| Vampires Kilthalia My father was mortal when my siblings and I were born. My brothers, my mother and I are not mortal. How could any vampire ever fall in love with what their kind would consider food? I don’t blame her, actually. My father, though mortal, had the mind of an immortal, conceiving all that he could not do. He was greedy for wealth and power. My mother not only took a liking to him because of this, but because of something that happened long ago between their two families. Certain offspring that I mention are actually born vampires, while others are changed to be blood-suckers (and I’m not talking about lawyers). Far back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s my mother’s family was fleeing the inhalation of her race. Humans had taken over the land, that was engulfed in peace for so long, and innilihiating the vampire populas in Transylvania. My father’s family, whom bared no grudge on the vampire race had seen this atrocity and felt pity for them, so harbored a particular vampire family to safety of England. The vampire family was so eternally grateful that they said no harm would ever come to their rescuers. For generations my mother’s family, the Labell’s, guarded the safety of the Newman family. Unfortunately, the hunters had found out the Labell’s were there in England and slew what they could before they were overthrown and killed utterly. All that was left were two of the generous size of this family. The children of my grandparents, great uncles, and great aunts were all killed in their sleep. When the adults found nothing but dust in their little coffins, they became enraged as they knew whom done the deed. So it was, my grandfathers siblings, the Labell’s, and my grandmother’s siblings, the Ducane’s, their children of the adult variety whom were bitten and transformed all went out on a man hunt for the killers of the little vampires that never had a chance in life. At a local bar were the killers, bragging of their miniscule achievement, until the whole group barged in, paused, then set about in killing and sucking the life out of all those inside. But it wasn’t a total victory. Many lost their lives to those with the knowledge in vampire killing. So all those whom were reborn to be vampires in adulthood were killed and turned to ash and few siblings from either side. A small group of those vampires, that went in, left with their lives. Among those were my grandparents and what few siblings of theirs remained. Since then until the very late 1800’s the rest were hunted down to near extinction of their rare race. You see, my race, and that of my mother and siblings, though us young are only half vampire, we are of an evolved state of vampire. There are your regular, garden-variety, crypt vampires that cannot under any circumstance see the light of day. They only drink the blood of their victims every night, have no image in mirrors, have no shadows, and are negatively affected by garlic, and water, and crosses. Another version of these vampires are those whom have evolved a little to grow wings, but these quickly became extinct. Then there are different vampires that have evolved where they have reflections, can resist garlic and crosses, and cannot see daylight, but still needed to feed every night solely on humans or animals. Those evolved further when a branch of their kind fled to the North. So far North that the six months of daylight and six months of night affected their lives greatly. Needing to feed every night, their internal clocks were messed up because they said it was night and the sun shown as brightly as in the daytime. Most died, but others got used to it and resisted with long naps during the six months of light. Many starved to death in this fashion. A few generations later there were those very few that discovered that they could be up and about during the daylight hours. Though not going outside, they were awake while the sun was up and thus their offspring were used to it. Whatever power level the parent is at is passed onto its offspring. With few people up there and needing to ingest nutrients, the vampires learned to trade their services with the Eskimos for food. Food you as mortals eat everyday like you breath air. It was hard for the vampires to get used to that and some became very ill and others died. The born vampiric children were the ones used to waking during daylight hours not the changed ones. This went on for generations to the point where one family of vampires that had sough refuge in a shack were up and about during the day and a ray of light hit a child and was completely unaffected. He went out and basked in the sun and lived. Now this new vampire was no longer to go out in the light according to time, he could go out whenever his heart desired. That is my breed; the Evopires. Oh that evolution took place eons before the massacre I described. No offence to you mortals, but to you, a vampire is a vampire. You have no conception of the evolutionary changes that have befallen us. But there is yet another breed of vampire that is the farthest it’s ever gone; Arctic Vampires. These have a very unnatural tolerance to cold, can be up and about during the day, but actually choose not to, and drinks upon the blood of fruits and vegetables. But of course, they can eat regular food, just as you do. The history of vampires started as far back as Australopithecus Afarensis, where some found that other people were nutritious and developed ways to “such” the life out of them to keep their own. And being that the perfect time to hunt people; that’s the way vampires developed their love for the night and their senses and everything. But I digress. My mother’s family was hunted down so that no one but my grandparents survived. 1900 came and my mother was born. What a miracle for them that was. My grandparents were already immensely ancient at that point, yet still living with the Newman’s. 45 years passed and the two families moved to Austria for work. Though my mother seemed an infant, she was 45 years old. See, vampiric children age tremendously slow, yet age till they’re at their peek of radiance and stop aging physically. Upon my mother’s 45th year, my father was born and it was agreed that he and my mother were to be married. The year, as you can gather, was 1945; World War II. And now it was my father’s family’s turn to be hunted down like dogs. His heritage is of the Jewish faith and Hitler wanted them all dead. Sound familiar? Humans wanted all vampires dead as well. These two families had more in common than anyone cared to hear about. My father was the third child of many others that were to come after him. Now his family fled annihilation. My mother’s family helped save them one instance after another. Taking on an army would be impossible for two vampires with a small child. In their hometown, when my father was older, he was forced to watch his parents and a younger brother be slaughtered by the Nazis. He ran all the way home after that and cried in the arms of my mother’s parents and with my mother, whom was now growing at the same rate as my father. Because of the eternal friendship the Newman’s and the Labell’s had, they kept the Newman children as their own. They traveled across the ocean to escape the horror and the prosecution. Though, not everyone made it. Many of my father’s younger siblings were killed back in Europe. But one day, on their travels by boat to America, my father and the last two youngest ones were on deck looking at the vast ocean. His two older siblings in their cabin. A renegade wave hit the ship and my father’s littlest brother of all, his favorite, Cameron, was tossed overboard. They were terrorized at the thought of leaving him behind and my father was going to jump in after Cameron, but the next youngest said he’d do it. So now Ralph went in after his baby brother with a life preserver, never to be heard from again. He tried to get the captain’s attention to go back for them, but his voice fell upon deaf ears. My father moped that day. Now all of my father’s family that remained was himself and his two oldest siblings Robert and Mellissa were left. My mother stayed with him ever minute, never leaving his side, never releasing her comforting grip. My grandparents, whilst on that trip to America, taught my mother all she needed to know to be a vampire. My father never really listened because he kept thinking about his miserable life. When they got to America, neither names were changed of my mother or my father’s families, which was a good thing. They made their livings and got little money for the run down apartment they lived in. Their stature and wealth meant nothing here. Immigrants were treated all but well. Mellissa ran away with a wealthy man, never to be heard from ever again and Robert went in the film business. My father, Paul, and my mother, Christine, went on a journey across America to the Great Plains to get away from the bustle of city life and on the way, by train, conceived me. The were still young. Too young to start a family, but hormonal attractions were strong between them. They knew each other since most of their lives and trusted the other immensely. I was an experiment of theirs and came true in 1958. My father was 13 and my mother was only looking 13, but in all truth was really 58. I was a burden on them from the beginning. I had an untimely birth while they were walking through some woods. I was hatched while a pack of wolves were attacking, attracted by my hatching. My father fought them off with a branch and my mother stayed with me to ensure my survival. They were successful in saving my new life, but with a price. My father was wounded, and now, if you ever notice, he does in fact have a scar from that incident. They walked to the nearest town to get me checked out and they made themselves a home there, for a short time. That was out in Oklahoma. Their next tragedy was one day we were having a picnic out in the open plains and they weren’t paying attention to me, and I wandered off in the brush. My parents said that they looked everywhere for me, and around the picnic site. Apparently I had crawled off far before they noticed I was gone. They eventually left many, many hours later, defeated. Now, what I remember was a nice old man coming up to me with his exaggerated cane and a flock of sheep. He found me, and raised me till I was old enough to ask who my real parents were. He had said that it was very peculiar that I had not grown much since he found me. That it was like I grew more slowly than any other child. The doctor had come to check this out, and when he discovered that I wasn’t breathing, but alive, they knew my parents would know what to do. We went to the town that they lived in, but the mayor said they moved out years ago. They only way anyone knew who they were or that I was theirs was because they were friends with the mayor and my mother’s and mine distinctively flaming red hair and glowing emerald green eyes. I tracked my parents down to their home in Michigan and found them home and with more children. They knew it was me, because who else is undead and a flaming red head with those eyes of mine? They welcomed me with open arms and apologized profusely for not paying attention so long ago. I admitted that I bared no ill will toward them, but was glad I found them. I was your equivalent mortal age of 26. My new siblings, Daffy and Donald were real characters and I had fun playing with them in their early years, but as we got older, I outgrew the need to play. My mother had to seat me down every night for as long as I could sit still and she would tell and teach me about what I really was. I had grown with a mortal and so never knew why I was stone cold and never could see my breath in the winter (well, unless I purposely exhaled). She told me that we were a rare breed of vampire. That our race has powers far beyond that of mortals, such as the kind sheep farmer, and other vampires. She told me that we could go through objects, become invisible, fly, hypnotize mortals and animals, and even make them do thing we want them to do, etc, etc. We had unlimited strength and could run as fast as wild horses, even faster. She also told me that we needed to also feed off the life upon people. Maybe that’s why when I was living with the kind sheep farmer that I was the strongest and the fastest. And that also explains why when I would help his wife when we skinned, gutted and bled our meal before it was cooked that I would secretly drink the blood of the animal because I craved it, as if it was wine. That’s what she told me; the next step was to do those things, and she taught me. One day I asked if Dad could do them to, or if it was just what us girls could do. Mother seemed upset by this. Then she told me that he wasn’t like us, that he was different. I asked if he was stronger. Mother said, “No, he’s mortal.” I was taken back by this. I then asked that if I were only half mortal and half vampire that maybe I wasn’t as strong as my mother! She laughed at my concern and said that we really didn’t need our powers in his era, that mankind thought vampires completely extinct, but we weren’t. I can remember reading the few books the farmers had; one was a book on vampires. I studied it carefully and was fascinated, but I thought it hogwash. Learning that I was one of these creatures was…more than I could bear! But the difference was that I could go out in the daylight and eat food. Good thing too, because if I didn’t I’d have surely died the day I was lost. And then I learned that if I didn’t drink the blood of the animals the farmers killed I’d have died anyway. My mother explained that it was only natural that I drank the blood; instinctual, in fact. Sorta like a precaution incase something like my disappearance happened to vampire children. Apparently, vampiric children have a strong attraction to being alone and independent, even thought they are not. Well, I lived happily with my parents and their growing number of children. In fact, in order, there was me, Megan, Daffy, Donald, Billy, whom I gratefully can say is dead. Billy was a pain and he was meaner than anything in the world. Not even my parents liked him. After Billy there was the triplets Hughbert, Deuwis and Louis. Or you know them as Hughie Dewy and Louie, whom at any time can be staying with their uncles Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck. And after the triplets in the littlest and youngest, William. William, by the way, just happens to be the worlds smartest little duckling! My father allowed him to have a three-story laboratory under the house. We have an arctic wolf named Snowey and she’s a doll. Very protective of everyone in the household, but playful and kind. My grandparents come over occasionally and tell stories of the olden days. We, the children, usually ask how old they are, but they never answer. They tell us of when they first met, but that could have been anytime before 1800. Well, for a fact, we know they’re that old; only over 300 years. My mother is just a baby compared with them for she is only 102. I only look 28, but really am 58, and married; my husband was hand picked by my father and transformed to be a full vampire. Well, yeah, now my father’s immortal. What happened was as he was out at work…oh, did I mention he’s Negaduck? *malicious grin* Some lady whom he was writing to came after him and stabbed him multiple times. We were very sad to learn of this. I thought I had lost him forever. We didn’t though. Apparently, my mother had bitten him, exchanged blood, but never killed him. When my father died he was transformed. We were at his funeral and as we were leaving, he sat up in his coffin and asked what was going on. We were so happy to see him up, about and well. My father, I must say, is rather stunning as an immortal. Not that he wasn’t when he was alive, just more so now. And currently, my father wishes my two younger brothers to get married. They have places of their own now and Donald works at my father’s restaurant as a waiter. Not much of a life, but it’s better than mine, being queen of the sewer rats. *rolls her eyes* Well, at least they’re loyal servants! Yeah, we, the Newman children are rather odd, but hey, we’re undead, don’t mess with us. - Megan Newman |