Disclaimer-I don't own a thing!  Not Rachel, Aiden, or anything else.  They belong to DreamWorks Pictures.  I did borrow a few things from the movie, but I put most of them in *stars.* So you know!  Anything else is mine….you'll know.

A/N-You know, I heard that they're coming out with a "The Ring 2."  I don't think it'll be as good as "The Ring" was, but I'll probably see it anyway....okay than, now the next chapter.

Chapter 17-Flashbacks and Realization

Rachel opened her eyes; she was standing on the road.  Their plan must not have worked. 

She glanced around.  "Where the hell is the car?" she wondered aloud.  To her amazement, her voice echoed all around her.  "It *did* work!" she cried, relieved.  "Aiden?" she called. 

"Are you there?!" 

Within a matter of seconds, her son appeared in front of her.  "Mom?  Why are we outside?" he asked, noticing the echoing as well.

"We're in a dream.  I can't believe it worked!"  Rachel glanced around.  "But, how do we get to the hospital?"

Aiden shook his head.  "I have no idea."

Rachel groaned inwardly.  "Great, maybe this was pointless...."  She looked to her left and saw a dark figure slowly approaching….she didn't think that it was Samara, because the figure was not limping whatsoever, and it looked like....a man. 

As the man approached, Rachel slowly backed away.  She had no idea if it was one of Samara's tricks, and didn't want to be caught.  "Rachel...." came the resounding echo of a familiar voice.

"Eric?" asked Rachel.

"Rachel, it's me."  The man grew nearer, and Rachel saw that it was indeed Eric, looking just as he had when she first met him.  "Rachel, I know how to help you."

"You know how to get us to the hospital?" she asked, amazed and overjoyed to see him.

"Yes," he replied.  "All you have to do is close your eyes, and picture the hospital *very* clearly."  He paused as both Rachel and Aiden followed his instructions.  "Okay, are you picturing it?"

Rachel and Aiden nodded.  "Okay," he said, closing his eyes as well.

Rachel stared into the darkness, waiting for Eric's next instructions.  "Okay....what next?" she asked.  When she got no response, she snapped her eyes open.  "Wow," she gasped; she and Aiden were standing in the mental institution, right inside in front of the entrance. 

The emptiness it held was eerie, and a cool breeze blew past every few seconds, making the hair on Rachel's arm rise.  "Eric, what do we do now?" she asked.  Silence was the only response she received.  "Eric?  Aiden, is Eric here?"

"I don't think so," he replied, looking around the room they were in.

"Eric!" she said loudly.  "We could really use your help right now!"

Suddenly, Eric appeared beside her, coming out of thin air.  Rachel was slightly taken aback, but shook off any other emotions or wants she had, except to find a way to destroy Samara.

"Rachel," he said softly.  "I don't think that there's anything I can do....or that you can do, for that matter.  Samara is....merely a terrible memory, held inside a small girl's body, and collected into a videotape.  She cannot be destroyed."  He said the last sentence firmly and clearly, so that Rachel would understand.

"That's not true, Eric," protested Rachel.  "Anything can be beaten, if we find the right weapons, and our weapon is this hospital; the place where all of Samara's misaries and horrible happenings occurred.  What greater weapon is there?"

Eric raised his eyebrow; he understood what Rachel meant, but she was simply too stubborn to accept that memories cannot be destroyed unless they are forgotten.  Upon realizing this, Eric's eyes snapped open.  "Rachel!" he cried.  "I know how to destroy Samara!" 

"How?" asked Rachel, her eyes lighting up.

Eric opened his mouth to reply, but began coughing uncontrollably.  He keeled over, gripping his throat.  He tried to cough out how to destroy Samara, but all that came out was a strangled groan.

Rachel could do nothing more that stare helplessly at the man on the floor, coughing and gagging in pain. 

Eric reached into his mouth, and began to slowly pull out a string.  When Rachel saw the string, a flashback entered her mind:  *Talking to her sister on the phone, trying to persuade her to take Aiden in for a day or so.  Suddenly, she begins to cough, slamming the phone on the counter.  She kneels down on the ground, and begins pulling a very thin rope from her throat.  Coughing, she finally reaches the end of the cord, revealing a small, white, plastic circle.  She reaches for the phone, and puts it to her ear; water comes out of the phone, dripping down….*

The flashback ended, and Rachel realized that she was short of breath, as if she had been coughing not too long ago, and her throat was *very* sore.  Had it all been a memory?  It seemed so real….Rachel felt as though she had just re-lived it….

Suddenly, Eric's coughing stopped, and his body went limp.  Rachel snapped out of her thoughts and looked down to see Eric lying on the floor, still clutching his throat.  The string was still hanging from his mouth.

Rachel's heart raced.  Samara had somehow gotten Eric to die once again….in her dream. 'How?' she thought.  'Can she kill me, too?'  Rachel didn't stop to think about it.  "Aiden, we have to figure out what Eric was trying to tell-Aiden?"  Rachel looked around; her son was no where to be seen.  "Aiden!" she yelled.

She wanted to look for him, but she had no idea of where to go.  "Aiden," she whispered.  "Where would you go?"  Rachel's eyes went wide.  "Of course," she hissed.  "Samara's old room….but where is that?" 

Rachel looked at the desk, where someone had obviously been working before the hospital shut down.  "Maybe if I imagine someone there, they can help me," she said to no one. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, imagining an elderly woman at the desk, a stack of papers all around her, patiently waiting for someone who needed her assistance. 

As soon as Rachel opened her eyes, a woman was sitting at the desk, and the desk looked brand new, not dusty and aged as it had before.  She walked up to the woman, who smiled at her.  "Yes?" she asked kindly.

"I need to know where to find Samara Morgan's room, please."

The woman nodded, looking through some files.  "Here it is: Samara Morgan, room 666." 

Rachel raised her eyebrows at Samara's room number, but shook it off.  "And, could you tell me why she's here?"

"Well, it says here that her mother and father requested that she come here because she doesn't sleep."

Rachel rolled her eyes.  "And….?"

"And….the mother feels that her daughter is, umm, giving her disturbing nightmares….unlike anything any human should ever hope to see in their lifetime."

"I see.  Was she more specific?" asked Rachel, wishing that the woman would hurry up; she wanted to find her son, but she also wanted as much information as possible.

 "Well, some examples were blood streaking down walls, horses dying, and a person falling off of a horse during a horse show, bruises appearing from no where, covering their entire body….which is something that actually happened during one of her horse shows when her daughter was young."

Rachel remembered the article about that occurrence at the horse show from her research about Anna Morgan a few months ago. 

"Well, is that all you need to know?" asked the woman, kindly. 

"Yes and thank you."  Rachel rushed down the halls, looking for room 666. 

After about three minutes of searching, Rachel finally found room 664, 665, and finally 666.  The door was closed. 

Rachel took a deep breath and threw the door open, which opened inwardly, and looked into the room; it was empty.  "Oh, no…." Rachel moaned.  "Now where do I look?" she asked herself, leaning against the door frame. 

Finally, an idea struck her: maybe he's in the room where Samara was questioned by those doctors.  Rachel stood upright, and reached for the door handle.

There was a bright flash, and the wall seemed to begin to "play" the moment when she and Noah first met.

"Just two more years of college," a nineteen-year-old Rachel reminded herself as she began looking up information on the subject her professor had given her. 

She sighed.  'Who gives a damn about "sleeping disorders?"' she thought, angrily; she had been looking up information on that subject for over an hour, and had still not come up with anything. 

"Need some help?"

"No, thank you," snapped Rachel.  "I'm fully capable of getting my own information."  She looked up at the person who had asked her, and was looking into the green eyes of a handsome man about her age.  She closed her mouth, only to open it again.  "I'm sorry, I'm just really flustered.  Yes, I'd love your help."

The man smiled and sat down beside her.  "I'm Noah Clay."

"Rachel Keller."

*Zoom Ahead a Month....*

"Rachel," began Noah.

"Yes?" she replied, smiling at her boyfriend of one month.

"I-I think I love you."

"I love you, too," she admitted.

They smiled at each other as they entered Noah's room....

*The Next Day....*

"Something's wrong, but I don't know what," Rachel told her roommate, Patricia. 

"What is it?" Patricia asked.  "And where were you last night?"

"I was....with Noah," confessed Rachel.

"Did you guys, you know, do anything?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Like....what?" asked Rachel, playfully.

"You did, didn't you?!"

"Yeah," admitted Rachel.  "And that's what doesn't feel right, so I took a pregnancy test."

"You don't think that you're pregnant, do you?"
Rachel didn't respond; she went into the bathroom to check on the tester.  To her horror, it was blue.  "Oh....my God," she breathed, fainting on the floor....

*A Few Hours Later....*

"Noah, I'm....pregnant."

"What?!  After one time?  How?" asked Noah, gripping Rachel's hand tightly. 

Rachel shook her head.  "I don't know."

"Are you going to get rid of it?" Noah asked.

Rachel paused, thinking about it.  "No," she said.  "I want to keep it."

"Rach, you know I won't be a good father.  Just look at what mine was!  I can't do it!  You have to get rid of it!"

Rachel stood up angrily.  "No!  And I can't believe you would expect me to do something like that!"

 "You know what, Rach?  You are such an obsessive bitch.  You really need to lighten up, you know?"

"Oh, so now I'm a bitch?  At least I'm not immature flake (*what did she call him? Help!*) who never finishes anything!"

"Whatever, Rach....have fun being a single parent."  Noah stood up and walked away, leaving Rachel to fall back onto her couch and sob....

The flashback faded away, leaving a distressed Rachel to stand and wonder where that memory came from.  She pushed away any curiosity of that, and reached for the knob once again.

Suddenly, the door handle began to shake.  Rachel's eyes narrowed as she reached even closer to the handle….the door began to shake, and Rachel backed slowly away, her arm still outstretched.

Without any warning, the door swung shut, slamming Rachel's hand in.  Rachel cried out in pain, wondering how she could feel this kind of agony without being awake.  She kicked the door open, releasing her hand.  It still hurt from smashing the car window in, and now it felt as though her wrist was broken. 

Attempting to ignore the pain, Rachel rushed over to the examining room.  How she found it, she never understood; it was as though something led her there, something she couldn't see, but she wasn't bothered by it, given that she had found the room. 

There was a sheet of glass next to the door, which was obviously supposed to be some sort of window, or observation glass.  Rachel peered inside, and saw her son standing in the middle of the room, looking at a small chair.

She opened the door and rushed inside, held her son close.  "Why did you leave?" she demanded, holding the sides of his face. 

Aiden did not answer; his eyes were locked upon the chair.  Rachel released her son's face.  Aiden continued to stare at the chair. 

Suddenly, the chair slowly began to lean back on the back two legs.  Rachel gasped, looking back from her son to the chair.

The chair was only standing on one leg, and it began to spin around and around.  Rachel shook her head; she was having another deja-vu to the video.  *A chair spinning around….going upside down….spinning, spinning….*

Rachel snapped back into reality, gaping as the chair flipped upside down, hanging in mid air, and continuing to spin. 

Rachel jumped slightly as the chair fell to the ground, shattering into a small pile of wood, and then, dissolving into a pile of dust.

Aiden stood still for a moment, and then turned around to face his mother.  Rachel screamed aloud at what she saw: Aiden's eyes were a solid black, and his lips were coated in dried blood. 

Aiden stared at his shrieking mother for a second, but then collapsed on the floor.  His body began jerking and twitching violently.  A foamy substance came spewing from his mouth.  Rachel struggled for breath as she realized that Aiden was having a seizure. 

She rushed over to her squirming son, pulling him into her lap, trying to calm him down.  "It's okay, honey," she cooed.  "It's okay…."  Tears spilled down her cheeks as she lied to her son; everything was *not* okay.  They were losing, and losing terribly.  Rachel let the tears slide down her face into her son's hair. 

Rachel heard a faint buzz of static, which disappeared.  "Rachel." 

Rachel sniffed, looking up at….Noah.  "Noah?" she stammered, a mixture of distress and happiness in her voice. 

"Rachel, I know why your son is having these….seizures," he said, no emotion in his voice. 

"Why?" she asked, not in the mood to converse.

"Samara is standing over your bodies at this second, and she's trying to wake Aiden up….and she almost did, but he fought it, which is why he began having a seizure."

Rachel nodded, looking down at her son.  "Noah, do you know how-" Noah was gone. 

She sighed; everyone who was able to help her was gone.  She felt so alone and vulnerable.

Suddenly, Aiden's eyes snapped open.  His eyes were back to their normal color, and his features were the same once again.  He looked up at his mother.  "Rachel?" he moaned.  "What happened?" 

"Samara tried to wake you up, but don't worry....I won't let her get you." 

"Rachel, she's trying to get into the dream." 

"What?" Rachel stammered. 

"She's getting in.  Your plan didn't work....she's getting closer...."  Aiden fell to the floor, his eyes rolling back in his head. 

Rachel knelt beside her son, grasping his shoulders and shaking them violently.  "Aiden?!  She won't get you!" she cried.  She heard a pounding at the door and jerked her head around.  The door slowly creaked open, and a small figure stepped into the room, wet footsteps coming closer....and closer....

To Be Continued....

A/N-I think that the next chapter will be the last chapter or it may take two more chapters.  Either way, I'm almost done, and I know *exactly* how it is going to end.  *tear* I don't want this story to end; it's been *so* much fun to write!  Oh well....odds are that I'll write a sequel.  Review please!!!!!