Sadako understood perfectly well why Bella had helped her—her healing ability was the draw, the same logic that made everyone want a doctor for a close friend. When your health was on the line, that one contact could mean the difference between life and death.
She had no illusions about it. Without anything to offer, she'd have been just another restless ghost nobody cared about. That was just how the world worked.
Sadako was kind. She wasn't naive. The thirty-odd years she'd spent at the bottom of that well—trapped in darkness, festering with rage—were part of her history too: the history of Sadako's darker side.
Those years had left her starved for validation. Now that people were finally recognizing her worth, she was genuinely happy about it. Bella, Professor Xavier, and now Diane—in her eyes, each one of them mattered.
She loved the atmosphere on set. Everyone seemed to enjoy having her around, and that was more than enough.
"Diane? Where are we going today?" she called out cheerfully after another day of shooting wrapped. The director and the male lead had both praised her performance again that afternoon. She knew what was behind it, but it still made her feel warm.
Diane watched the young director laughing with Sadako and felt her face go rigid. She didn't know how to name what she felt or what to do about any of it.
The more beloved Sadako became, the more she shone like a real star, the more it gutted Diane. Why her? She's Japanese. I'm American. Whatever happened to the prejudice everyone loves to talk about? Oh—it only applies to people with no connections and no money. Got it.
In the version of this she'd imagined, Sadako would have been struggling, getting picked on by the crew, and she would have stepped in to protect her. That would have been perfect.
But reality had its own agenda. No amount of resentment changed the fact that Sadako was simply more popular.
All that praise, all those compliments, all that flattery—imagine if it were hers instead.
Love and hatred had twisted into something indistinguishable. All she could manage now was a strained smile.
"Camila, let's go—" She'd been about to suggest a movie.
The words died in her throat.
A memory surfaced—something from six months ago. And then the nightmare she'd been having over and over lately.
The urge to burn everything down had been growing clearer and clearer inside her. The thought that had been lurking at the edges came out on its own.
"The director complimented your acting again today, didn't he? Honestly, I think we both still have room to grow. I came across an old tape recently—what do you say we study some classic performances together?"
Sadako's mind produced three large, blinking question marks.
She had a natural sensitivity to the word tape. The memories were all still there—she could access them, though from an outside angle, without feeling the old emotions that had driven Sadako's darker half. But from her gut: she had absolutely no desire to watch any tape.
Still, she was honest about her own limitations. Her acting technique was rough, and she knew it. Watching old films together, using the dialogue to practice scenes back and forth—that was actually a reasonable idea.
She smiled and agreed. They drove back to Diane's apartment.
Diane's palms were drenched. She went to the deepest recess of her closet and took out a black videocassette.
She'd picked it up during her time as a journalist's assistant in Seattle. She didn't like remembering that period. What it had done to her was nothing but nightmares. But tonight she was pulling it out, because she wanted one final act of madness.
She wanted to destroy Sadako's safety net completely.
She knew exactly what this tape did. Anyone who watched it was dead within seven days—unless they passed it on to someone else before the time ran out. Six months ago, that was how she'd survived.
Now the tape had found its way back to her. She wasn't going to run this time.
Her plan: they would watch it together. Then she'd confess everything—her jealousy, her obsession, all of it. They'd spend seven days together, and then die together.
She ran through the whole sequence twice in her head. No gaps she could see. Clean and simple.
She pressed the cassette into the player with trembling hands. Faced with Sadako's bewildered stare, she forced a smile. "It'll start in just a moment. Let me go make some coffee."
Static had already begun crawling across the television screen.
Sadako looked at her new friend. Looked at the television. Her voice dropped several degrees. "Sure. Go ahead."
Diane was too wound up to notice the shift in tone.
Sadako settled back on the sofa to wait, perfectly composed—back straight, knees together, hands resting in her lap.
She fixed her gaze on the screen. The static thickened, and somewhere beneath it, a shape began to take form.
"Hah." A quiet exhale. Seriously? Of all things. She'd held out a sliver of hope that she'd misread the situation. But this opening—she'd know it anywhere.
Nobody knows this tape better than I do. She dearly wanted to ask Diane what she'd been thinking. Did she really just try to use that against her? Was this a joke?
In the kitchen, Diane was shaking, caught between regret and a savage, vindictive thrill. She watched Sadako's back, and something cruel welled up inside her.
So what if you have powerful people in your corner? So what if the whole crew fawns over you? Death doesn't care about any of that. In front of death, you're the same as me. Go ahead—call in your backers. Let's see if they can help you.
Sadako didn't need to call anyone. Kayako, Yaeko—she could have dragged any number of spirits through in an instant, enough to make Diane jump out of her skin. But that wasn't even necessary here.
She watched the image clarify on the screen. The deep stone well, unmistakable. The white figure beginning to climb out of it.
Sadako turned and glanced back at Diane. The woman looked away.
The white figure emerged—moving as fluidly as ever—and then froze.
If she'd had a smartphone, she would have sent a deeply confused reaction meme.
What is going on?
Just to make sure she hadn't made a mistake, the figure parted the long black hair covering her face and peered out at the room.
Her gaze landed directly on Sadako.
It was like looking into a mirror.
They were the same source. One was the original, fully restored; the other was the residual consciousness left behind when the tape was made—no more than a fragment, an imprint. They recognized each other instantly, the way you know your own reflection.
A person can't lift themselves by their own hair, no matter how strong they are. A curse could not kill its own origin. All the hatred in the world didn't change that.
My mistake. I'm going.
The white figure left something like that impression behind, then retreated back down into the well in obvious embarrassment. A moment later—something even stranger happened. The television clicked back to normal programming. The static was gone. The well was gone. And the black cassette tape slowly ejected itself from the machine.
It was faintly smoking, as if the experience had been more than it could handle.
Diane stared.
She stood very still and waited a full minute.
She checked the mirror on the side wall. Sadako's reflection was completely undistorted. The phone never rang. Somehow, impossibly, the curse hadn't touched her at all.
Why?! WHY?!
The crew falling over themselves to please her. The entire production treating her better than a Japanese actress had any right to expect in this industry—better than Diane, an actual American. And now, apparently, even a ghost wouldn't touch her?
What does she have that I don't?
Diane felt something inside her shatter.
"Do you have anything left to say to me?"
Sadako's voice was flat, cold.
She knew every version of that tape better than anyone alive. She'd quietly made several hundred copies of it, back in the day.
Diane still hadn't come down from her earlier rage. When Sadako's flat, expressionless question landed, she went cold with guilt.
"I— I..."
She couldn't form a sentence. She looked at the floor.
"Fine." Sadako stood, picked up her bag. She pointed one finger at the tape from across the room, and the residual malice still lodged in the cassette simply dissolved. "Don't contact me again."
She pushed open the door and walked away without looking back.
"No! Don't— I'm sorry! I'm so sorry—"
The cry that tore out of Diane was raw and total—not just heartbreak, but something collapsing from deep inside; not just love gone, but friendship too. The sound was devastating.
Sadako didn't stop.
Coffee maker, dishes, magazines, newspapers—Diane swept everything to the floor. Then she overturned the dining table entirely.
She didn't know who to hate anymore. Sadako? Herself? The whole world?
"Useless! All of it! Garbage! Worthless, the whole lot—"
She grabbed the broken cassette and hurled it out the window without looking.
Below, a middle-aged man with his arm in a splint and a paper bag of medication in his other hand heard the rush of air and spun to one side, stepping back just in time. The tape clattered past him.
He looked up toward the window with sharp, measured eyes—the kind of gaze that came from having killed a lot of people, the kind that made civilians wilt on instinct.
Diane had been about to shout something else. That look stopped her cold. She yanked the window shut and fled to her bedroom, burrowing under her pillow like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
Time moved strangely for a while—it felt like hours, but maybe only seconds.
She lay curled on the bed, shivering, feeling cold all the way through.
Then, without warning, warmth spread through the room.
The bedside lamp clicked on by itself. She turned toward the doorway, and there was an old man in cowboy clothes, standing there in silence, looking at her without expression.
She didn't recognize him. But she felt no fear. No need for explanations or promises—she simply knew, with complete certainty, that he wouldn't hurt her.
"Are you here to save me? Am I about to die? Are you God?"
She grabbed at him the way a drowning person grabs at anything.
The old man nodded, then shook his head.
He didn't speak. His face showed nothing—no excitement, no warmth, no triumph. But Diane felt a wave of courage move through her, and she started to cry—really cry—and the tears seemed to carry something with them, like something poisonous leaving her body.
She cried until she was wrung out.
"Can I start over?"
He still said nothing. He pointed to the coffee table. On it rested a blue key.
He also produced a small blue box. The moment Diane saw it, she felt as if something inside her had been cleansed—the jealousy, resentment, and hatred draining away, replaced by something close to goodwill.
She seemed to understand.
She wiped her face. "I get it. I'll keep going. I promise."
"You crazy— Get out here and face me!" 006 cursed up at Diane's window for a moment, then decided it wasn't worth it and walked away.
His week had been catastrophic.
A nuclear warhead. Straight at my head. What are the odds?
He'd been out on his yacht, heading away from San Francisco Bay to meet a Weyland client, when the missile came down from the sky. The detonator had been disabled in time—but a projectile that size had enormous kinetic energy even without an explosion. He hadn't recognized what it was at first, and by the time he did, it was almost on top of him. He'd given up. What was the point? You couldn't outrun physics.
And then the detonator clicked off. That was when the survival instincts kicked back in. But age worked against him—his reflexes weren't what they'd been at thirty—and the delay had cost him. He'd made it into the water, but the impact flipped the yacht, and the helm struck his arm and snapped it.
Now this—a deranged woman pitching a cassette tape at him from a window.
Is the whole world against me today?
He walked back to his lodgings, his head going hazy as he moved—dizzy and off-balance. He logged his entry in the day's journal—and the more he wrote, the more convinced he became that something was wrong. He made an urgent phone call, then passed out.
In the space where dream and wakefulness overlapped, he had the sensation of becoming a beggar—filthy, hollow-eyed, every limb broken, dragging himself along the ground on elbows and knees, kept alive by the charity of strangers.
A blue box appeared beside him, perfectly square. Two tiny figures—no larger than fingers—circled it endlessly. He felt his memories dissolving, accelerating, collapsing faster and faster, until at last he couldn't remember who he was, couldn't remember anything that had come before. He knew only that he was a beggar.