Killing a Vampire

Many people have been peppering me recently with the question: “How could you kill a vampire?” I am very pleased to answer this question now, and in detail. The short version is that you cannot kill a vampire. First, you would need to catch a vampire, an incredibly difficult feat. Our swiftness and stealth would enable us to escape any traps you humans might lay. Then, if you somehow succeeded where thousands o f men have failed, you would have to find a way of surmounting our strength and vicious intelligence. If all of these ludicrous tasks were to be accomplished, you would have only two options.

The first, and simplest, option would be to drain all the blood out of your captive. This could, theoretically, be achieved with needles and tubes, like one of those intra-venous machines you use in hospitals. This, if you managed to do it, would be as close to killing the vampire as you could get, without putting your own life in very serious jeopardy (Pro-Tip: Relatively speaking, of course. Attempting to kill a vampire is literally number three in my list of “the stupidest things I can imagine”).

As I said, draining the vampire would not even be enough to kill him. You would weaken him; truly, he would be almost as weak as he was as a human. But, he would still be a vampire. As a matter of fact, draining him of all blood would enhance his vampiric powers. Confused? Of course you are, you’re a human. I’ll explain, although honestly it should be obvious.

“To be a vampire is to be thirsty.” This is the fundamental truth of our race, and is primarily what defines who and what we are. By this definition, if you make a vampire as thirsty as possible, you make him more of a vampire than ever. That said, his enhanced human features (Pro-Tip: Vampires retain the human attributes of strength and speed despite the transformation process, and these tend to wane and wax depending on how much blood the vampire has consumed) would be severely weakened. His vampiric aspects, however, would surpass your darkest nightmares.

I said there were two options, but as yet have only mentioned one. That is because the other option is almost guaranteed to be suicidal. As opposed to draining the vampire of blood, you could also…fill him with it. If you had enough blood, you could insert it into his bloodstream through a similar apparatus as you might have used to suck it all out. Then, you would probably die.

I return again to the definition of a vampire: “To be a vampire is to be thirsty.” Therefore, if you could satisfy the thirst with enough blood, the vampire would be a vampire no more, and would resume his life as a human. Of course, that would be a very short life indeed, as all of the years he skipped as a vampire would suddenly catch up to him in a five minute time span, likely killing him. However, in the moments before he crumbled away to dust, he would have the power (and more importantly, the motivation), to kill you and everyone else in the vicinity. He would still die…but then again, so would you.

Now, I would be in a great deal of trouble right now, if it weren’t for the fact that these circumstances are impossible to bring about…for you. I shall have to tell you the stories of the Clan Wars sometime. Not now, though. Now, I have some hunting to do.

Fashion of Late

There’s not a vampire in the world who has not made the sad mistake I am about to describe. I once spent a good fifteen hours stalking a man, convinced by the size of his head and legs that the large coat he wore was stuffed with downy feathers. I was grossly incorrect; indeed, the coat was surprisingly thin for the season. This is beside the point. The sum of it is, that I had happily slurped my way through a full two pints of his blood before I realized how disgusting it tasted, how many fatty patches there were, and how large my victim had turned out to be. Enraged, and in no small way nauseous, I snapped his neck and promptly vomited into a nearby garbage bin.

Of course, an even more horrific mistake can lie on the opposite end of the spectrum. Imagine, if you will, that you are a vampire. You have spotted a fine meal for yourself, of mid-ranging size and tender age: the perfect type to contain nutritionally balanced B negative blood (Pro-Tip: Yes, I can tell what blood type you are by smell alone. Each one has a different flavor you see, and I can smell you from across a crowded room, no problem. Mind you, that’s not always a benefit…). You sneak to her apartment and wait quietly for her to enter, after she’s finished her meal at the restaurant you spotted her in. Once she walks through the door, you strike. Tearing through her large coat with your nails, you are just about to bite through the skin when you are confronted by a truly terrible sight. The girl is emaciated, every rib is visible, practically a skeleton. Disgusting! Clearly, you think, she was cast out onto the streets. But, no…she is one of them.

They hide among us, wearing our clothes, walking our streets, and laughing along like nothing is different. Secretly, they are attempting to starve themselves to death by a disturbing process known in the vampiric world as “dieting.” There is no nutrition in their blood, and consuming it can often result in diluted venom and a weakening of our natural abilities. Truly, they are a plague upon our world (Pro-Tip: Don’t think that by over-eating or not eating at all that you will escape me. If I find either of these traits in a potential meal, I generally sever their spinal columns so as to prevent breeding, and subsequently the spread of this atrocity).

However, there is still hope. You may have noticed a certain trend in the clothing world, in which the articles placed on the body are, shall we say, much smaller than one might consider usual. I cannot begin to extol the virtues of this development, but I feel honor-bound to try. It is so wonderfully ingenious, so amazingly convenient, and such a useful convention, that I feel quite simply astonished that it originated among humans.

It has become easier than ever to gauge your victim’s size and level of physical activeness. A mere couple hundred years ago, everyone had those Hellish tunics and robes, but now life is much improved.

The lesson of it all is, buy skinny jeans and leggings. I’ll thank you for it later.

Vampirogenesis

            Having explained how vampires are created in no small amount of detail, you may see a minor problem. There must be some original source, an original vampire, who subsequently spawned others of his kind. Here we leave the realm of concrete knowledge, and traverse the shadowy unknown. There is no generally accepted theory of Vampirogenesis, but I can describe to you several of the more widely accepted ideas.

            First is the separation theory, the idea that the source of our powers came from a species completely different from humans, and that it is only by chance that humans are compatible for transformation. This makes perfect sense, except that these “elder vampires,” as they are called, are nowhere to be found. Separation theorists believe that these “elders” had all of our power (indeed, some think that they had much more power than we do today), but did not have our longevity. Thus, they eventually died out, but not before passing their venom into the human race, and thus creating us: a hybrid mixture with both long life and extraordinary powers.

            There is some evidence of this theory, but not much. Many point to the gods of Greek and Roman mythology as the last of the elders. And yet…and yet I still think that if they had stronger powers, they would more longevity than us, not less. But, that is just my opinion.

            The second theory is the “Humanic” theory. This is the idea that vampires did indeed originate from human DNA, and for some reason mutated and evolved into the beautiful predator that plagues your people to this day. This could make sense, but no one can yet explain the reason for such a radical change from the human genome could occur. And even so, shouldn’t this mean that all humans are evolving into vampires? But, humans never turn into vampires without the catalyst of venom. So where did the original venom come from? And we’re back at the beginning again. This is a nice thought, but has very little proof.

            Finally, there is the “Divinely Damned” theory. This one is popular with the Judeo-Christian converts. The main though is that God (capital “G”) cursed a human (many like to point to Adam’s son Cain as a likely subject) to be eternally thirsty, and only satisfied by drinking blood. This man inadvertently spawned others of his kind, and the rest is history. This theory also has a ring of truth to it, but it requires a certain faith in the divine that many vampires lack. Plus, we don’t exactly like the idea that many subscribers to this theory also believe, the idea that vampires don’t have souls.

            There you have it. I suppose it doesn't really matter to a human where the first vampires came from, I mostly include this essay for the purposes of being thorough and complete in my vampiric education. As I said, Vampirogenesis is an unknown topic; and it is not one I suggest you bring up with an actual vampire. They will most likely make your screams loud and your suffering long.

Vampiric Venom

Time for a truly fascinating subject: vampiric venom. Our venom is what makes us what we are, it shapes us, it changes us, and it empowers us. Almost all humans are aware that our venom is the catalyst for your transformation. As I have stated previously, our venom is what replaces your blood. It runs through our veins, powering our limbs and keeping us in our state of living death. It also is our greatest weapon against you.

What many humans do not know is that if I was to insert my fangs into your body (Pro-Tip: Your jugular vein, to be specific, although the femoral arteries are also very good.) and release my venom into your body before sucking you dry, you would die in the most painful way imaginable. Our venom does not interact well with your blood, that's why we need to suck your blood if we desire to change you.

I'll explain more thoroughly: if one drop of vampiric venom comes into physical contact with human blood, the blood will instantly begin to chemically chain-react in a manner so violent that it bursts through the veins and out of every orifice in your body. Sadly, the emptied blood in useless to drink, the reaction removes any vitality from it. On the whole, it is better for both parties if we drain you first.

I caused a human to burst like that once, and it was the most unpleasant death I have ever seen or caused. It is a potent weapon, however, if you are jumped by a group of humans. Usually, if they see one of their comrades explode for seemingly no reason (You know, because I'm lightning fast) they will back off.

Now, I have answered some questions about venom, but have spawned others about vampirogenesis. These I will answer, next week.