Samara Morgan felt the heat in her fingertips, it didn't burn. It tickled as she ran her fingers over the wall of the loft. She sighed. The burning in her hands
was just one thing she was able to do. She could create images on things with her mind as well as her hands, like the rolls of film that her mother had
bought, which, when developed, were the pictures that had been taken, but they were superimposed with confusing x-ray like images of unsettling yet
nonsensical things. If she was frightened, her mind could project that fear to another person through their dreams, making them see the most horrible
things imaginable.
"Mommy and Daddy hate me, why else would they keep me up here?" she thought to herself as she dragged her fingers across the wall, the smell of
burning wood filled the barn.
An hour later, she stood back, pulling her long dark hair over her shoulder to see the finished result of her work. The silhouette of a tree covered the
wall.
She smiled to herself, one thing was going well. Just as she was getting into bed, she heard the telltale squeak of the ladder. She froze. Knowing what
was about to happen, she jumped under the covers and pretended to be asleep.
"He might go away tonight if he thinks I'm sleeping." she thought to herself as the squeaking got louder.
His face appeared over the edge of the loft.
"Hello Samara." Richard Morgan stood up, walking towards his daughter, who was still "asleep".
"Wake up little one, time to play." He shook her roughly by the shoulder.
"Daddy, I don't want to play, it hurts me, hurts me…I don't want you to do that anymore." she looked up at her father, expecting him to strike her, like the other occasions on which she had protested, but he just stared. She could see the rage in his eyes, he had been denied something he wanted.
"You little bitch, you will do what I tell you, when I tell you, I am your father, you damn well better listen to me!" he whispered dangerously.
"You shouldn't talk like that daddy, it's a bad way to talk." whispered Samara her throat tightening with fear. All the while, her fingers were curling and
uncurling unconsciously at her sides, heat emanating from them like little embers. Richard let out a roar of anger. He grabbed at the young girl, ripping her
sleeve. She walked toward him, and he backed away, giving her a false sense of security. She had backed him up to the ladder when he grabbed her arm
and dragged her back into the loft.
"I will not be disobeyed young lady!" he was yelling now, forgetting that the window to his wife's room was open.
"Let go of me!" shrieked Samara, and with that, she grabbed his arm, her fingers searing the flesh. Richard howled in pain and quickly escaped down the
ladder and out of the barn door.
"Well, good, now I can get some sleep!" she whispered to herself, her hands trembling slightly as she climbed into bed. Little did she know, this was a
small triumph in a series of disasters that were to come.
The next day, at the breakfast table, it was as though nothing had happened. Anna Morgan, Samara's mother, was completely oblivious to what had gone on last night. Richard was the same as always to Samara, cold, unsmiling. Now, she felt no need to smile at him like she usually tried to. There was a dark burn on Richard's arm in the shape of a small hand. He took his wife aside and spoke in a hushed voice.
"Anna, that child is troubled, she needs therapy. We should bring her to Eola. You know she can't stay here. She'll hurt herself, or us." he whispered, making up his lie as he went along.
"But Richard, Samara is a perfectly healthy little girl! The only reason she is like she is, is because you force her to stay out in that horrible drafty barn at
night!" retorted Anna, annoyed.
"Anna, I don't care what you say, I am the man of this house and I say that the child goes to Eola, they can treat her there."
"Richard..." Anna trailed off, knowing she was fighting a losing battle. She sighed.
"I'll start packing her things, we can take her in this afternoon, if it will make you happy!" Samara heard every word that was said, but she didn't care anymore.
"No one loves me." she thought sadly to herself. Her father abused her, her mother did love her, but she was too skittish, she obeyed everything that
Richard told her, too afraid to say otherwise.
At 4:00 the small family stood at the doors to Eola County Psychiatric Hospital.
"Samara remember, if you ever feel homesick, ask the nice nurses and I'm sure they'll let you call us." Anna said to her daughter, tears gathering in the
corners of her eyes. Richard simply looked passive, his face expressionless. Samara's lip trembled, although these people were not the best parents, she
still had grown up with them.
Later, in one of the stark white treatment rooms, she lay on a table, wearing a hospital gown. The doctors asked her questions, which made her nervous.
"Samara, does your Daddy hurt you?" Samara's body stiffened.
"Should I lie or should I tell them?" she thought to herself. "No." she whispered weakly. "He doesn't hurt me."
"Honey, then where did these bruises come from?" asked one of the kinder nurses.
"I fell." she lied.
"How did you fall?" asked a doctor.
"Off my ladder, off the ladder to my room." this was a lie, she had never fallen off of that ladder.
"Where was this ladder, Samara? Where is your room?"
Samara knew instantly that what she had just told the doctors was the wrong thing to say. "It's in the barn. With the horses. The horses keep me up at
night." she replied.
"Why is your room in the barn?" The doctor's brow furrowed with concern.
"Daddy wants me to stay in the barn, he says I cause trouble. He doesn't want me to break anything. He says I make Mommy sick." she answered nervously to the doctor.
"Well, you get to sleep in a nice warm bed while you're here!" said a nurse cheerfully .
As she was led to her room, she reviewed what she had heard the doctors saying about her, because they thought that she was out of ear shot.
"That child is definitely abused." whispered one doctor to another. "She has bruises all over her body, as well as evidence of repeated sexual abuse."
whispered another. "But why would they send her in if we could see that she had been abused?" Said a nurse, with concern. One doctor shook his head,
"Her father's reasoning was that she was troubled and prone to violence. We haven't seen any evidence of this yet, she just appears to be a
downtrodden, abused little girl. Only time will tell. She will be sent to the psychiatric analysis room tomorrow morning, and we'll have the parents looked
into for abuse."
Samara didn't know what many of the things that the doctors said meant, but she knew that they knew that her father abused her. That night,
Samara lay in her new bed, wondering if she would met any other children her age. Tears trickled down her cheeks,
"Why does God hate me so much?" she whispered to herself. Without much thought, she got up, and tried to open her bedroom door. It was locked.
She felt her fingers tingle with heat as she melted the lock. She wandered the hall until she found a hallway with the words "Children's Psychiatric Ward"
above it, she had to melt the lock to get in, but she was happy to maybe have found a friend somewhere in this hallway. She looked in each room,
examining its occupants. It the first room, there was a girl who looked to be about 16 or so, she had thrown the covers off of the bed, she shivered in the
cold night air. Samara carefully pulled the covers back over the girl. She walked down the hall, looking into each room. Most were empty or the occupants
were sleeping peacefully, so she didn't go in. In one room however, there was a boy, who looked to be about Samara's age, who was awake, sitting up
on the edge of his bed, rocking back and forth.
"Hello." whispered Samara quietly. The boy looked up, his eyes were so light, they almost looked white.
"Your name is Samara, you burn things. Your daddy hurts you, so you burn things." he whispered hoarsely.
"I-how did you know that?" she asked the boy, backing away slightly.
"They think I'm crazy, but I'm not.I see things. I know people before I meet them. And I know you're special, you're supposed to do something, it will
change the world, I don't know if it's for better or worse, but I know you will."
Samara took this information in a stunned silence. She ran back to her room as quickly as she could, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Little did
she know, the boy was all too right about the horrors to come.