The world before him was blurry and shrouded in white. He squinted his eyes because the light hurt them. A large, dark figure moved into his field of vision.

"I see that you are finally awake," it said.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"That is not important," it said.

His head hurt and he felt weak. Slowly the world came into focus along with his mind. Recalling the events that led him here, Dr. Culver became all too aware of his current, precarious position. He found himself tied to a chair in a room he did not recognize and looming over him was Professor Qara.

"I thought you killed me," Dr. Culver croaked.

"No, my good doctor. You are of no value to me dead. I have other plans for you," Professor Qara said with a smile.

"This is kidnapping, you know?"

"This is all of your own making, Dr. Culver. It really would have been easier for me to pick up a stray off the street, some homeless person that no one would've missed for this experiment. It would have aroused a lot less suspicion, that is for sure. Unfortunately, your... arrogance demanded that I remove you from your position. There is information I need from Rachel, and with you in the way, demanding that every question I have for her go through you first, it would have been very difficult if not impossible to extract that information from her. And since I already had to remove you there wasn't much sense in finding a second person for this experiment, was there? Killing two birds with one stone, the saying goes, yes?"

"What experiment? What are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing. I am going to do nothing to you. In fact, all I want is for you to watch this." Professor Qara held up a videotape for Dr. Culver to see.

Dr. Culver eyed the tape and the professor suspiciously. "You've got nothing on me," he said, figuring the professor was trying to blackmail him.

"Amazing," Professor Qara said and then laughed. "Absolutely amazing. You have no idea what this tape is, do you? I am guessing that you think this tape contains footage of some uncovered scandal that I caught you in, yes?"

Dr. Culver squirmed in his chair. He didn't like being made fun of.

"You are a stubborn man, doctor, so unwilling to accept the obvious. No, this tape isn't what you think it is. This is one of the copies that Rachel made of Samara's tape. It is known as the Cursed Video. As Rachel so aptly put: you watch it, you die."

"You're joking, right?" Dr. Culver couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You know, doctor, I figured you would be a little more accepting of the supernatural after our last encounter." The way Professor Qara said encounter, Dr. Culver knew exactly what the professor was referring to: the handshake at the end of their meeting, the one that had almost killed Dr. Culver.

"Where did you find the videotape?" Dr. Culver asked, deciding it was best to play along with the professor's delusions.

"Exactly where Rachel said it would be: Marvin's Videorama. It was just sitting there on the shelf after all this time. I of course haven't watched it, but I know that it is the tape. I can feel it."

"And all you want me to do is watch it?"

"You really don't know what you're getting into, do you? Tell me, doctor, in all the sessions you had with Rachel, you never once ran across anything strange and unusual that you couldn't explain away with reason and logic?"

The little girl's voice on the micro-cassette recorder instantly jumped to Dr. Culver's mind.

"No," he responded. He didn't want to give Professor Qara the satisfaction of knowing that there had actually been something.

"You are lying. I can see it on your face. Now, tell me the truth." Professor Qara removed his gloves.

"There was one incident," Dr. Culver began, reluctantly. "A slight anomaly on one of the audio tapes I made during a session. I thought I heard a little girl's voice."

"Really," Professor Qara said, looking very interested. "What did you do with it?"

"I had a friend listen to it, to verify what I had heard."

"No, that isn't what I meant. What I meant was: do you still have the tape?"

"Yes, it's still in the micro-cassette recorder at my house."

"And how did you feel when you heard her voice?"

"I didn't feel any way. Like I said, it was nothing."

"You are lying again, but it doesn't matter. I can see that it terrified you. Just imagine, doctor, witnessing so much more than just the voice. Imagine coming to face to face with fear, itself. That is what I am asking of you."

"Let's just get on with it," Dr. Culver said, defiantly.

Professor Qara put the videotape in the VCR and then stood directly behind the television, which was in the center of the room. Now he and the TV screen faced Dr. Culver. The sound of static filled the room as the tape started. Professor Qara watched the images from the television reflecting off of Dr. Culver's glasses. Soon, he thought to himself, soon we will see if our long journey has been in vain, or if everything we dreamed possible can become a reality.