Five Things That Never Happened To Samara Morgan (And Yamamura Sadako)
i. the world is spinning
When Beth goes to bed Thursday night, she feels feverish and clammy. She has no appetite, and she hasn't been able to concentrate for more than two or three minutes at a time. She hasn't been to class since last Friday, and can't quite bring herself to care. Not after Noah...
No, she tells herself, don't think about that. She pops a sleeping pill and tells herself not to think about anything.
If she dreams, she doesn't remember it. She tells herself that, too.
Beth opens her eyes in the middle of the night to see a woman standing over her. It's dark, so she can't see the woman's face, but the apartment smells weird.
It takes her a couple seconds to realize why the apartment smells weird: it's Noah's. The chemicals are open, have been for almost a week now, and it still smells of stale water. Almost mildewy, but not quite.
"What'm I doing here?" she mumbles. Her eyes flutter
half-closed. She wants to keep them open, really she
does, but she's so
"You're resting," the woman says, and her voice is unfamiliar. It sounds a little throaty, like something from an old movie. And there's a very faint trace of an accent, but only if you know what to listen for. Beth does because her ex-roommate, the one who'd been born in Okinawa, sounded like that. "That's what you're supposed to do. You've suffered a terrible shock."
"Noah," Beth says sleepily. She tries to keep her eyes open. Every time she's closed her eyes since, she's seen his face. "Noah, he..."
"You just hush about him," the woman says, crouching down next to the sofa. "Get some more rest, honey. Go back to sleep."
"I should get up. I should -- there's things I have to do."
"Tell me what they are," the woman says. "I'll do them."
Beth smiles at that. Whoever this woman is, she's very nice. "You can't go to my classes for me," she murmurs, trying to sit up. The woman's hand is on her chest, though, holding her down. Not that it's hard. This sofa is really comfortable.
"I don't know," the woman says, leaning forward a little, enough for Beth to see through the curtain of hair that had been covering her face.
Beth swallows. Hard.
The woman could be her double, except for the eyes. They're the wrong color.
"You're different," the woman says, staring at her. That's different, too. Beth has never been much for staring people down. "Something in you is different." She smiles, suddenly, and Beth shivers. "I like it."
"I need to..."
"Ssssh," the woman says, pulling the blanket up over Beth's shoulders. "You get some sleep. For the both of us."
Beth wakes up Friday morning feeling almost okay again. She's still exhausted, but she's a little hungry -- which, for her, after this last week, means she's starving -- and she feels up to going to classes, or at least trying to.
Also, she needs a shower. She's starting to smell sort of gamey.
She throws the covers back and slides out of bed, yawning and scratching the back of her neck. She's still a little cold, and she'd really like to go back to bed, but there are things she has to do.
Today's going to be a big day. She'll sleep later.
ii. when it stops
Sister Anna is the one doing rounds that morning, so she's the one who finds Evelyn in bed.
She takes one look at the woman and screams so loud Mother Superior hears her in her office. Mother Superior takes one look at Evelyn and calls for an ambulance.
"It's not uncommon," one of the doctors tells her, solemn and unconcerned in his white coat. "Sometimes it's -- it's just not the right time. Oftentimes, our bodies know this when we don't, and it...takes care of it for us."
Evelyn can tell he wants to make some remark about her not having a husband, but holds himself back. It wouldn't be professional, after all. She figures he'll tell the other doctors over brandy and cigars later, laughing. She doesn't mind.
He reaches out and pats her shoulder in what she guesses is supposed to be a reassuring manner. "You'll have other children, Miss Masters. You're still a young woman. There'll be other chances."
Evelyn smiles and says all the right things, and cries when she's supposed to, and acts like a woman who's suffering from depression after a miscarriage.
By now, Sister Anna or one of the other nuns has undoubtedly found the window cleaner in her room, the one she snuck from the supply closet. They can think her a baby murderer, if they want; it was cheaper than an abortion, and this way people can look at her and murmur "God's will", if that's what they want, too.
The thing is dead. That's what's important.
iii. it's just beginning
"It's all right, Sadako," Ikuma-san says, leading her outside. "It's not far, I promise. Just a short walk."
"This is strange," Sadako says, frowning. If her mother wants her, all she has to do is call. It's not like Sadako won't hear her. "I think I should go back..."
"I insist," Ikuma-san says, and his grip on her arm tightens.
Sadako makes a little noise in the back of her throat, but doesn't yell. "Ikuma-san, you..."
"Shut up, you little bitch," Ikuma-san hisses, twisting her arm in his hand. Sadako cries out; she can't help it. There'll be a bruise there tomorrow, she can already tell. "You've been making me see things, making me do things..."
"No I haven't!" Sadako yells back, forgetting herself, forgetting that she's not supposed to raise her voice to adults. "I didn't do anything wrong!" She hasn't. She's been so good, she hasn't told anyone but her mother and Ikuma-san about what she can do, and now she's being punished for it, and that's just dumb.
"Yes you have," Ikuma-san says, calm again. That's even scarier than watching him get mad. "But that's all right, Sadako. I know it's not your fault. Some girls..." He stops talking for a second, then says, "Some girls are born bad. But it's all right. We'll make sure you can't hurt anyone else again."
Sadako sees the well in the distance, growing closer the longer they walk, and starts trying to twist away. Mommy, she calls in her head, mommy please hurry, he's going to do something bad--
"Oh, no you don't," Ikuma-san says, and hits her in the head. Sadako cries out and falls to her knees, but he doesn't stop walking. He drags her instead, picking up speed.
And then they're at the well, and Ikuma-san lets her go long enough to get the cover off, and Sadako knows in her heart she's going to die. He'll dump her down this dark, dirty well and leave her to die, and he won't even tell her why.
"I'm sorry," Ikuma-san says, and that's the worst thing of all, because Sadako knows he means it. He's very sorry about this, but he has to do it. He has to.
Sadako covers her head and squeezes her eyes closed. She doesn't want to see.
Seconds pass. Nothing happens. Sadako doesn't open her eyes.
Then there's a short scream and a loud thocking sound, and then -- nothing.
"Sadako," a familiar voice says.
Sadako looks up, breathing hard. She's still curled into a little ball. Her stomach hurts, and so does her head.
The hatchet in her mother's hand is bloody, but her face is calm. "Sadako," Shizuko says, dropping it on the ground. She falls to her knees and pulls her child to her, hugging her tight. "Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"
"No," Sadako says, shaking her head. She hugs her mother back. "He wanted to, but..." She doesn't say anything else, just hugs her mother more tightly.
"What about Ikuma-san?" Sadako asks after a minute, pulling back and looking at her mother. They're going to be in so much trouble. You're not supposed to hurt people, even if they try to hurt you first.
"I'll take care of him," her mother says, kissing the top of her head. "Don't worry, Sadako. Go inside."
So she does. Sadako goes inside their small house and pours herself a glass of water. She can hear her mother's voice in her head, the same way she always has, whispering to her.
He was never here, Sadako, do you understand? Ikuma-san was supposed to come by today but he didn't. He didn't call, and we drove past his house to see if something was wrong, but his car was gone. We haven't seen him since last week.
There are other thoughts in her mother's mind -- something about moving, something about hateful little men who tried to take her child away -- but they are small and sharp, gliding through their minds like tiny silver fish. If she really wanted to, Sadako could see what her mother is thinking, but she doesn't. She would never hurt her mother that way, not ever. She loves her mother.
We are going to do great things, Sadako, her mother says, and the thought is strong and sure, and Sadako never questions it, not once.
They leave in the winter. No one questions whether or not Professor Heihachiro left Shizuko and her pale, strange daughter behind, and that's fine with them.
"We're going to the sea," Shizuko announces. And when she's on the ferry, bundled up in her new coat, watching the sunlight on the water, Sadako can't help but feel that she's come home.
iv. we laugh and we cry
Everyone misses Max, of course, but it's not a big deal. Even with what happened to the Harper kid last week, it's not a big deal. The coroner ruled both deaths heart attacks, and if their faces were messed up, well, so what? Turns out your mom was right; sometimes, your face really does get stuck that way.
"It's a rictus," Rachel says, waving the idea off when Jenny brings it to her. "Muscles get frozen sometimes. It's not a big deal. It's weird, but it's not a big deal."
The bigger deal, according to Rachel, is the doctor who committed suicide at the hospital. Shot a bubble of air into her bloodstream and keeled over dead in the ICU. Her husband insists she wasn't suicidal, but that just means he didn't know her as well as he thought she did. That leads off the front page, not Max's death; that gets half a column near the bottom of the page, with no mention of anything weird about it.
Rachel's there most days. She's a good editor, not a bad boss, but she's a great mom. She's so devoted to her son. She moved there after his father died, after all; bad memories and such, and who can blame her? Who would want to keep their child around all that?
Besides, everyone agrees, Astoria is a good town -- a quiet place, a good place to raise a son. A good place to raise kids, period. And if the kid's a little clingy since his dad died and that bout with hypothermia, well, that's to be expected. He's quiet, and he sticks to his mom's side, and you've never seen a more polite boy.
Some kids at that age -- especially city kids, like Aiden -- would be calling their moms by their first names, but not Aiden. With him it's "Mommy" or nothing. That could be a problem in a few years, but hell, he'll grow out of it.
Right?
v. and then we all die
A couple months in, the authorities will ask who the hell uploaded it onto BitTorrent and YouSendIt, but by then it'll be too late.
A copy is a copy, after all. It doesn't really matter if it's another tape or a DVD, an mpeg or a Quicktime file. The point is getting it seen.
There are websites for it, devoted to it. You can DL it there, or send the link to a friend. You can stream it, if you want, but that's understandably not a popular option. High-quality versions take a while on dial-up, but it's worth it. People are making copies with their camera phones and sending them to each other.
The latest thing is Tape Parties: groups of kids (and, just lately, adults) getting together to watch the tape. Sometimes they're on drugs, sometimes they aren't. There are websites for that, too, but they're password-protected.
The media's quick to dismiss it as a fad, especially when no one will talk about it on-camera without their faces and voices being disguised. No one's talking. No one's admitting anything. It's a wall of silence, like with that Jisatsu Club back in Japan a couple of years ago.
Medical experts can't explain it, not even when the bodies start coming in. They can explain the actual deaths as heart failure, but not the faces and the skin discoloration. They'd like to label the deaths suicides, but they can't, because there's no evidence pointing to that.
There've been reports, just recently, of gangs getting into it. Kidnap someone you want dead, make them watch it, keep them hostage for seven days, and let them go an hour before the deadline. It's not technically murder, and no state's been able to successfully prosecute anyone for murder by videocassette.
Late-night comedians make jokes about it. The new thing is tattooing a burn in the shape of a hand on your forearm. Kids are getting rings on their bodies, like a badge of honor or something. Something like a quarter of a million people have it as an LJ interest, and that's not even counting the communities -- I_saw_it, seven_days, seven_days_theory, and the rest. It's a dare, a game, the next new thing.
One in five people has seen it. One in seven has died from it. One in three knows someone who has died from it.
Have you seen it yet?