Hello blogosphere! I’m new here, call me Gwen. Let me tell you about myself. I am older than I look but I never act my age. I love action movies and video games…the gorier the better. I am a voracious reader and I love too many genres to pick a favourite. Right now I am reading a classic… Dracula. Man did Stoker have it wrong. Seriously! Sunlight killing vampires! Crosses, Holy Water… HA! That is all a load of shit. Let me tell you about real vampires.
You may be wondering how I could know such things…well…I am one. I am somewhere around 500 years old though I kinda lost count a while back. I will admit that I am pale but no more than a human could be. My skin is like porcelain in texture and pale ivory in colour. I can’t tan…my skin is not able to darken or burn. My eyes are normal…sort of. They change colour when I am very emotional but other than that they look dark brown. I am a LIVING creature! I am not dead or undead thank you very much! I am nocturnal by nature but, just like you can learn to stay up at night and sleep during the day, I can learn to sleep at night. I can heal from any wound and I am almost impossible to kill so I really have nothing to fear from people which is good because you have been out to eradicate my species for ages. In what follows I will let you in on my life. I will not hide any aspects of my nature and you can judge for yourself whether I am to be feared or not.
Many people believe that vampires appear as beautiful people but this is false. We blend. There are few ugly vampires but that is more due to natural selection. I would not say that I am beautiful though others have said so. I am not super thin but I am super strong. Most vampires are like me… average… and often women. There are no ugly male vampires and that’s because it would be very difficult for them to convince a woman to go willingly with them. Even an ugly woman can get a man alone for a while.
Blaring question: do vampires drink blood? Answer: Yes. Now let me elaborate. Vampires do drink blood and it is not always human. We can drink animal blood but not for extended periods of time. Ultimately we need to feed on humans but that does not mean we need to kill them. Like a human our stomachs only hold about 2 cups of fluid. That being said a person will not die from losing that amount… they may be dizzy but it would not kill them. We really don’t want people to die; it draws attention and it causes suffering to others whom we may come to know. It is really awkward when you find out that the person you were feeding on is a friend of a friend and they decide to introduce you.
I know you probably have a ton of questions so here is the short version
- Sunlight ——————- No
- Garlic ——————- No
- Holy Water ——————- No
- Crosses ——————- No
- Running water ——————- No
- Wooden stakes ——————- No
- Fire ——————- No
- Iron/Silver ——————- No
- Immortal ——————- Yes*
- Dead/undead —————— NO
- Born or Turned —————— Born*
- Infectious —————— Very Rare
- Fangs —————— Yes
*We are immortal but we do age up until we reach an age of between 20 and 25 then we stop aging forever.
I am betting that you are wondering what high school was like for me. I was a nerd… I took all the available AP courses and did well in them. I was a bit of a teacher’s pet but that was more because I was still new to fitting in with humans and so I didn’t realize that being polite to teachers was considered sucking up. Oh well. I had a group of human friends whom I hung out with during the lunch hour… we played card games. I won quite often ;). The best part was the Halloween party I threw every year. I should have been in set design for what I did with such a small budget. I spent hours making the cobwebs look real. A fake murder scene in the entrance complete with bloody tracks and prints! A mad scientist setup and fake cemetery. We had a blast and I was able to show off my fangs without anyone realizing they were real.
The hardest part about high school was feeding. The best places to get people to come with you are bars and clubs but there are quite a few criminals on the street too. I had drug dealers operating out of an alley not far from my house so that made things easier. Other than the drug dealers I used to go for late night walks in the bad part of town. I have never done the whole feeding on animals bit since I love animals… my whole family is that way. We have pets, 2 cats and a dog.
That pretty much covers high school. It really was uneventful. Sometimes it can be hard if young vampires have difficulty being around people but I never had that problem. I was never tempted to attack one of the students at my school and neither was my sister. University was a little different but that was more because of my job.
I was working 2 jobs while attending school full time. It was brutal but I was making it work. On Fridays I would go to this sushi place just down the road from my school and practice my Japanese. By the way, we can eat human food it’s just more like junk food to us. I love pizza and chocolate which is why I am not super skinny like my sister. It was really fun and the people were so nice! Some Mondays I would go to the movies between my classes…morning bio and evening crim… but only if I had finished all my homework. I usually worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday as a flaggy (other than the one semester I took Japanese) and 5-10pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the other job.
The other job is not one I am super proud of but I have to stay under the radar so it works. I also work as a store clerk in a large store. I have been moved around as of late but back then I worked in the electronics section. I met some real characters there J. For the most part it was pretty good. The other people in my department were fun to work with and we all got along with two exceptions whom I am not going to talk about. I did not handle them as well as I wish I could say I did. Don’t worry they remain unscathed but I was more than a little tempted. It was, at its worst, worth having to move but I convinced my supervisor to not schedule me at the same time as them. I hate having to resort to such childish measures but I really would have gone after them.
We were all really close in the department and we all talked outside of work so it was really sad when the department was combined with two others and our supervisor was let go. It sucks even more because the person who replaced her was terrible. She follows staff around telling them to move faster no matter how fast they were moving to begin with. More than that she would spread rumours about other managers and staff. She would say horrible things to you if there were no witnesses and she even was known to reduce staff to tears. This woman was not management material. She knew nothing about how to get things done and as a result her staff suffered since she used them as scapegoats. By this time I was in another department so I escaped the worst of her abuse. It used to be that this place was relatively pleasant to work in now it feels like slave labour. With every day I grow more tired of this horrible place but I have to stay below the radar so there are few options.
Long ago vampires didn’t keep such a low profile but now we have no choice. There are paparazzi following anyone of interest, hackers stealing photos of anyone who may make the front page and everyone looking for the shot that will make them rich. It is a dangerous time to be different.