It'd be incredibly inaccurate to say that all life begins and ends with dust. But it'd be acceptable to say that life and unlife are filled with and ended with it. And long after life or its parody are complete and all but a long forgotten memory, dust serves as a reminder that once someone or something proud stood tall in its place as it existed. It also covers and hides the last remnants of a past, coveting its secrets and hiding its lies, or the ugliness it represents.

But in the unlife, dust is so much more than what every human believes it to be. Thick layers of it will rest itself upon furniture and books; hiding all that once was- hiding the human past the undead lived before their rebirth into the world of nosferatu. But dust and ash are also what becomes of a vampire when the time has come when their existence, of evil intention or not, is no longer required among the race of the living.

Maybe that is why, then, that humans so strive to keep their dwellings dust-free: to wipe away the years of evil, filthy, hurtful or simply unbearable memories that forever live with us.

Is that why vampires turn into memories when they die for the last time? Because anyone who would have remembered them no longer lives, and so the dust and ashes would just simply be swept away on a breeze, and any semblance of the dead is wiped away and scattered over the earth?

So that no one will remember.

Melancholy gripped at the heart and mind of Seras as she lay in her bed-like coffin, itching to roll over onto her side, but not daring to for the broken bones in her arms, inching ever-so-slowly through the tedious process of healing, its pace sluggish from the lack of fresh blood running through her veins.

She had been lying there, unmoving except the occasional blink, for almost up to a complete twenty-four hours. And the only subject she was even capable of entertaining her mind with was her masters last parting words to her as he left her quite literally broken and trembling against the wall, standing in a pool of blood. And she thanked God silently that it was not her own.

For the uncounted time of that hour alone, she sighed and looked around her room. The blood had all pooled into one giant puddle in the corner of her room and was in the process of coagulating in a rounded tile of darkening crimson, the fine splatter of the same liquid on the walls had long since turned black and stained the stone blocks, and the plastic bag it had all come from was still on the floor, edges curled upward like groping hands towards the roof as the blood around it solidified slightly into a thick goo. There was a large trail leading from the centre of the great pooled mass leading to her bed, and the sheets she now lay on were stained beyond repair, sticking to her cold flesh as she calmly but impatiently waited for her bones to pull themselves back together.

She tried again to force herself into a troubled sleep, figuring that any sleep is better than lying on her bed and staring up into the blank red roof of her coffin.

Slowly, her eyelids began to droop and her vision wavered, slipping soundlessly into a haunted dream.

It sounded like someone screaming in uncontrolled mirth. The hysterical laughter sounded tinny and mechanical, and it filled her room with echoes of it's hollow cackling. The sound was high pitched and broke like waves against a cliff in her ears. And it was giving her the most splitting headache.

Blearily, Seras hit the button on her control pad to lift the lid of her coffin. As soon as it began to rise the sound got louder, and continued to do so as the lid opened up full way.

Seras crawled over to the edge of her bed and put her feet on the cold stone floor, shivering as the chill shot up through her legs. The sound was getting louder and more urgent, clawing at her ears and making them ring painfully.

Shaking her head to lift the after-sleep fog, she got shakily to her feet and staggered over to the table, jerking the receiver of the telephone away from the dial pad. She held it loosely by her side, waiting for the ringing in her ears to subside, before lifting it to her ear.

"Yes?" she said a bit more harshly than she intended.

A sharp voice started barking out orders at her. She barely registered that it was the jewel of the Hellsing organization, and she barely registered the fact that she was being sent out on a mission. All she was capable of noticing were the searing pains in her arms and the throbbing drum of blood in her ears, a sound that was just as bad as the phone ringing.

"Yes sir," she said expressionlessly, nodding to herself, even though she didn't catch a word of what Integra had said.

The line cut out and Seras lowered the receiver back down to the table, setting it beside the telephone and leaving it there. She slowly made her way over to the boxes with all her things in them and opened the one with her uniforms in it. They lay folded and neat on the top of all her other clothes, the blue a sharp contrast to all her other mainly pink shirts and skirts.

She winced a few times and gasped as she pulled on the shirt and skirt, the pain in her arms doubling with any sudden or sharp movements. Her stockings were pulled up her legs carefully and her boots were laced up loosely, so loose that they felt like they were going to fall off with every step as she silently made her way through the corridors of the mansion toward the loading bay, her cannon slung uncomfortably over one shoulder.

When Seras got to the scene it was even worse than what her commander had described. Most of the ghouls were women and children, some missing limbs, mandibles, and other parts of the normal human anatomy. They were crawling and walking around aimlessly, some infrequently testing out what their fellow ghouls tasted like, and others just disappearing around the other side of the building.

The units stopped in a copse of trees off to the side of the small kindergarten and unloaded, the soldiers huddling together in the shadows to watch and prepare for the upcoming fight with the ghouls while their commanders barked orders at them.

Seras crawled through a patch of low bushes on the edge of the thicket and lay on her stomach, frequently averting her eyes from the more gruesomely disfigured victims. She loosened her gun in its holster and crawled back to the rest of the troops to get ready, coaxing herself into a state of apathy for what she was about to do, repeating to herself that they weren't humans any longer and the best thing she could give them was a quick death.

The final command to attack came sooner than predicted and Seras suddenly found herself tearing towards the building with the rest of the troops, their sudden appearance catching at the ghouls and the scent of fresh humans sending their senses into a frenzy of hunger. As a group, the whole ranks of mindless slaves turned and began loping towards the sprinting defence force.

Seras let fire at the nearest opponent and a split second later other gunshots resounded around her. Ghouls and men alike fell with shrieks as the team plunged on.

A/N: Eh. 6.0 I really suck at fight scenes...... Blech. Next chapter is coming as soon as I stop getting homework - Don't worry, it should be soon...--cough-- I hate my teachers. They don't appreciate creavity. So what if I usually do it during class? X.x Hehehe.....

Review Replies:
xXJiNg-JiNgXx: I'm sorry this isn't lnger, but I really suck at long chapters. I lose track of what I'm supposed to be writing about. -
Fairchilde and Sephira Netzach: Thank you!!
Katsumi-chan: Sorry, it's Alucard. I couldn't ever imagine Seras being with anyone else.(Did you see the link in my bio to my Anderson doll? -)
J!NXTEHF!RSTB!TCHTW!N:Spanks! I'll make sure to e-mail you for every new chapter.
Yun Fei: Thanks muchness!!!
Mistical Kat: Thanks. (Wow, I really should just say thanks at the beginning of the A/N, shouldn't I?) I'm glad you're hoked, it gives me a reason not to abandon the whole story every time I run into a brick wall!! Yeah, I have considered professional writing as a career, but I really want to do psycology. -

Snake Bites,
Jinn.

xxXXxx