Chapter 1

(Patience Moor)

The term vampire means someone who drains blood out of a human being. There are many myths, facts, and exaggerations about our kind. One really common myth is that we don't need blood, just a human's energy. I find that funny, and it actually reminds me of the dementors in Harry Potter. We can't just feed off of a human's energy, and truth be told, I doubt any vampire even knows how to do that. Sorry to surprise you, but we actually need blood. If we tried to rely on human energy we wouldn't live very long, mostly because of the energy we use everyday. Compared to what a regular human does, they burn about 1620 calories a day. If the math were to be on calories, a vampire would be burning about 8100 calories a day, because we do five times more than the average human. Plus, apparently our kind has heard a rumor that most humans don't actually use a lot of energy, due to the fact that this thing called "technology" has come out, so humans are lazy. If the myth that we feed off of their energy was true, we'd be almost extinct, just because if a human doesn't use energy, how can we take it? That's the way I see it at least.

Another funny thing is that apparently, people think we're undead, and that we sleep in coffins. I am here to tell you straight up that that is not true! I happen to be very alive, and I sleep on a wonderful queen sized bed in my house. I once asked my father why the humans think we are undead and why they thought we slept in coffins. He said it was because humans were willing to believe anything they wanted to hear without proof. Even if there was proof, they didn't have to believe it all because they didn't want to.

Father told me more myths that humans thought about vampires. One was that they thought we were immortal.

"They think we can live forever Patience," he told me.

"Don't they realise that immortality is impossible?" I asked.

"Remember, my darling, they only believe what they want to believe, and turn a blind eye to what it really can be," he told me as he stroked my hair by the fireplace.

If we were all immortal it would be bad, because overtime a vampire becomes weaker as they age, meaning one day, we wouldn't be able to do anything normally.

I remember one day, when I was nine, my mother and father told me another myth about us. They told me a funny story about how we could fly.

"They like to say that we can fly through the trees and into the sky above, higher than any plane, higher than any building," my mother told me with a smile on her face.

"I just don't understand," I murmured. "If we could fly, why would we have the ability to be able to run fast? If we can fly or run fast, the other ability would be almost useless."

"You see my darling, you would be proving the humans wrong, and if you told them and gave them proof, they wouldn't be able to believe you. They only see what they want to see," she whispered to me.

I've also been told that vampires are evil, and that they have fangs. Neither of those are true. Vampires can't have fangs, because fangs are just long teeth, and if we had long teeth our mouths couldn't close properly, and we would look as though we always had a sunken face. We can also only kill specific humans. We are only allowed to kill the people who do the world wrong, such as murderers, rapists, and other criminals. Even then, we still need permission from Dalahari, our Vampiret. A Vampiret is like our leader, yet he isn't so strict. We have to request to kill the human, then state what they have done. If it is allowed, we kill, feast, and then that vampires is rewarded. If we just go killing humans at random or without permission, it can go one of two ways. If we don't kill them by the time we are found we are sentenced to a public flogging. If the victim isn't aware at all and doesn't know what was about to take place, the accused gets ten lashes. If the victim knew but wasn't hurt, the accused gets fifteen lashes. If the victim knew, was hurt, yet didn't die, the accused got twenty. But if the victim, no matter what, was killed, the accused got whipped until they died.

We're also not evil. We like to consider ourselves as pretty good people. We are protectors. We kill the unworthy to save the worthy. We will protect humans, and animals, with our lives. We also do that because we don't solely rely on blood. We can actually eat real food too. We can eat only real food and no blood for a month before we start to feel the loss of it.

And lastly, another common myth about us is that we can only be killed with a stake through the heart. Now, that could kill us, but couldn't it kill anyone really? And we can be killed many ways, just like humans, but some of it will be harder to do. So instead of making a stake, which is a big waste of time, money, and resources, just grab a gun and shoot us, or grab a knife and stab us. We'll feel it, I promise. We're not oblivious to physical pain.

There are also a lot of exaggerations about us. Now these aren't total myths, but it's not the total truth. So sorry to burst your bubble, but sunlight doesn't actually kill us. It actually takes hours before we even become affected by it. It's as though we are humans, just out in the sun without sunscreen. It'll just feel like a sunburn is starting slowly, and after a few hours, we need shade, but not right away, contrary to popular belief. We also don't become bats. I mean we can learn to change into another animal, but that rarely happens, because if something goes wrong, you can die.

I've realized that a lot is written of us hating werewolves. We don't hate werewolves, but they're not like our BFF's. We are allies and we get along, but of course we all think differently, so we argue, but we don't hate them, or want them killed. Actually the opposite. We want werewolves alive, and they want us alive also.

We can also appear in pictures and we can see our reflections in mirrors. How do you think I look so beautiful everyday?

But even I have to admit, the humans aren't always stupid. There are true things about us, some the humans thought of. We actually don't really like Holy Water. It's actually because it's always cold, not because it burns. We don't worship the devil, we just are very very very sensitive to the cold.

Another true thing the humans believe is that we can cure some small cuts and burns, and even some scrapes, just by spitting on them! It closes the wound and puts five layers of skin over it, making it hard to be reopened again.

Many also think we hate garlic, but actually we really love it. We eat it all the time, because it's like a good luck charm to us. I know my dad uses it all the time, especially in Italian food.

We also actually can't turn humans into vampires sadly. We can only make vampires, or half-vampires by reproduction. The only problem with a half vampire is that if the girl isn't a vampire, the baby starts to drink her blood, so by the end of the nine months, she is dead, but the baby lives. We call it a life for a life.

Another true thing is that we actually can't just go barging into a house. We actually have to ask the person there if we may come in. If we don't and just walk in, we lose feeling. We wear out. We die quicker, because we are being drained of everything we have.

Being a vampire actually isn't that bad, nor is it much different from being a human. We can still socialize around humans and everyone already knows of us, so it's not a bad life for us. We're just like humans. . . right?