If ch. 1 is all about dread and paranoia, ch. 2 is about pure horror and regret. There are moments like the first chapter with a sudden pointed question that destabilises us; some aspects of the plot purposefully misdirect us and throw our sense of reality for a loop. But it doesn't finish off with a sort of inevitability, anxiety; it stops and stops and stops — each new ending in the story just ramping the horror up and asking more and more supernatural questions about the world as a whole. In this story it didn't feel so much like "are we crazy?" as "how true are these outrageous things in every other story?" Nearly the entire cast is dead, and the bleakness of the story and its resigned laughter play better with the world than the last story's ending, I think, which just asked some questions that happened after the events of the story, offscreen...

Between that and the slice of life having a nicer balance (though still somewhat outstaying its welcome...) it executes more strongly than the first chapter, though the first chapter had to introduce these characters; this chapter can just hit the ground running, after all...

I slept with the lights on last night.