Vampire Room
So you have come to the dark corners of my domain and wish to learn of vampires..... Are you perhaps a dark soul yourself, or merely interested in subjects that are...how shall I put it... a little out of the ordinary? Either way I welcome you into my vampire room
Ah yes, the vampire...is it the mysterious and seductive ruler of the night or a savage beast which crawls through the darkness....or maybe both? There is much to say for this legendary being that has been appearing in different shapes and forms throughout the ages...
In speaking about vampires it is almost impossible not to mention the story of Dracula, Vlad Tepes "the impaler", who was said to impale his victims and drink their blood..., Lady Bathory or the vampires Louis and Lestat as described by Anne Rice, author of the book: "Intervieuw with a vampire". There is also much information about vampires from role-playing games (RPG), like "Vampires the Masquerade"
I will however speak of vampires in general....trying to tell you only the things most of the sources of information seem to agree about, thus giving you an idea what it is we are dealing with when we are speaking of "the vampire"
The first question to be answered is: "What exactly is a vampire?"
A vampire is not a demon...it is not an evil being... The vampire can be best compared with predators from the animal kingdom. The lion cannot help to be what he is...and what he is makes him a natural killer...too bad for the antelopes.
Unfortunately for us the vampires happen to be predators of our "civilised"
world, in which the most common prey is human... The vampire looks like a
human, walks like a human, talks like a human, but definitely is not a human, it surpasses humans in strength, agility and endurance by far. On top of that the vampire has elongated fangs in the upper jaw which it uses to pierce through the skin of their victims (I'll spare you any further bloody details)
In short, the vampire is an exellent hunter who's amazing ability to blend in with humans makes it a true wolf in sheep's clothes...
Vampire feeding behaviour.
The vampire, not unlike the lion I mentionned before, just does what it has to to survive....there is a slight difference though... The lion makes his kill showing no emotion, where as for the vampire...This creature seems to be enjoying every hunt, like a house-cat it plays with it's captured mouse.
One of the vampire's favourite hunting strategies is to seduce the prey....make the prey come to the hunter, instead of chasing it around. They make the prey feel totally comfortable around the hunter or even let them fall in love before revealing their true identity and going in for the kill....
Cruel? Maybe...or maybe it is just their way and natural instinct, and not a bad one either I might add....think about it...why all that tiresome running when you can let your dinner serve itself....?
Although the reason why is not clear, it seems to be a fact that the vampire doesn not eat the entire prey, but merely drinks it's blood...this might be some sort of ritualistic behavour, for the vampire is a spohisticated being, but it could also be that the vampire is able to extract all nutricious elements it needs from the blood alone and does not need to eat the rest of the prey....
Immortality.
The image on the right is the picture of an Anch, it is the pendant of a necklace ripped off by a vampire victim in a near fatal confrontation...It is not often a victim survives such an attack but a few men walked in on them struggling and the vampire chose to keep it's identity a secret and flee instead of fight...
The Anch is an ancient symbol dated back as far as the Egyptian civilisation, it consists of a cross with an oval top and has been seen in many forms. Anchs are often worn by vampires because of their meaning...the Anch is a symbol for life and immortality...and though we are not sure vampires are truly immortal, reports of
attacks by the same vampire in differrent decades or even centuries are not rare....
Recent studies on what some people claim to be the remains of vampires have shown that it could be very possible vampires have an extremely slow metabolism... which means that they can survive without food for a long time, but also that the aging proces is significantly slower when compared to humans. The numbers given in these recent studies indicate that in the passing of a decade a vampire ages the equivalent of a human year.... If this is true, a vampire that has lived for a period of 150 human years as we know them is merely a teen and has his whole life ahead of him....
How this is possible and weather or not the world of medicine could use information like this to enhance the quality and quantity of life by influencing human metabolism is not clear... there is simply not enough research done and the government denies the existance of any such being as a vampire... therefore government funds cannot be applied for research in this area and any chance of developping a drug for human immortality remains as much of a myth as the vampire itself...
Vampire birth.
Where do they come from? And, more importantly, when they live for so very long they certainly have plenty of time to reproduce... why is it that the whole world is not yet completely covered with vampires? If these are the questions bothering you, I have disturbing news, the world very well might be covered with vampires, but you and I would be the last ones to know... remember, they do not reveal themselves to their prey untill it is allready too late to escape.
But it is a good point though...many species that have a long lifespan, do have a very low birth-rate, it is very interesting to look into this aspect of vampire-behaviour. It is commonly believed that there are two main ways in which a vampire can generate offspring. The way we all know by the movies, biting a human, thus turning him or her into a vampire is not quiet correct.
In fact the vampire lets his victim bleed completely dry and when the human soul leaves the body and it is nothing more then an empty shell, the vampire begins to nurture his intended child, he feeds it with his own blood. Then another soul seems to awaken in the body, a predatory soul that drinks the vampires blood vigorously, it is the soul of a newborn vampire... In the process the vampire must be aware that he to can loose too much blood and his offspring could kill him, so it is very important that he stops the infant in time... Most of the time however the vampire succeeds, yet both parent and child sit together, dazed by the experience...Another vampire is born...
The other way in which a vampire child can be born is the way we humans consider to be normal, like most animal species the male and the female vampire can produce offspring by having a regular pregnancy and regular birth. Because human and vampire anatomy are so very much alike one could asume that the pregnancy has the same length as a human pregnancy, but considering the very different metabolism, we just cannot be sure... This way of reproduction, though to be thought off as being the more normal one is still a mystery to us.
But, returning to the main question, this way of reproduction cannot take very long, and considering the enormous life span of the vampire there should be more vampires than humans by now...
This does not seem to be the case... The vampires themselves should be considered the most important factor however, because they are very intelligent and they have themselves seen how some species reproduce untill there is no more food and then starve to death, the vampires decided not to create offspring randomly...
I might need to explain this a little further; Vampire society is considered by insiders to be a very strictly governed, strongly hierarchial society. There is a certain group of very old vampires that are respected by all, comparable to the village-elders in some cultures... This group has the wisdom of ages and have seen things the youngher vampires can only dream about... having survived so very long they have earned their respect and their decicions are the law...
Realising that random reproduction could lead to their own destruction, by getting greater in number the amount of prey available per vampire decreases, thus leading to hunger and war over food-recourses and in the end death and starvation for all... The elders could not let this happen and began to make laws concerning the creation of progeny... the earth was devided in regions and to each region a ruler was assigned... If a vampire in this region desired offspring, the ruler should be asked for permission, if granted the vampire could do as he pleased, but...the word of the ruler is final...
Any vampire child born outside of the law and his or her parent(s) will be executed...that is the word of the law and to be followed by the letter. Because of this strict regulation and the appearent discipline of the entire species the vampire-population does not get out of control.
This way vampires have made and allways will make sure that vampire-society remains an entirely hidden culture, ordinary humans will see nothing more than perfectly integrated persons, living ordinary lives like themselves. Within the safety of the prey's ignorance the predator walks amongst them, watching, waiting, untill it is time to feed again...
Vampire death.
Now that you know a little more about the vampires' way of life it is perhaps time to discuss it's death... Can a vampire die, can it be killed, perhaps very interesting questions for the ones that might one day face a vampire themselves, as intended prey or otherwise...The awnser seems both simple and reassuring: Yes a vampire can die and be killed.
A vampire, like any other living creature, can die of simple old age... a vampire is not a demon or anything of that sort, remember? It is not true that vampires are the "undead". This is a misunderstanding that can be explained: If you see someone that has died, but this empty shell, the human body gets fed by a vampire's blood, thus becoming a vampire child (see 'vampire birth' above) and you see the person you know is dead walking around again, now as a newborn vampire. You easily can consider this person to be a living dead when in fact it is just a youngh vampire born from the mortal body of the person you knew. It may be hard to comprehend for us, but it is actually a normal way of vampire birth, why make a child with another vampire if you can choose one you like from the humans around you.
My point however was: a vampire is not an undead being, not a demon or supernatural fenomenon and therefore can die like any other being, but it is a species unlike any other in the world of living things... and because of it's very slow metabolism it can live for many centuries. To be honest, little is known about vampires dying of old age, we do not know wether they are buried, cremated or anything like that.... vampire funerals are sacred traditions not known to any outsider...
But the killing of vampires is probably displayed in any movie about vampires, but how accurate is the information from these movies... First of all: A cross doesn't hurt a vampire (unless you hit him over the head with it), this is just a "Hollywood myth", because a cross is merely a human religious symbol and because the vampire is not an evil demon, like the movies oftend tend to portray it...what harm can a symbol do?
Secondly: Though vampires tend to be nocturnal in their behaviour there is no evidence what so ever that sunlight can kill them, in fact there are many reports of vampire sightings in broad daylight and i am affraid we will have to rule out sunrays as a possible tool for killing vampires.
The third myth is the garlic....who the hell though of that?.....It is so stupid I don't even want to eloborate on that one....
How does one kill it? The vampire is much stronger and faster than ordinary humans....what chance do we have in fighting it? Not much of a chance in fact, but a vampire's body is very similar to the body of human being, so anything that would destroy a human body, can destroy a vampires body, however the vampires body is much stronger therefore more force should be applied. So to kill a vampire you should find the most effective ways of killing a human and intensify the force used... A vampire can bleed to death, the most well known way of afflicting damage to the vampire is directly into the heart: a stake through the hart...in that aspect the movies are right...to put a stake through the heart disturbs the bloodcirculation and the vampire dies of oxigen deprevation of the brain.
You can shoot it, impale it, burn it, even poison it (but due to the slow metabolism this way is not that effective, it takes very long before the poison is absorbed into the body), hit it with your car... but I warn you...you'd better make sure you know what you are doing, for if you fail....The vampire wil not give you a second chance (if he will give you a chance at all)
To conclude: the vampire is a hunter, and we are it's prey...the vampire is a mysterious and strong yet respectable "adversary" in the struggle for life all beings are entangled in... But I believe a better understanding can give us better insight and a growing respect for this wonderfull creature...and however I do not think it matters much to the vampire wether we respect it or not better understanding very well might increase our chance of survival....
