LETTERS FROM HELLSING X

So, here I sit in my little cell in the dungeon recovering from the last round of testing and waiting for the next. I finally found the books I had brought with me and have read them all though twice. Ironically, although I am technically the librarian here at Hellsing, I have been allowed nowhere near the library which is two floors up and quite nice so I am told.

I have not been allowed out of the building or even off of this floor for over a week but I have been monitored, poked, probed, tubed, drained and refilled more times that I can count by the mad scientists who call themselves my medical team. They won’t answer any of my questions about what they are doing and tend to refer to me in the third person even in my presence. They barely acknowledge me as a person but oh how they fawn like crack addicts over my blood and urine. I’m not sure what my test results are showing but they run about waiving lab reports at each other like stock traders in a bull market. I am, it seems, pork futures and country ribs are looking good this year.

Ahem, but, I digress.

I have not seen Alucard or that “Sir” woman since that first night. I have in fact only seen Walter and the lab staff and begin to wonder if the outside world really exists anymore. The only thing I look forward to are my phone calls home. Every night around 7pm Eastern Standard Time ( about 2am here), I call my son to say good night to him no matter what. We talk for about ½ hour my sweet boy and I and I remember what it is to love and be human. We end the same way each night. The way I have tucked him to bed every night since the day he was born.

“I love you forever and I like you for always and as long as the stars shine*, my baby you’ll be. The end” (* my mother made me change the original words slightly years ago as she thought the words ‘as long as I’m living’ too morbid. Ironic no?) It’s really all I can do not to cry myself to sleep.

I found pen and paper in my room and tried to keep a diary or write letters home but the day to day events of my life are so boring and writing home, well, I mean...

Dear Mom and Dad,
Still locked up in the dungeon. Vein collapsed in my left arm so we are now drawing blood from the right. Lab tech Roberts accidentally pulled out my tube too soon yesterday and sprayed blood all over the book I was reading. Oh how we laughed. Still not sure if I am undead or not. So, how are things at home?

Not really such good letter fodder.

I have finished counting the stones in the wall of my room. I have rearranged my little chest of drawers about 20 times and have moved the chair in my room around about 30 times for no particular reason. I am trying to teach myself to write backwards but, being left handed can barely write forwards. Perhaps if I arranged my socks by wear in the heel....

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It was my 9th day (evening actually) of captivity at Hellsing and I was contemplating unraveling the throw rug so I could garrote Walter, steal his keys and escape when next he came to bring me my dinner at exactly 8:07pm, ask if I needed anything then tell me the Doctor still had not authorized my release from the dungeon. I was singing a number from Chess when a head appeared in the doorway.

“Odd,” I thought.

It was a nice head anyway. Pert little mouth and a turned up button nose all topped of with short wild ginger hair falling over wide, red, dreaming eyes. “Hmmm” I thought. I stopped singing and smiled up at it.

The head blinked twice as if startled. “Oh, hello.” It said.

“Hello floating head.” I said.

“What? Oh.” Said the head. “I was trying not to disturb you.” She said as she stepped into the doorway. She was a pretty little thing. Petite but curvy, positively bursting out of her uniform in all the right places and young too, maybe 23. I was trying hard not to instantly hate her on general principle. “They said not to disturb you. Sorry.”

“They?”

“Well, the lab staff said...” She trailed off uncertain.

“The lab staff said?” I prompted.

“Well, they said until they determined your viability status, they were unprepared for potentially adverse interactions between yourself and other non-viable subjects.” She recited, spreading out her hands apologetically.

“So,” I said. “No playing with vampires until the geniuses next door decide whether or not I’m dead?”

We stared at each other for a few moments then burst out laughing.

“I’m Corrine.” I said.

“Seras.” Said she.

“Won’t you come in?”

“May I ask you a question first?”

“Sure.”

“Why were you stabbing the throw rug with a pen?”

I glanced down at the pen in my hand and blushed. “Well..” I said. Took a deep breath and told her.

She pondered this for a moment and laughed. That’s when I knew we’d be friends despite her appallingly good looks.

“But seriously,” She said. “That plan would never work on Walter. He’s not easy to fool. He knows everything.”

Damn it’s those Evil Butler superpowers again. “He’s psychic isn’t he?” I asked.

“Possibly. He is also rather good with string himself you know.” She said with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “You might just end up on the wrong end of that rope.”

“Do tell.” I said .

So she did. It was quite gruesome and several dismembered and decapitated ghouls were involved.

“Gosh.” I said. “Scary.”

“Yes.” She said.

“Well, I guess that plan won’t work then.” I said with a smile.

“Not on Walter anyway. But the lab staff on the other hand...”

“Too many of them.”

“I guess.”

“Rats!”

“We’ll just have to come up with another plan then.” She said. “What are your thoughts on electrocution?”

We grinned at each other.

We talked late into the night. Seras was “On Call” but she said she could hear the klaxon just as easily from my room as anywhere else, so we just hung out.

She said she had heard me singing for days now and had gotten curious. I had taken to singing in the hallway and the bathroom quite loudly Because:

1) I liked the way the sound echoed against the bare stone walls.
2) It made me feel less lonely and afraid.
3) It really annoyed the lab techs.

Apparently Seras’ bathroom was located directly below mine in the sub basement and, much like evil butlers, vampires have uncanny hearing.

She said she would have come sooner but they had been called out every night so far this week . They had apparently been rushed off of their feet dealing with the latest outbreaks of the “New Vampires” whatever those were. By the time she got back in the wee hours of the am I had always stopped singing. But today she had woken up early (about 5pm) and I had been singing this particular song and she knew she just had to come see me.

“Which song?” I asked.

“The one about the girl who is mean to the boy who loves her and there is a flower growing. I don’t remember the name.”

I thought for a moment. “Barbara Allen?” I asked.

“Yes. I think so.”

“Oh yes, it’s an old English ballad. Very pretty but very sad.”

“Yes, that’s the one. The boy dies.”

“And the girl.”

“I had to come when I heard it. It reminded me of, well.. it just made me happy to hear it.” She paused, looking so sad and lost it hurt my heart. “I don’t suppose. That is, would you sing it for me?”

How could I say no? “Alright” I said and started to sing but stopped when she began shaking. “Are you OK?” I asked.

“Yes. Please don’t stop.”

“But it’s making you so sad.” I said.

“No! No, it’s just that...well... my mother used to sing this song to me when I was little. It was her favorite. She would hold me and sing to me and I would feel safe. And then when she died....” These last words were choked out. “ I’m sorry. I don’t know why I am telling you all of this. I just haven’t heard the song in so long. Please.” She looked so sad and small. I could feel the pain and loss radiating from her. What could I do?

I began to sing again and before I knew it I had gathered her into my arms like a child and was rocking her back and forth. I sang all of the old songs I knew with her there in my arms and stroked her hair and cried out her pain for her while she clung to me because, vampires can not cry.

At some point I looked up and saw that a tray of food had been placed on a table just inside my door. There was also what appeared to be a small bag of blood. Seras’ dinner I guess. Walter had come and gone and I never even heard him.