Hilda Brownstead

**Hilda** is a secondary character in *You Feel It Just Below the Ribs*. She was a patient of Miriam Gregory at the Institute.

## Biography

When Hilda was around eight years old, her younger brother Charlie, who was three, got very sick. She remained by his side for several months. Hilda and Charlie were volunteered for the Age Ten Protocols before they became mandatory. In the early 1970s while she was in her early 30s, Hilda was arrested for sending letters to Charlie over several years, though he by contrast showed no sign of remembering her. She was sentenced to five years in prison, but opted to take a partial replacement of therapy at the Institute, which would last until she was deemed fit to leave.

Hilda failed her first assessment at the end of her first course of treatment, and was sent to Dr. Gregory for a more intensive regimen. Dr. Gregory worked with her for six months before noticing anything out of the ordinary. Though her answers to the questions were standard, there was a slight crease in her brow that betrayed her careful control of the meditative process (without breaking the trance state). At the end of the session, Dr. Gregory asked Hilda to meet her in her office that evening, and Hilda seemed afraid.

That evening, she was brought to Dr. Gregory's office at seven o'clock. When asked, Hilda remained scared, but also a little proud, and explained how she had managed to give false responses to the assessment questions. She explained that she had rehearsed having the acceptable thoughts so that they would surface during meditation instead of her memories of her brother. Hilda asked what would happen now that she had been found out asking if she was going to be sent "below". Dr. Gregory asked her to clarify, and enlisted Hilda's help in discovering the truth about the Extensive Studies Lab.

Dr. Gregory turned in Hilda's failed assessment and sent her below equipped with a cassette player and a microphone, instructing her to record over what was sent to report back what she saw and went through in the Extensive Studies Lab. Hilda went to sleep in her normal room, but woke up in a small white room, sore all over with puncture marks in her elbows. She suspected she had been drugged, because she was a light sleeper usually. To record her experience thus far, she sat below the door so that the camera couldn't see her, and hoped it couldn't pick up sound.

Over the next three days, Hilda experienced several physical exams, including samples of blood, hair, and saliva, and an endurance test where her heart rate was monitored as she ran on a treadmill. Immediately before she collapsed, unable to keep up with the machine, it was stopped and she was immersed in an ice bath. She managed to submit tapes describing all of these experiences. There were also verbal interrogations, but she found the mandated small talk even more terrifying. On the ninth day, she sent only one tape to Dr. Gregory, and it was mostly silent, ending with only heavy sob-like breathing. That was the last tape Dr. Gregory received.

Hilda recorded more cassettes, although Dr. Gregory would not find them until later. In one recording, she described the light fixture at length, but in others, she described the brutal "medical" procedures she was put through, including her eyes being kept open all day and cutting open her abdomen to plant a device just below her ribs. Many of the tapes silent or had static or Hilda crying, and some featured her reciting gruesome nursury-rhyme-like verse. The one after the first rhyme was of her laughing to herself. The final tape had nothing but static on both sides.

Some time after the tapes stopped returning, Dr. Gregory encountered Hilda in the corridor, but she did not notice her even after she attempted to catch her attention. Miriam had to grab her arm and speak her name looking directly into her eyes before she acknowledged her. She did not answer any of her questions, and seemed pained when Charlie was mentioned. Hilda said she had to go to her assessment, because she was going to get to go home. Later, while looking for the final tapes in her bedroom, Dr. Gregory found Hilda lying in bed with her eyes open, vacantly staring at the ceiling and unresponsive.

## Additional info

* The name "Hilda" is derived from the Germanic word "hild" for "battle"

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.326-30
2. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.322-25
3. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.335-37
4. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.346-49
5. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.340-41
6. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.345