I'm pacing back and forth in my room, the three letters burning my hand.
In her tiny, hurrying handwriting, she is unfolding her bitter, sickening story of how she came to be one of the eternal children living in Santa's den, and everything she's seen in her 100 years of undying servitude. Forever trapped in a child's body, eternally bowing to a guilt-driven monster.
The boxes on the toy soldiers lay empty at my feet and I look at them in horror.
She made them...she made them all...and know what must I do?
Do I go for the last box? Do I open it or bury it somewhere deep? What should I do?
What would you do if you knew?
(painting by XUE WANG)
"..Soon he is going to come for inspection again so I have only a few minutes left to complete this letter. It too will be placed inside a toy soldier box. This is my final act of desperation. Three boxes, three toy soldiers all ready to go into the bag.
It was in that bag, that blood-stained, putrid-smelling bag that I was brought to this place, not knowing what had happened to me.
I was only seven years old when he shoved that chlorophorm rag under my nose. I was only seven when he buried his teeth inside my skin and turned me into this. A vampire child, his little helping elf.
A hundred children, this is how many we are, blood slaves, feeding on eachother's blood and he on us, until the end of time. Santa's little helpers...
Sometimes one of us gets lucky and manages to escape this eternal torture by finding a hole inside this torture chamber of a mansion and running right into the sun turning into ashes. It is such a release to know that the next lucky one could be me. But the hole is immediately mended and more blood is spilled as an example to the rest of us.
By the following evening that child is replaced by another...and another.
I can hear his boots echoing in the corridor.....he's here!"
Toy Soldier two: Santa
"Every Christmas my mum would ask me to write him a letter. I was always a good girl and he always brought me what I asked for present.
"But how will he come into our house mama?"
"Down the chimney dear.." my ignorant mother would answer.
Now hear the truth and guard your chidren night and day. Don't let them out of your sight not even where you think they are safe.
Santa Claus is a 300 year-old, blood-thirsty fiend who lives century after century feeding on the same children he makes presents for, the same children he visits on Christmas night, the same children he turns into slaves.
He creeps into their bedrooms and selects the ones he will haunt in the new year, the ones he will feed upon. He flies through the night sky and magically trasforms into something small that will help him sneak inside your home through the narrow chimney.
He's clothes a cheap facade to hide his cadaverous form, his moustache and beard are mere tricks to hide his sharp canines and powerful jaw.
The coca-cola company did the rest.
Santa Claus, the only undead out in the open, has managed to enter your hearts in such a way that he is always invited to your homes and needs no special invitation..."
Toy Soldier 3: My last act of desperation.
(painting by XUE WANG)
"If you have managed to gather all the boxes, if you have read all my lines know this: there is another box that you must find.
In that last box I have placed my limbs side by side, the limbs I cut with the kitchen knife, my head and torso are there too...waiting to spring to life...by you.
I dismantled myself, in order to escape the evil fiend, the only way I knew; by turning myself into one of his toys and sneaking out the way I was carried in; inside his horrid bag.
Once you find me you will surely think I am broken or dead though I will be neither.
Don't be hasty...
Arrange my pieces as they were and spill some blood inside my mouth.
My eyes will open and I shall heal, with so many secrets to reveal....
I've sent this box along with the others. I don't know whether I will live if nobody bothers.
I hope it is you who opens it and not some innocent child.
Therefore, I thank you in advance,
Yours truly,
Lulu "
What should I do.....?
