If Jennifer and Thomas’s storyline is about emotion, then Chad and Theo’s is pure fear.

December 18th plunges them into a nightmarish situation: trapped in the DiMera cellar, where you don’t know when someone will find you, or even if you’ll survive until you’re found.

Days’ poignant approach doesn’t require excessive violence.

They simply show the thick air, the dim light, the gasping breaths, and the chilling reality that they could die there, unnoticed.

Chad is a man who has experienced enough loss, so when trapped, the quickest thing to kill him isn’t hunger or cold, but the image of his child. He thinks of Thomas. He thinks of Charlotte. He thinks of Thomas arguing with his father, being afraid of his father, and now possibly never hearing his father apologize or say “I love you” again. These thoughts begin to break Chad.

Theo, however, was in a different kind of panic: he was worried about Chad, worried about himself, and thinking about Abe outside, probably going crazy because he couldn’t find his son. Theo’s situation added another layer to the story: not only was the DiMera family affected, but people like Abe were also drawn into the vortex.