Author's Note: Hi guys!! Once more, thank you VERY much to all who are keeping up with this little story. We're almost done here – yes, this is Day Seven, so the 'Ring Cycle' (if you'll forgive the pun) ends with this chapter. But I have some loose ends to tie up too. The chapter after this one will be the final one. Okay! Carry on, readers – this is the scary one!

Day Seven: Ghost in the Machine

Dawn broke quietly over the psychiatric ward at Kingdom Hospital. Light filtered through the shrouded windows in shades of gray, cold and melancholy. The air was thick and clammy, as if a dark cloud had rolled into the halls of the ward, and a malignant silence weighed heavily over the sleeping patients.

Becca Jordan stood by the wall next to her bed, staring at the T.V. fastened to the ceiling. It was still covered by a white towel, but she knew she would hear it when it came on. Her mouth was moving silently as she went over Paul's instructions in her head. She wasn't sure she could do what he'd asked of her, but she had to try. She was very, very afraid. She couldn't stop twisting her fingers together, trying to deter her anxiety. But she still had to go through with it. As Paul had said, it was dangerous, but they couldn't think of any other way.

The T.V. clicked on. Becca sucked in her breath; her insides went hot and cold at the same time, and her chest tightened. Then she bit her lip, put her hands into fists at her sides, and breathed. It was time. She had to move quickly.

Becca left her room and went down the hall. The nurses and orderlies weren't up – it wasn't time for rounds yet. Becca kept her gaze straight ahead until she reached room 942, then she turned and went inside. It was still unoccupied. That is to say, there were no patients in either of the beds. There was a T.V. sitting on the dresser. It was on. There was a single, grainy black and white image on the screen: a well in the middle of a small meadow. Becca held her breath and watched.

A pale hand closed over the rim of the well, followed by an arm, and then another. Shoulders draped in ruined white linen, and the black-veiled head of the wraith, Samara. She climbed out of the well like a crab, imprecise and ungainly, moving just a bit too quickly to be believed. She rose up, straightening, and came closer to the television screen.

Becca backed up against the door of the not-quite empty room. If Paul's theory was right, then Samara wouldn't be able to harm her. Of course, at this very moment, all the other patients in the ward would be watching the same thing. And that meant that, in just a few minutes, they would all be dead. Unless Becca was successful.

Samara reached the very edge of the screen, so that her murky silhouette filled it completely. She raised a hand and reached out. Her fingers stretched out of the screen, reaching into the waking world, and closed around the dresser's edge. She pulled herself out of the T.V. and crawled out onto the floor. Becca bit her lip again and willed herself not to scream. It occurred to her then that perhaps Paul had no intention of helping her, that maybe sacrificing her had been his plan all along, but she pushed the horrid thought out of her mind.

Samara stood, much taller than she should have been, having died as such a young girl, and she moved forward. The black veil of hair remained closed over her face, but Becca knew it was only a matter of time. She was getting closer.

"Paul?" Becca called to the air, her voice coming out in a high-pitched bleat. There was no answer. "C'mon, where are you?"

Becca's hand found the door handle behind her and grabbed on for support. She blinked, and the next instant Samara was only two feet away from her. "Oh God," Becca gasped. "Paul!"

The dark head started to lift, and the hair parted smoothly in the center, revealing the gleam of the eye that Becca had seen only once before, in the bedroom of her friend more than a year ago. Becca fell to the ground, screaming, and covered her head with her hands.

It took Becca five full minutes to realize that she was still alive. The sound of her own breath, shallow and rattling, convinced her. Slowly she lowered her hands and looked up. The room was empty again. Truly empty this time. The television was off, but it was smoking. And there was a trail of water marking the places on the floor and dresser where Samara had been. But Becca was alive.

She stood up shakily and looked down at herself, just to make sure no pieces were missing, and then clamored out of the room. She ran down the hall to the first occupied room and burst in: it was the same. The T.V. in the corner was smoking, and there was water on the floor, but the patient in the bed was unharmed. Still asleep, in fact.

Becca checked three more rooms and then, satisfied that the plan had worked, she sprinted to the elevators and punched the number for the sleep lab downstairs. It was time to tell Dr. Massingale the truth.

(scene break)

Samara did not go quietly. She kicked and bit and shrieked like a banshee as Paul hauled her to the Pain Room, but Paul was stronger. Together he and Dr. Gottreich tied her to the examination table with a set of leather straps. When she was secure, Dr. Gottreich leaned over the table to look her in the face. "Oh yes," he said quietly. "You will make a prime subject for this new experiment of mine. Don't wander off, my dear. I will be back shortly."

Paul waited for Gottreich to leave the room – off to his lab for his equipment – then leaned against the table and smiled. "I did warn you," he said.

She'd never seen it coming. The very last moment before Samara had been planning to kill all those people on the psyche ward, the same moment that Becca had hidden her face, Paul had slipped into the room and seized her, dragging her down to the Old Kingdom. She never would have hurt Becca, at least not before claiming her victims, so Becca's presence in the room had thrown her. She wasn't supposed to be there. Paul had been betting on Samara assuming that Becca would try to run, and had accordingly told her not to. The longer Becca stayed there, the longer Samara had to wait. And that gave him time to grab her before she knew what was happening.

Samara's image flickering and buzzed like a faulty broadcast, but didn't disappear. She was trapped. When she finally stopped struggling, she cast her wide, dead eyes on Paul and stared at him hatefully.

"Oh, don't take it so personal," said Paul. "You brought this on yourself. Had it coming a long time, too."

Samara said nothing. Paul grinned. "My parents hated me too, y'know," he said. He'd seen Samara's death through Becca; the whole ugly story was in her memories now. He'd watched Anna Morgan come up behind her daughter, standing in front a well, singing to herself. And then he'd seen her throw a burlap sack over Samara's head, suffocating her, choking her, and then letting her body drop into the bottom of the long, narrow prison she'd been confined to until her restless spirit discovered videotapes.

Samara stayed silent at Paul's words, but her face shifted, no longer quite rigid. She was listening.

"Yeah," Paul continued, seeing that he had her attention. "That's how I ended up here in the first place. They told people they put me here to 'fix' me, to make me a better person, but they were just making me somebody else's problem instead of theirs. I saw their faces when they found out I was dead. They were relieved." Paul laughed bitterly and looked away. "I could've gone back, I think. There was a moment, before Gottreich found me, that I could've left this place and gone away. Not to the other side, but back to the beginning. To try again. I waited too long though. I missed my window." He looked over at Samara. "What about you? What's your excuse?"

The specter twisted her arms inside the leather restraints, trying to break away, but didn't answer.

Paul shrugged. "Fine," he said. "Be that way. You'll be more vocal once Gottreich gets to work on you."

As if on cue, Dr. Gottreich came back into the room, armed with a tray of bloodied, rusty instruments. "Is she prepped for the experiment?" he asked, glancing at Paul.

"Yes, doctor," Paul answered.

"Very good." Gottreich selected a long, thin spike of metal, gazing at the sharp end lovingly, and then turned his attention to Samara. "Now then," he continued. "Let's see if we can't do something about that nasty temper of yours, hm?"

Samara jerked and struggled under the leather straps, and looked wide-eyed back at Paul, imploring him for help. Paul only winked at her, and backed out of the door the way Gottreich had come.

Above the ground, in the sleeping hospital, the walls began to shake, and the Earth to rumble. Early staff members and nurses grabbed onto desks and doorframes to stay on their feet; they were used to these untimely earthquakes, but that didn't make them any less troublesome. This time though, a pair of voices rang through the air, just underneath the range of human hearing. Black noise. A girl, screaming in agony. And a boy, laughing.