Atropos cuts Rosalie's life cord

Atropos, the rogue agent of the Random, murders the stray dog Rosalie by severing her life-cord (balloon-string) with a rusty scalpel, an act that Ralph Roberts and Lois Chasse witness from a park bench in Strawford Park, marking a decisive escalation in their confrontation with the supernatural forces that have invaded Derry. This event is the first time Lois sees the creature clearly, and it forces both of them to recognize that Atropos is not merely a trickster but a killer who can inflict mortal harm on living beings by cutting the ethereal thread that connects them to life.

The Confrontation in the Park

After Ralph and Lois have shared their secret worlds of auras and hyper-reality, they sit on a bench in Strawford Park, watching the stray dog Rosalie cower at the base of a pine tree. The creature Ralph has come to call Doc #3 emerges from the Portosan marked MEN, wearing Bill McGovern's Panama hat with a crescent bitten out of the brim and carrying a rusty scalpel. Rosalie, terrified, backs away, her ragged ears laid back and her muzzle wrinkled. The bald creature taunts her, and when Ralph shouts at him to leave the dog alone, Atropos dismisses him with a jeering wave. Lois, who can only see a shimmer in the air, is horrified as the dog whines and then stretches her neck forward to humbly lick the creature's palm.

The Severing of the Balloon-String

Atropos shoves Rosalie's muzzle aside, seizes the faded blue bandanna around her neck, and yanks her head up. Rosalie howls miserably. Ralph tries to command the dog to run, but she is already being pulled partway out of ordinary reality. Atropos raises the scalpel and brings it down, not on Rosalie's throat, but on the delicate pigtail of light that rises from her snout—her balloon-string. The severed pigtail rises into the sky like a released helium balloon, unravelling as it goes, and passes through the branches of the old pine as if they were not there. Ralph realizes with horror that this is how the creature's companions walked through May Locher's locked front door after they finished their work.

The Deathbag and the Aftermath

With her life-cord cut, Rosalie begins to weave a deathbag around herself. Black, nightmarish stuff, neither liquid nor gas, pumps out of her nostrils with each exhaled breath, surrounding her in slow, nasty coils of anti-light. Ralph can see her pleading, terrified eyes as the darkness gathers around her head and then oozes down her back and sides and legs. The creature stands grinning down at her, then unties the knot in her bandanna and puts it around his own neck, tying it in a big, loose knot like a bohemian artist's necktie. He looks up at Ralph and Lois with an expression of loathsome complacency. Lois, now able to see the creature thanks to Ralph's touch, screams at him to do something. Ralph, realizing he cannot produce another bolt of blue light, instructs Lois to shoot her hand at the creature. She raises her forefinger and makes a child's shooting gesture, and two compact lozenge shapes of gray-blue light fly from her finger, striking the creature and causing him to screech and flee. Rosalie, however, is left at the base of the tree, seemingly dead. She later struggles to her feet, sneezes, and limps away, but Ralph understands that she is now living on borrowed time.

The Theft of Souvenirs

As Rosalie dies, Atropos demonstrates his signature habit of taking souvenirs from his victims. He has already taken McGovern's Panama hat, and now he claims Rosalie's faded blue bandanna. Later, Ralph realizes that the splinters of light he saw reflected from the creature's earlobes almost certainly mean that Atropos has also taken Lois's missing diamond earrings. This act of theft, combined with the murder of the dog, transforms Ralph's understanding of the creature: Atropos is not just a random agent of chaos but a collector of trophies, a being who derives pleasure from possessing the tokens of those he has harmed. The bandanna, the hat, and the earrings become symbols of the creature's power and of the personal stakes in the conflict that is now fully joined.