Disclaimer: I don't own "The Ring." The only parts I do own are: the plot and the character Raven.

A/N: OMG, you guys! I haven't updated in FOREVER! "Sorry" doesn't even BEGIN to describe how I feel! Forgive me? I hope you do, because I appreciate all of you who read and enjoy my stories. Okay, I'll stop now, but please don't forget to review! Thanks all!

Chapter Three

"Rachel."

The word came to her only as a quiet whisper, but she could tell that whoever had said her name had shouted it. He, or she (or "it," for that matter), was simply at such a great distance that she could barely hear their voice.

"What?" she called back, her own voice sounding as a mere whisper as well, although the horrid strain and burning of her throat told her that she had not whispered the word. On the contrary, she had screamed it.

"What is it?" she screamed again, her throat exploding with heat at each of the three simple words. But why was her voice so quiet in her own ears?

"Rachel," whoever-it-was hissed again. The word sounded so soft and gentle that it could have simply been the wind, but no; there it was again: "Rachel."

Rachel took a step forward, out of the darkness that she had been surrounded by, and found herself in a lonely, gray alleyway. Her eyes danced wildly around the alley, hoping to find some trace, some clue, as to where the person (or thing) that had called her name could possibly be.

She took another step, placing her foot down ever so gently, as though she was afraid that if she put her foot down to quickly, the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

She ran a hand through her greasy, stringy blond hair and called, "Hello?" into the seemingly empty alleyway. "Is someone . . . anyone there?" she added, trying desperately to ignore the straining in her throat.

Her only reply was a long, dead silence; a silence that caused her ears to ring. She shook her head slowly in an attempt to rid herself of the ringing.

Rachel opened her mouth to call out again, when a sudden hisssssss, like air being let out of a tire, cut her off.

She took a few steps backwards, wanting to be enveloped by the safety of the darkness once again, but was unable to. Her back hit something hard and solid: a brick wall.

Letting out a short, awkward grunt, Rachel began to walk forward again, subconsciously knowing that the darkness, her sanctuary, would not come and save her again, as it had before. The darkness would not be able to protect her from the evil of the outside world any longer. Her heart began to race. Why did I ever leave that goddamn place? she asked herself. I was safe there. I was safe . . .

As she began to walk towards the opposite end of the alleyway (although she did not truly know why-the opposite end looked like a dead end to her. With an emphasis on "dead"), Rachel placed her hand against the gray brick wall, leaning against it for support.

As she began to reach the other end of the alleyway, Rachel saw that it was not a dead end, as she had assumed, but rather a corner. With her hand still upon the wall, Rachel rounded the corner . . . and stopped dead in her tracks.

"Aiden?" she croaked, hoping the word had come out louder than it had sounded in her own ears.

Aiden was standing in the middle of the adjoining alleyway, his brown hair in a ratty mess. His eyes were a deep, dark shade of brown, nearly a shade of black, and they were outlined in a blood red color. Hi skin was a sickening shade of green, and, although his hands were hanging limply at his sides, Rachel could see that his fingernails, or the few he had left, at least, were black and tattered. Dry blood covered his cheeks and forehead, and his clothes were stained a disgusting shade of brown.

He looked nothing like his former self. He looked . . . evil. Even so, Rachel could see that this little boy was indeed her little boy. Tears began to well up in her eyes.

"A-Aiden," she choked out, reaching out to the little boy with outstretched arms. "Aiden," she said again, walking clumsily towards him. She looked into his red-rimmed eyes that were so filled with hate and disgust, and felt her knees buckle; she collapsed in a sobbing heap at Aiden's feet.

"Rachel," he said, looking down at the shaking mass in front of him.

Rachel lifted her head, tears streaking down her face, and nodded. "Yes. Yes, baby, I'm here." She lifted her hand in a weak attempt to caress her former son's face when, in one quick, swift motion, Aiden grabbed her by the wrist.

A burning sensation began to form where he had grabbed her. Rachel, in response, let out a loud, hiccuping sob. "Why, baby?" she cried, looking up in dismay at the little boy who was digging his fingers into her wrist, hate and anger shining clearly in his eyes. "Why, why?!"

"You killed me," Aiden replied, in a monotone-like voice, his fire-like grip on Rachel's wrist tightening. "You killed me."

Rachel slowly shook her head. "No. No, I didn't-"

"Don't lie, Rachel." Aiden cocked his head slightly, as though out of pity for the hysterical woman crying in front of him, but did not release his mother from his grip. "You let the little girl have me. You didn't try hard enough to save me. You never tried hard enough. You never have."

"Aiden!" Rachel screamed, her voice returning to its full volume. She began to writhe and twist in anguish, not because of the burning pain in her wrist, but because of the sheer pain of Aiden's words . . . and because of the fact that she knew he was right.

"I was a mistake. That's what you told yourself every day until I was born, and then you never said it . . . but you thought it. I never should have been born. And now I'm dead. Because of you."

Rachel tried to choke out words, but they came out only as sobs and screams. Her words echoed in her head, from when she had been pregnant with Aiden: "I hate you! Why ME?! You goddamn THING! I never should have . . . this shouldn't have HAPPENED!!!"

All of the words she had said, all of the suicidal thoughts . . . Aiden knew about them now. Now that he was with her. Samara. She showed him what she had said . . . all of the times she had thought about abortion. All of the times she had stood out on her balcony and thought, "All I have to do is jump, and it'll all be over. All of it." But why? Why, why, WHY????

Aiden released Rachel from his grip. Rachel rubbed at the burn with her opposite hand, hoping to slow down the pain. "You never wanted me. And now you don't have me. So why are you looking for me?"

Rachel shook her head. "I-I . . . I love you, Aiden. I do. I was just-"

"-young," Aiden finished. "You told me that story. And I don't care anymore. Don't look for me, Rachel. Don't look for the tape. She'll find you. She'll kill you. And you can't stop her."

Rachel looked at her son, her heart weighing heavy in her chest. It almost seemed that Aiden did still love her. Rachel closed her eyes and rubbed at her eyes with the palm of her hand. When she opened her eyes again, Aiden had disappeared. "Aiden?" she called, getting up onto her feet and continuing down the alleyway.

"Aiden!" she called, breaking into a slow jog. A tickling sensation in her arm slowed her down a bit, but she merely brushed it away, not thinking twice about it. The tickling began to appear in her arm again. She stopped jogging and looked at her arm. There was a spider crawling down her arm and stopping and getting ready to sink its teeth into her and bite and bite and bite.

Rachel let out a small shriek and brushed the spider away. But the tickling sensation began to appear on her arms and legs and neck and face and everywhere, oh, God, it was everywhere! And they were biting and biting and poisoning her and she was going to die, she could feel it, she was going to die because of all of the bites . . .

She collapsed to her knees, her hands running all over her body, rubbing and scratching and attacking everything that felt like a spider and they had to die, she had to kill them before they killed her . . .

She opened her eyes again. Her heart was racing terribly and her breathing was coming out in short, gasping breaths. She looked at her arms; there were no bite marks, or any sign that there had been anything on her, but she had scratched so terribly at her arms that some of the skin had been ripped off.

Rachel stood up again, wrapping her arms around her torso in an attempt to find some protection from whatever was out there. From whatever wanted to kill her. With a heavy sigh, she did all she could do: continue walking down the alleyway.

She glanced sideways at the gray, gray walls that were on either side of her. How did you get here? a voice inside her asked. What a great question. How did she get here? The last thing she could remember was . . . escaping the mental hospital. With that girl. Raven. But how did she get onto the street? And what the hell was going on, for that matter?

She looked straight up, at what she thought would be the sky . . . and froze in her tracks. The sky appeared to be frozen, if that was the right adjective to describe it. The sky was perfectly black, the dark clouds unmoving in the image. But what caught Rachel's eye was the bright, shining bolt of lightning that was stretching across the sky like a reaching arm.

Rachel stared at the unmoving bolt of lightning for who knows how long before something wet and cool landed on her upper arm and slowly crawled down her arm towards her elbow. She looked down and grimaced at the drop of red blood that was rolling down her arm. With her opposite hand, she wiped the droplet away and wiped the remains on the leg of her pants.

Plink. Another drop of the crimson blood landed on the ground next to her. And then another. And another. She looked back up at the sky and saw a downpour of red blood-rain coming down towards her. A drop landed on her shoulder, her neck, the top of her head, and continued to cover her until her clothes were soaking and dripping with the red, sticky blood-rain.

Rachel squirmed, trying to wipe the blood off of her face. It streamed into her eyes, causing Rachel to begin to scream out in pain as the blood began to burn. Her hands flew to her eyes, rubbing in a feeble attempt to rid herself of the burning pain. "Aiden! Help me! Someone-dear God-help me!"

"Rachel." Rachel's ears perked up at the sound of her name. "Hello?" she called, stooping over slightly to block the rain from dropping into her eyes.

"Rachel?" the voice said again, in the form of a question this time. "Rachel . . ."

"Yes? Yes! I'm here!" Rachel screamed in reply, running a hand through her now-crimson colored hair. "Help me!" she added, as more blood-rain ran into her eyes. Was she crazy, or did she actually hear a sizzling sound as the blood had entered her eyes?

"Rachel?"

"Rachel!" Raven yelled again, grabbing Rachel by the shoulder and shaking her rapidly, but gently. "Rachel, wake up, dammit!" she said, beginning to shake Rachel's shoulders harder.

"Hel . . . p, wha-?" Rachel muttered, shaking her head back and forth. "Huh?!" she said, her eyes snapping open. "Wha- . . . what happened? Where am I?" she asked, immediately recognizing Raven, but not the scenery around her. She assumed that it was Raven's house, although she could not be sure.

"This is my apartment. Are you okay?" Raven asked, and Rachel felt like smiling at the sound of concern in Raven's voice. "You looked like you were having a nightmare."

Rachel nodded. "Yeah. But it was . . . more than that, you know. It wasn't just that I could see what was happening, and hear it, but I could . . . feel it, too. I could feel everything. Exactly as it was happening. Even every time I put my foot down to walk, I could feel it. Like it was really happening, you know what I mean?" Raven nodded, and the look in her eyes silently asked Rachel to continue. "And then, in my dream-nightmare-when it started to rain (not rain, but blood), I could feel it. And that's why I never slept at the hospital. That's why they had to drug me. Because my dreams are more than dreams. They're . . . some kind of alternate universe, if you can believe that."

"I can believe it," Raven said, giving Rachel a sad, faraway smile that said, quite perfectly, I understand more than you could ever imagine. Rachel wanted to ask Raven how she could possibly understand, but did not want to ask about anything that could upset her new aquaintence.

"But in this dream-nightmare, I mean-I saw my son. I mean, I usually see my son in my nightmares, but this time, there was something different. Something that I haven't seen in . . . forever." Rachel paused, thinking back to when Aiden had given her that warning, when he had given her that look. That look that told her that he did still love her. Deep, deep down. "He gave me this look, and I could see, in his eyes that . . . that he cared about what happened to me, even though I couldn't save him. That he still . . ." Rachel's eyes began to fill with tears. ". . . that he still . . . loved me," she finished, her voice hitching on the last part of her sentence.

Raven sighed deeply. "Wow. That's . . . intense, if that's the right word."

"It is intense. Very intense," Rachel agreed, wiping her eyes with the back of a clenched fist. "But the question is, what am I going to do now that I'm . . . out? Especially since the doctors are going to be looking for me?"

Raven smiled. Not the sad smile she usually smiled, but a smile that said that she had a plan. "Don't worry, I've got that all figured out."

Rachel smiled back at her. "Really? Tell me."

To Be Continued . . .

A/N-Yay! I got the new chapter up! And many thanks to Diva'sDream for keeping me in line with this story! Thanks girl! :-) I'll get chapter four up ASAP!