Fade to black

There is nothing inherent in a formal cinematic device, such as a fade to black, that it must mean any particular thing - it as easily signifies a flashback as a flashforward. Likewise there is nothing inherent in a formal rhetorical device that it must mean something specific - what these things mean are determined in the interstitial space between those contexts brought by the text being read and by the reader. The narrative and readerly context determines the significance of any connection being made and this is always a question of readerly pragmatics.