Chapter 4

There was something odd about Ameera's eyes: Not only were they the same color, saturation and hue as Jill's but they didn't appear to be reflecting the fire opposite her as she lay snuggled up under a blanket on the sofa with a book in her hand.

"What are you reading?" I quietly asked Ameera while Mr. Henry and Samara discussed the newly discovered contents of the ancient book over the grand piano and before Ameera could answer, another rumble of thunder rolled off over the sea, it's lightning shrouded behind the thick drawn curtains. Ameera had barely spoken to me since I'd rescued her from the dungeon that she was held captive and it was almost certainly because she was terrified of the monster she saw within me. Not uttering a word, she instead held up the cover of the book that read "The Woman In White" before engrossing her freckled face away from me and back into the words of the novel.

Feeling somewhat awkward and out of place like I often did at high school, I walked casually past the grand piano unnoticed and reached the huge bay window; cautiously pulling the curtain back a foot or so, I stared out at the rough storm surging sea and tried to remember the feeling of the sun's warmth on my skin before my thoughts drifted into darkness:

I'm a murderer. I've killed people, scores of people. They were bad people I told myself, but they were people, they were children, helpless infants, they were life, and I took it from them. And how many more am I going to kill?

My twisted thoughts were wrenched away by a sight out on the ocean that I couldn't explain or comprehend:

There was a small fishing trawler miles away but I could see it as though it was right in front of me. It bobbed sickly among the white-capped waves and the three men on board were struggling to keep the vessel from tipping. But it was the blinding-white tree that grew from the clouds above them that memorized me; fork lightning was exquisitely trekking its way towards the ocean, with the fishing boat in its sights. Before the lightning worked its way to the water, it was then I noticed something even more perplexing: A web of lightning had formed around the base of the boat like roots on a tree; suddenly the thousand small forks stemmed together into a single column consuming the boat and its occupants before meeting the lightning above in a perfect dance. Then there was the deafening eruption of the shock wave as the light faded away into thin air. I found myself feeling sorry for these men for I knew I could save them.

"You're not the monster you think you are Jacob..." Samara said, her voice inside my mind sounding surreal. "You're no-one's savior but your own."

"But I could save them...I'm letting them die," I hesitantly replied back in my thoughts, unsure of whether or not Samara was going to hear me.

"No Jacob, you cannot save them. Your physical anomaly does not exist in their world," Samara reasoned softly, and I felt a calmness in her tone although the unraveling scene still struggled on, now at a natural time scale: One of the fishermen had gotten himself tangled in rope and it was pulling hard on his neck; he was desperately grasping at it with both his hands. The other two fishermen tried in vain to untie the rope until one of the men decided to retrieve a knife from a nearby box and cut the rope from the bound fisherman. The boat had drifted sideways and just as the bound man was about to be cut free, the boat was hit by a wave. As I felt what little blood I had in my veins electrify, time appeared to slow down again and I saw, heard, and smelt the blood ooze out from the bound fisherman's neck as the knife slashed his throat. The three men were knocked off their feet and the boat was starting to capsize. The red orbs appeared as they had done when I murdered all those terrorists only a week ago. The pain of a thousand stabbing knives from under my skin began their vengeful trek from within. The sensation that two of my teeth were being ripped out erupted from my top jaw.

I screamed out in pain and then I felt a squeeze on the back of my neck along with Samara's voice:

"Well you see, and you know me Jake, so you know that this is going to probably sound a bit odd..."

This sentence sounded familiar and it brought a sense of order to the chaos my body was under and luckily it continued:

"I like to think that when I look out at the stars, I'm actually seeing the universal part, like the middle of the..."

These words were from Jill, from the date we had at the Carnival when we were stuck on top of the Ferris wheel. The memory suddenly consumed my thoughts and blocked out every single sense I had. I felt as though I was dreaming the memory, but in a state of awareness. The memory continued, and this time Samara's voice faded into Jill's as her beautiful face came into my perception.

"Okay, let me start over. Imagine that a lot of the stars that we see have planets orbiting them and let's just say a lot of these planets have other beings like us on them and when they look out into their night sky, they see what we see, a beautiful array of starts and galaxies maybe more or less depending on their genetics I suppose... And I guess that would be the one thing we all would have in common with the universe, is that our view of the stars are the same, no matter what planet you live on... And what if those extra terrestrials, or whatever you would call them, are people that have previously lived on this Earth that have since passed away? Anyway that's what I see when I look up at the night sky."

The city in the background all of a sudden dissipated into darkness.

"Jill! Please don't go!" I begged, but Jill remained seated opposite me, completely inanimate, her eyes starred back at me blankly as though her soul had left her body.

The Ferris wheel from around us shattered silently and fell into the surrounding blackness.

"Jill! Please!" I cried out and as I reached for her, she too elapsed away into nothingness.

When I came back to reality, I found myself on my knees in front of the window. The boat was gone but Samara's reassuring hand was still caressing the back of my neck.

"It's okay Jacob," Samara whispered sympathetically.

"We need to get back to Atlanta," I said coaxingly. "Jill's out there, I know she is."

"Jacob," Mr. Henry's voice wavered severely. "You're not ready..."

"No Tom, Jacob is right, we have to go..." Samara said assuredly. "We'll start preparation tomorrow."