Kyle's frozen hesitation over the geode captures the central moral tension of the entire collection, just as Jeff watching Rachel dance wordlessly encapsulates his transformation from passive prisoner to moral agent. Eva's confession that she freed the Semplica Girls because her father told her to be brave is the collection's sharpest irony, turning the narrator's own advice against him. Ted's slow realization walking home after his firing, Mikey's violent threat that collapses into grief, and Don Eber's final resolution to live for others all demonstrate how Saunders builds toward moments of difficult, hard-won human connection. Together, these events trace the collection's core argument: that empathy is not a feeling but a choice, and one that must be made again and again at great personal cost.

The moral dilemmas, quiet discoveries, and emotional shifts at each story's heart.