“The darkness is nothing to be afraid of. There are no monsters.”

“The darkness is nothing to be afraid of. There are no monsters.” is a sentence Sylvester repeats to calm himself after being left in a freezer. Its reassurance is immediately undermined by a frightening shape revealed in the light of his phone, and later by his recognition that he is paralysed and may die trapped in the darkness. The phrase moves from self-soothing to grim irony: what Sylvester fears is not a supernatural monster, but the situation he cannot escape.

First Use: A Strategy for Staying Calm

After the boy carries Sylvester downstairs and leaves him in the basement, Sylvester realizes he is inside a box in complete darkness. He tells himself not to panic and to wait until the boy has gone to bed, when he might escape or call Bo for help. The sentence about darkness and monsters belongs to this attempt to stay calm and think practically, even as he notices that he is cold and bleeding.

Sylvester manages to retrieve his phone from his jacket. Its display briefly illuminates the space, changing the darkness from an unknown threat into something he can inspect. The sentence’s calm certainty is tested at the exact moment Sylvester chooses to look.

The Apparent Monster

In the phone’s glow, Sylvester sees a face-like shape staring at him, with bulging eyes and an open mouth. The reveal is not supernatural: it is a codfish wrapped in cling film. Around it are freezer bags, seafood boxes, chicken, pork, and berries; the ice-lined walls establish that Sylvester is in a freezer. The scene turns the reassurance into dark irony: there are no monsters, but the ordinary object in front of him first appears monstrous in the confined darkness.

Repetition and Reversal

The phrase’s second, more consequential echo comes after Sylvester tries to move his legs and finds that they do not respond. He pinches his shin and thigh, then concludes that the bullet must have severed his spinal cord. He recognizes that he is paralysed from the waist down and that his attempts to strike the lid will not free him.

At this point, the earlier instruction to remain calm can no longer promise safety. Sylvester’s thoughts return to a lesson from his father about keeping the dam closed, but his fear breaks through: he imagines dying as he has in his nightmares, locked up, alone, in darkness. The repeated image links the freezer scene’s brief visual scare to a deeper terror of confinement and helplessness. The monster is a fish; the danger that remains is Sylvester’s real, inescapable predicament.