Water crawled across concrete.
Not flowing. Crawling. Moving with purpose that defied physics. Dark. Stagnant. Spreading from the television screen in impossible volume.
The screen itself was torn. Not broken—torn. Like fabric ripped from the inside. Glass warped into membrane-thin stretches that shouldn't exist but did anyway.
And through the tear, she came.
Fingers first. Small. Gray. Nails broken and black with rot.
Then hands. Then arms. Pulling. Dragging something through that shouldn't fit.
The water poured faster. Gallons. Hundreds of gallons from a screen that couldn't possibly contain them.
Samara Morgan pulled herself into the world.
Long black hair emerged first—matted, dripping, hanging like funeral shroud. Then her head. Face hidden completely behind the curtain of hair. Then shoulders draped in white dress stained dark with decades of water and decay.
She pulled. Slow. Deliberate. Savoring the emergence.
Her torso came through. Child-sized. Shriveled. Gray skin clinging to ribs. White dress torn and moldy.
Then legs. Bare feet. Toes curled wrong.
She pulled herself completely through and stood.
Slowly.
Joints crackling. Spine bending in directions that made Sable's stomach turn.
Water poured off her. Not dripping—pouring. Like she was made of it. Like the liquid was more real than the flesh.
She stood there. Dripping. Twitching. Wrong.
Then her head tilted.
Slow. Mechanical. Bird-like.
Through the curtain of hair, one eye became visible.
White. Filmed over. Dead.
But aware.
She saw Sable.
Inside her flame barrier. Thirty feet away. Protected.
Trapped.
Samara's mouth opened behind the hair.
Child-voice. Wet. Gurgling.
"You called."
She began crawling.
Not walking. Crawling. On all fours. Spine arched wrong. Moving in stop-motion stutters that covered distance impossibly fast.
Toward Sable.
Toward the barrier.
Toward—
Zale stepped between them.
Arrogance raised. Aimed.
"My turn."
He fired.
The first round caught her in the chest.
Black water exploded from the impact. Not blood. Water. Stagnant. Foul. Spraying outward in pressurized burst.
Samara stumbled. Stopped crawling.
The wound was massive. Fist-sized hole through her sternum. Ribs visible—gray, waterlogged. And beyond them, nothing. Just void filled with dark water.
She looked down at herself.
Then at Zale.
Second round. Face shot.
Her head snapped back. Half her jaw vaporized in spray of black water. Hair blown aside briefly—revealing face beneath.
Child's face. Eight years old. Gray. Rotted. One eye white and dead. The other socket empty.
She straightened slowly.
The wounds filled. Black water flowing backward. Reforming. Jaw reconstructing. Hair falling back into place.
Ten seconds. Completely healed.
Inside the flame barrier, Sable flinched. That wasn't a monster's voice she'd heard scream. That was a child.
Samara's mouth opened.
"You... hurt me."
Water erupted.
Tendrils burst from the floor. Six of them. Thick as pythons. Moving like living things.
They lashed at Zale.
He moved.
Hercules-enhanced speed. Faster than human. Not faster than water.
One tendril caught his shoulder. Impact like baseball bat. Bone cracked. He spun with the momentum. Fired twice mid-spin.
Both rounds hit. Shoulder. Throat.
Black water sprayed. She staggered.
The tendrils kept coming.
He activated Ember Step.
Flames erupted around him. He vanished into them. Reappeared twenty feet left. Outside the tendrils' reach.
Drew the Firefighter's Axe.
The weapon materialized in his left hand—spectral, superheated blade glowing orange-red. Physical enough to hold. Supernatural enough to harm what shouldn't exist.
Samara's head tracked him. Impossibly smooth rotation. Like her neck had no bones.
She crawled toward him.
Fast.
He met her charge.
The axe swung horizontal. Superheated edge trailing sparks.
Cut through her reaching arm.
The limb separated at the elbow. Black water gushed. The severed forearm hit the ground—dissolved into water instantly.
Samara screamed.
Child-voice. High. Piercing. Pure pain and rage.
The sound shattered the remaining warehouse windows. Cracked concrete. Made Zale's enhanced hearing scream in protest.
But he smiled anyway.
Wide. Genuine. Excited.
"Good."
He pressed the attack. Second swing. Third. Fourth.
Axe carved through her torso. Black water sprayed with each impact. She stumbled back. Regenerating slower than the gunshots. Wounds filling with water but taking seconds instead of instant.
She countered.
Water tendrils lashed from all angles. Telekinesis grabbed debris—concrete chunks, rebar, rusted beams—and hurled them.
Zale dodged. Not all of it.
Concrete chunk hurtled toward his head. He raised his free hand. Spectral force batted it aside mid-flight. The chunk exploded against the wall behind him.
Rebar grazed his thigh anyway. Tore through muscle. Blood sprayed—red, human, fragile.
He laughed.
Low. Genuine. The sound of someone enjoying himself.
"Come on. Show me what you've got."
Samara's remaining eye focused on him.
"Pain," she whispered. Voice layered—child and something ancient beneath." I'll show you... pain."
The water rose.
It didn't flow. It surged.
Ankle-deep. Knee-deep. Waist-deep in seconds.
Gallons appearing from nothing. From her. From the curse made manifest.
The warehouse was flooding.
Zale's footing became unstable. Water pushing. Pulling. Trying to drag him under.
Samara moved through it like it was air.
Faster now. Home advantage.
She attacked from below.
Water formed hands. Dozens of them. Grabbing his legs. His torso. Pulling him down.
He swung the axe. Cut through them. They dissolved and reformed instantly.
He reached out with telekinesis—grabbed the axe mid-swing and *pulled*, accelerating it beyond physical strength. The blade carved through three water constructs in one arc.
More tendrils from above. Crashing down like whips. Each impact bone-breaking force.
One caught his face. Snapped his head sideways. Vision whited out. Copper taste flooded his mouth.
Another wrapped his throat. Squeezed.
His airway closed. Pressure built behind his eyes.
Samara crawled closer through the water. Patient. Inevitable.
"Seven days," she whispered. "*You'll drown... like I did."
Zale's vision darkened at the edges.
Inside the flame barrier, Sable's hands pressed uselessly against the fire. She could only watch him drown in air. Watch the water force itself down his throat. Watch him die.
He activated Presence of Dread.
Fear radiated from him.
Not metaphorical. Physical. Psychic pressure rolling outward in thirty-foot sphere.
Primal. Instinctive. The kind of terror that bypassed thought and struck directly at the lizard brain.
Samara stopped.
Her crawling halted. Head tilted. Confused.
The water tendril around his throat loosened slightly.
Just enough.
Zale ripped free. Gasped. Air flooded back.
He threw the axe.
Guided it mid-flight with Spectral Hand. Telekinesis bending its arc. Impossible angle. Around her water constructs. Between her defenses.
Straight into her spine.
The blade punched through. Superheated edge burned even as it cut. Black water exploded from entry and exit wounds.
Samara shrieked.
Not rage. Pain. Pure, child-like pain.
She collapsed forward. Tried to crawl. Couldn't. Spine severed.
The axe flew back to his hand—pulled by invisible force faster than gravity alone.
He advanced through the water. Limping. Ribs screaming. Throat bruised.
Smiling.
"Not enough."
Samara's head twisted backward. Impossible rotation. Facing him while prone.
Her mouth opened too wide.
"Hate... you..."
The water surged again.
It hit like tsunami.
Wall of water. Pressurized. Solid.
Lifted Zale off his feet. Slammed him into the warehouse wall. Concrete cracked. His shoulder dislocated. More ribs broke.
He hit the ground. Hard.
Pain information flooded in. Three more ribs. Shoulder gone. Left lung compressed. Possible internal bleeding.
Samara regenerated. Spine reforming. She stood. Slow. Joints crackling.
Water flowed toward him. Forming shape. Hands. Dozens. Grabbing. Pulling him under.
He couldn't breathe. Water forced into his mouth. His nose. Down his throat.
Drowning in air.
His vision darkened. Chest burned. Fingers clawed uselessly at water that wouldn't stay solid.
This is how she kills, he thought distantly. Seven days of drowning. This is what they feel.
Samara crawled closer. Hair dragging through water. Small hand reaching for his face.
"Understand now?"
Zale's eyes focused on her through the darkness.
And he smiled wider.
"Unfeeling."
The pain vanished.
Completely. Not dulled—erased.
His injuries remained. Broken ribs. Dislocated shoulder. Compressed lung. All still there.
But the signals stopped.
Five minutes of perfect function.
He surged upward. Water couldn't hold what didn't feel pain. Broke the surface. Gasped air with damaged lung that should've made breathing agony.
Felt nothing.
Fired Arrogance. Three rounds. Rapid.
Chest. Head. Chest.
Black water exploded. Samara staggered back.
He closed distance. Axe swinging. Each cut precise. Efficient. No wasted motion.
Cut through her neck. Head separated. Dissolved mid-fall.
Regenerated from shoulders. New head forming from water.
Cut through torso. Bisected her at waist.
Reformed. Slower but inevitable.
Cut through her reaching arm. Black water sprayed. She grew it back.
He fired Arrogance between axe swings. Standard rounds punching holes. She filled them. Kept coming.
"You can't... win..."
"Watch me."
He fought like something unchained. No hesitation. No mercy. No humanity in it.
Just the hunt.
Samara fought back with everything. Water constructs shaped into blades. Telekinesis hurling debris from all angles. Her regeneration accelerating—wounds closing in seconds, then faster.
She was adapting.
Learning his patterns. Countering his attacks. Getting *better* mid-fight.
The warehouse flooded deeper. Chest-high now. Both of them half-submerged. Still fighting.
And despite his skill, despite his experience, despite every advantage—
She was winning.
Zale's five minutes ended.
Pain returned. All at once.
He stumbled. Caught himself. Barely.
Samara's eye found him.
Sensed weakness.
Lunged.
Water formed cage. Surrounded him. Compressed.
The pressure was immense. Bones creaking. Already-broken ribs grinding.
He couldn't move. Couldn't dodge. Couldn't reach her.
She crawled through the water. Patient. Taking her time.
"You're strong," she whispered. Child-voice. Almost admiring. "But I'm... endless."
Zale's lips pulled back. Not quite smile anymore. Something feral.
"So let's test that."
He cut his palm.
Blood welled. Red against the dark water.
Pressed his bleeding hand against the Codex.
"Per sanguinem et voluntatem—consume."
The book opened.
Spectral chains erupted.
Not from the Codex—from beneath Samara.
From the water itself. From the concrete below. From reality responding to the book's hunger.
They wrapped around her legs. Her arms. Her throat. Her torso.
Glowing. Ethereal. Undeniable.
Samara's eye widened.
"No."
She fought.
Water surged. Tsunami force trying to drown the book. The chains. Everything.
Telekinesis grabbed the chains. Pulled. Bent them. Nearly broke them.
She screamed. Rage. Terror. "NO! NOT AGAIN!"
The water cage around Zale collapsed. He fell to one knee. Breathing ragged with punctured lung.
Switched Arrogance to augmented mode.
Felt the weapon reconfigure. Top barrel shifting. Mechanical and organic sounds.
Focused inward. Pulled life force into the weapon.
One-seventh of himself. The thing that made him alive rather than meat. Flowing down his arm. Into the chamber.
The bullet birthed itself.
Blue. Aware. Wrong. Face with shark teeth grinning. Spider-leg arms waving.
Recoil would be massive. He was already broken.
Didn't matter.
He fired.
The augmented round shrieked across the warehouse.
Hit Samara center mass.
Explosion.
Not fire. Not force. Something worse.
Her torso vaporized. Black water erupted in geyser. Chunks of her torn away. Dissolving.
The chains pulled tighter.
Samara's regeneration slowed. Drastically. Wound filling but taking seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen.
Zale's shoulder screamed from recoil. The pneumatic system absorbed some but physics demanded payment. Micro-fractures in the bone. Fresh blood running down his arm.
He focused again. Second augmented round.
Another seventh gone. Emptiness where vitality had been.
Fired.
Headshot.
Her skull exploded. Hair blown away. Face gone. Just water and void.
She collapsed. Chains dragging her down toward the Codex.
Started regenerating. Desperately. Frantically.
But the chains were faster.
They pulled her essence. Not her body—the thing beneath. The curse. The hate and pain and rage made manifest.
She stopped fighting the chains.
Started begging.
"Please."
Child-voice. Genuine. Terrified.
"Please... not the dark... not again..."
Her body dissolved. Water collapsing. But her essence remained—spectral, child-shaped, translucent.
Eight years old. Small. Scared.
The chains dragged her toward the book.
"I don't want to go back! Please! I was alone! Seven days alone in the dark!"
She clawed at the chains. At reality. At anything.
"NOT AGAIN! NOT THE DARK! PLEASE!"
Inside the flame barrier, Sable's chest tightened. She'd wanted to live. Had chosen life over spreading the curse.
But this... this felt wrong anyway.
The Codex pulled.
Inexorable.
Final.
Samara's scream was pure. Heartbreaking. The sound of a child dying.
Again.
"PLEASE—"
The book swallowed her.
One violent pull. Essence torn from reality. Drawn into pages that shouldn't exist.
Her scream cut off.
Silence.
The water evaporated. Instantly. Completely. Gallons vanishing like they'd never been.
The warehouse floor was dry.
The television screen was dark. Cracked. Lifeless.
The Codex closed itself.
Soft sound. Final.
Satisfied.
Zale knelt there. Arrogance loose in his grip. Blood running from his mouth. Multiple fractures. Punctured lung. Dislocated shoulder. Burns across his palm from recoil.
Emptiness inside where two-sevenths of his life force had been carved away.
He tried to stand.
Couldn't.
Collapsed forward. Caught himself on one hand.
The other still pressed against the Codex.
His vision blurred. Darkened.
The hunt was over.
He'd won.
Barely.
His eyes closed.
And the warehouse fell silent.
[END CHAPTER 13]