Welcome to the Hellmouth

"In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer."

These words have been around for centuries. They're even older than I am, in fact. Any vampire worth his salt knows these words, and takes warning from them. At least, the smart ones do. The more brash ones ignore them, and pay the consequences.

Perhaps I should introduce myself? After all, that's only the polite thing to do, have the narrator introduce his or herself. Although in Rebecca the narrator never mentions her name at all except to mention that her husband-to-be spelled her name right, which apparently was unusual. But that's it. They never mentioned her name. Not once. Not even in the film Alfred Hitchcock made.

Incidentally, I didn't notice this until I had read the book through four more times.

Clever Daphne du Maurier.

Oh dear, I'm digressing, pray forgive me.

All right, I will tell you my name. I've had several, but I always return to the name I was given at birth, and it's the one I will give you now: Margery Selwyn.

Oh by the way, I'm not the Slayer. No, far from it.

I'm not a vampire either, by the way. Though I suppose that's confusing given I said the words are even older than I am, giving the idea that I'm extremely old. Well, I am, but that doesn't mean I'm a vampire. You're not far off though.

Apologies, I seem to fall into the habit of prattling on when I get to writing. I suppose that's a result of having lived too long and having too many thoughts. They tend to jump from subject to subject in a stream that makes sense only to myself.

See? There I go again. I'm meant to be talking about myself yet I keep jumping to the subject of my mind. Very well, I must remedy this.

As I said, I'm not a vampire. Not quite. I'm half a vampire. I was born in 1360, so yes, I am very old.

I suppose I can give you a few details about being half vampire, if I can shorten it down. How does one shorten over six hundred years of existence? I'll try and explain, at any case.

Basically, I share some traits with vampires, but not all. By that I mean that I have immortality, obviously, and while my senses are heightened well above that of a human's, they're not on the level of vampires. I'm stronger than the average human, but only just. I'm not as strong as vampires, nor am I as resilient. If you stab me with…well, anything really: stake, knife, spear, or sword, I will die. You have to hit me in the right spot for me to completely be annihilated, but I'm not hard to kill.

My heart doesn't beat, but that doesn't mean I can't die.

There are a few things I can handle better than vampires, however. I can walk in sunlight, though preferably not for long because I will start to burn. To remedy this I wear a lot of jackets with hoods. Sunlight is more uncomfortable than deadly. A direct hit will feel like I'm getting too close to a fire.

Then there's the usual: crosses, holy water, etc. Crosses don't bother me terribly, though if I touch one it does feel as though I'm grabbing the handle of a hot teapot, and holy water stings, but does not burn.

Ah yes, and I don't cast a reflection, nor can my image be captured on camera.

How can I explain how this works? I'm not entirely sure myself. I'm the only half vampire I know of; though I'm sure others exist.

To try and explain this I must explain something about vampires. Vampires, basically, are demons possessing a dead human body, which means I'm sort of undead, though I was born that way. Does this mean I have a demon in me? Yes and no.

No in the sense that I don't have a full demon inside me, but yes in the sense that I have the essence, or aura of a demon inside me.

That was my gift from my father.

He was the one with a demon, and since a demon technically can't be in two vessels at once, unless it's some sort of super-demon, I got the Essence of the demon.

It's not a problem most of the time…provided I don't let it out. It's something I can always feel, deep inside me. That clawing, gnawing, wrathful, ravenous thing that screams to be released. But I can't risk it.

I did once…

We'll not talk about that.

And lastly, we come to the most important question: Do I eat, or drink, people?

Sometimes.

What? Don't cast that look upon me, I am what I am.

Being half vampire means I don't have to have blood as regularly as full-vampires, but I will need to feed eventually. The longer I go, the weaker I get, and the easier it is for me to succumb to things like sunlight. Also, it breaks down my resistance to the Essence, which would gladly have a bloodbath to satiate my hunger.

So, about twice a month, I have a drink. Not on a living person, mind you, I haven't done that in a while. A good seventy years or so.

I know, that doesn't seem like a long time, given my especially long lifespan, but keep in mind blood-packs weren't invented back then, and the only alternative was animals. They help a little, but that means I have to feed more frequently.

Feeding on a human is…different.

It's a guilty pleasure. To put it in perspective, I suppose it would be the same if you ate an entire platter of brownies. You know it's wrong, and you know you should stop, but all you can think at the time is: "Oh God this is so delicious!"

I have had a brownie, by the way. They're nice.

I apologize I can't praise them more but human food is…a little bland. I suppose that's the vampire side of me speaking.

All right, I believe that is all the basics covered. If you're wondering about my vast history and my origins, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait. There's much to be told about things other than me, so I propose we get to them.

The story I'm going to be telling you takes place in 1996, in the town of Sunnydale, California.

That's when I first met the Slayer.