Kill Joy

Connor tells Lauren to stop screaming as their eyes adjust to the darkness. Jamie says that there must be a power outage, but Pip points out that the neighbors’ houses are still illuminated, which suggests that a fuse has been blown. Pip offers to reset the fuse box, one of the many life lessons handed down to her by her father. Pip takes one of the candles downstairs with her to check the fuse box, refusing help from anyone else because she finds that “most of the time—other people only slow[] you down” (91).

In the basement, Pip experiences slight anxiety as she fumbles in the dark for the fuse box, thinking that all the talk of murder from the game has set her nerves on edge. She thinks she hears a whisper in the darkness next to her and turns to see the figure of a man standing in the corner. She calls out, asking who is there, her fingers shaking and accidentally blowing out her candle. Now unable to see at all, she fumbles with the fuse box and pushes switches up until the lights come on again. Only then does she see that the “man” is actually a stack of boxes with a sheet thrown over them.