Lights Out Summary & ending explained

Aly

The new nurse was crying in the breakroom when I came off shift, which meant she'd survived her first real night in trauma.

"It gets easier," I told Brinley, handing her a coffee that had been sitting in the pot since midnight. That was a lie. It didn't get easier. You just got quieter about it.

I drove home through gray slush with the heater roaring, let myself into my little house and was greeted by Fred, my cat, who glared at me as if I'd been out partying. I fed him. I poured a glass of wine. Then a second one, because the first one hadn't done anything.

Then I opened my phone and went looking for him.

He called himself the.faceless.man. Millions of people followed him, and not one of them had ever seen his face. He wore a black mask and a black hoodie, and he did nothing much in his videos: leaned in a dark doorway, turned a knife over in tattooed fingers, tilted his head at the camera as if he could see you. That was enough. After a night of other people's blood, he was the one thing that made my brain go quiet.

I'd commented on his posts more times than I wanted to count. Tonight I watched one clip on a loop, a slow walk down a dark hallway, and the wine made a terrible idea sound brilliant.

I screenshotted it and sent it to Tyler.

Tyler and I had slept together on and off months ago, before he drifted away. He had a nice laugh and a roommate who never talked. I typed fast, before I could think.

Put on a mask like this and break into my house. I'll leave the door unlocked.

I hit send, put the phone face down and finished my wine. Fred watched me with deep disapproval.

The phone buzzed once. Tyler, gently, saying it had been months, that he'd moved on, that he hoped I was okay.

I laughed at myself, turned off the lights and went to bed humiliated.

I had no idea that somewhere across the city, someone else was looking at that screenshot. And that he was the man in it.