AN: When I first wrote this information in my 'Bella Journal,' it was mostly dry facts. Now that I know I'm having it submitted to a fan site, I want to try to make the information more interesting. I hope using my family as examples has helped and you don't become bored with all the information be shared, but I do want to set the record straight.
Journal Entry One – Vampirism 101-A
Part 1: Bella
Bella always thought it would be interesting to tell her story because of her involvement with my family, but she would never draw attention to herself like that because she truly is a quiet, self-reserved individual. She does not see herself as a remarkably unique individual (although the rest of the family sees her as just that), and she's not one to exhibit herself or her life in the public eye, which is why I have decided she didn't give the dream to the author. Therefore, I'm assuming the role of spokesperson in order to relate her story. Of course, I can only recount what I know, and although I never intended to publish this story, circumstances have altered my decision.
Mrs. Meyer correctly pointed out our major rule of anonymity. In truth, that one rule applies to all non-humans. It surprises me that humans always assume everything extra-ordinary is imaginary.
It was also the reason why I had originally kept Bella's story in this journal – for the privacy, but since someone has unofficially submitted it, it is no longer private, and I have decided to share it with the growing number of Twilight fans. Of course, in the process of writing it out for submission I am making some changes to my original copy. If 'others' read this story, I'm hoping they will realize that most humans will accept this as a work of fiction and therefore I will not really be breaking the anonymity rule because this might really just be a work of fiction.
I earnestly want everyone to discover Bella's unique personality and for anyone to understand her completely, I guess I have to describe the human side of her first. As a human, Bella was a bit clumsy; okay, so maybe that is a bit of an under exaggeration. In all truthfulness, some would have called her a jinx in a past era because bad luck seemed to follow her any where she went. That was her only weakness, because when it came to looks and personality, she surpassed everyone and still does.
Physically, I love her long brown hair. Running my hands through her rich silky-smooth tresses still thrills my sense of feel. She still mourns the fact that her hair is straight, but even now, I enjoy watching the wind blow through her hair for even the slightest breeze will lift it and cause it to flutter around her bright shining face. Her deep liquid pools of chocolate brown eyes made me feel as if I would fall into them and drown. That might seem far-fetched, but it was the truth. Her chocolaty brown eyes continue to have an intense magnetic pull on me that I never encountered with anyone else.
Her lips also became a major attraction after our first kiss. Hers were, and remain so, the type of lips that beg to be kissed – full, red, and sweet to the taste. Her last feature, which she always felt fell short of being appealing, was her body. It didn't bother me that she was only five foot two with a thin non-athletic build. I constantly remind her that I like her compact package – which flushed out and toned up during her change – but my comment still produces a groan from her. She always wanted to have a body more like Rose's – tall, lithe, and in her words, drop dead gorgeous. Personally, I never saw Rose as 'drop dead gorgeous' just attractive in her own way.
Over all, it is possible that I'm rather biased on her looks, but I've always found her a pleasure to gaze upon before and after her transformation. Besides, her looks were not what first captured my attention it was her scent. That was one characteristic described accurately by Mrs. Meyer in her book. Vampires are extremely sensitive to smell, and everyone's blood has a different aroma, just like wine. Some blood is sweeter than others are, and once in a very rare instance, someone's blood can have a scent that is irresistible to one vampire in particular. Some compare the call to the song of the ancient siren's who lured sailors to their deaths, but, in this case, the blood of the siren can lead to the siren's death because the aroma of the blood can cause a vampire to drink a fatal amount. That was how Bella's blood was to me; she was my siren, and in many ways she is still my siren but now it is not her blood that so alluringly calls to me.
Part 2: Vampire Physiology
I guess, in order to tell Bella's story correctly, I first need to clarify some points on actual vampires besides the beguilingly sweet temptation of some humans' blood. In order to make this a little more interesting, I have decided to use my family to portray the basic vampire physiology.
Emmett's hunting techniques best exemplify our senses of sight, sound, and smell. As mentioned in the Twilight trilogy, Emmett's favorite prey is bear for the same reason as presented by Mrs. Meyer. In case anyone is interested, his favorite breeds are grizzly, polar, black, and brown in that order. For Emmett, the fiercer the bear is the better; he likes the thrill of the hunt as much as the meal. As to how he hunts, this is where his senses come into play. First, he uses his sense of smell to determine the age of his target. He avoids those that are too young because they don't really have enough blood in them, and he avoids their mothers. He dislikes the idea of orphaning any animal because to him family is extremely important, and he carries this belief over into animal families as well. He also passes up the elderly and those on the verge of dying; their blood is too old to provide a tasty or nourishing meal. Mostly he seeks out those that are just under middle age and many times, he will go after the male rather than the females even though the females can be, in many instances, more ferocious.
Through the years, Emmett has perfected his scent to know exactly which bears will meet his requirements. Not only does scent help him identify the age of his prey but to some extent its distance from him as well. Emmett, Rose, Jasper, and I have experimented with distances and so far Emmett's longest range of being able to smell his prey is ten miles if he is downwind of it and 20 if he is upwind. It is our sense of smell that also helps us distinguish what other animals might be in close proximity to our prey, and to locate any humans that might be in the surrounding area. This became extremely important to the family when hiking and backpacking became a major past time for many people.
While hunting, Emmett next relies on his hearing to determine if the bear is alone or with others of his kind, and if the bear is hunting or if it is at rest or play. The different sounds he hears help him determine the bear's current activities. Our hearing is extremely acute so we are able to distinguish sounds up to fifteen miles away. While she was human, Bella envied our ability to hear long distances especially when we would over-hear a whispered conversation, but once she became a vampire, she understand that there was a negative side to being able to hear conversations you weren't meant to hear. People, who you might have once thought of as your friends, would just as happily stab you in the back with their words when they thought you couldn't hear them. Bella lost numerous friends because of overhearing their insulting comments when they thought she couldn't hear them.
Our hearing also becomes extremely valuable during hunting season when we have to avoid the multitude of human hunters who share the woods with us. Human hunters have a nasty habit of shooting before they are sure of their target. I will not reveal how many times imprudent hunters have shot at my family and I over the years, but it shocked Bella the first time it happened to her, and then she became extremely upset. Because of her ability, I forcibly had to remove her from the area. Not only had she meant to track down the unwary hunters, but also she meant to give them a taste of the consequences of their own carelessness. As I may have mentioned before, Bella's greatest concern is for the welfare of others first, but most non-hunting humans have enough sense to avoid the forests and woods during hunting season.
Sight is the last sense Emmett relies on when hunting. When he is within five to seven miles from his prey, he can begin to distinguish it from its surroundings. The distance is extended if the animal is in an open area with little to no cover. Sight also allows us to detect any visible obstacles in the path between our intended prey and us.
With these three senses, Emmett is always able to select the exact bear, or bears, he wants to dine on, and he seldom misses his mark because of his vampire enhanced speed and strength. The few times he has failed were the result of either pranks played by Bella – did I mention that between Emmett and Jasper, my angel has been slightly tarnished – and Jasper, Jasper and Alice, Jasper and I, or all of us working in conjunction. Of course, we have learned not to pull any pranks when he is extremely thirsty because of the negative repercussions. Jasper and I imprudently did that only once, and we both carry the scars of his displeasure. We did make amends by tracking the bear down and restraining it until he could complete his hunt.
Our fourth magnified sense is touch. We feel everything that we touch or that touches us in the minutest detail; we even feel each distinct fiber of the fabric we wear so we have a propensity to purchase clothes that are more expensive and made of the most delicate types of material and of course, Alice relishes any opportunity to select the clothing for the family. Although there have been a few family feuds in that area. Rose is very particular about what she will wear and she prefers to choose Emmett's clothes as well. It is very seldom that Rose will accept Alice's choice of clothing. Bella, on the other hand, is happy to allow Alice to shop for her. In Bella's opinion, shopping should consist of marathon visits to the well-stocked bookstores in metropolitan areas and her favorite attire nowadays is soft plush sweats and a softly flowing t-shirt.
Even though our fifth sense – taste – is also magnified, I never considered it as important as the enhancement of our emotional and physical senses. What we feel is more intense than what any human would ever feel; this includes pain, anguish, and heartbreak as well as happiness, love, and pleasure. This intensity has a profound effect on our lives. It actually creates an intense desire in us to be around others of our own kind. The only vampires who live alone are the renegades while all the rest of us live as couples or families because the loneliness of not sharing our existence with someone else would drive us insane; a hundred years is a long time to be alone, and forever is unendurable. Before Bella's extraordinary emergence into my existence, I was content just to have my family, even though they each had their soul mates. When Bella invaded my family, I began to realize what I had been missing from my life for all those years, and after that discovery, I would never have been able to return to my prior solitary existence.
We also have enhanced speed and strength. The best way to exemplify our strength is to share an incident between Rose and Emmett. When Rose first began working on cars, they were constructed mostly from steel making them heavier than cars today. Although money is of little concern for my family, Rose doesn't believe in purchasing unnecessary tools and two such items are a jack and a lift. Instead, whenever she needed to get under a car to work on it, she had Emmett lift the car for her. Usually he would bring a magazine to read while he was holding up one end of the car.
One day Jasper and I were walking by the garage and we saw Emmett standing absentmindedly holding one end of a jaguar I owned at the time. There were three other vehicles parked in the garage, Emmett's truck, Alice's corvette, and Carlisle's Bentley. Jasper and I decided it would be fun to bet Emmett that he couldn't lie between the Bentley and his truck and lift both of them off the ground at the same time. We figured using only his arms it would be impossible. Upon hearing our bet, Emmett just laughed, and at the same time, I saw Rose's eyes sparkle with a suppressed laugh and instantly knew we were going to lose the bet. I heard Emmett's silent comment first, 'This'll be like taking candy from a baby,' and then saw Rose's image of Emmett two weeks earlier holding both of the said vehicles off the ground while she changed the oil. I just looked at Jasper and said, "We'll be paying out." Jasper still requested visual proof, so Rose moved the two vehicles side by side, Emmett laid down between them and promptly lifted them both off the ground, and just to prove he could do, he held them there for twenty minutes while Jasper and I counted out our money and Rose slowly recounted it twenty times. Emmett claimed he didn't trust us not to miscount or use some of the funny money we had been trying to make.
Now, don't get me wrong; Jasper and I did take up counterfeiting but only as a hobby. Carlisle and Esme have very strict rules of what constituted acceptable counterfeited items, but money was never one of them. Of course, it was okay if we only used it amongst ourselves when paying our betting debts; the problem was, the winner always wanted real money, so, in the end, Jasper and I gave up the hobby and worked on counterfeiting items that were more necessary to the family.
Emmett's feat with the cars should help everyone understand how strong we are, and I'm not even sure that is the limit of Emmett's strength, we just never tested it any further. For speed, I have everyone in the family beat. We always knew we could move at speeds unseen by the human eye, but the question always existed of how fast we really could run. We tested this in many ways, but when cars were designed for speed, we began testing our speed against them. To date, I haven't found a car I couldn't out run. Then, when movie cameras became available to the public, Emmett decided he had to discover if we could be captured on film while we ran. We found the old 8mm cameras didn't record movement fast enough to capture either Jasper or I on the actual film. It wasn't until digital cameras were developed that we could actually be captured on film, but when watching the film frame by frame all one sees is a non-distinct shadow, which most people dismiss as a smudge or flaw on the two or three frames on which it appears.
For those who might be interested, Emmett does the filming because, over the years, he has used the various movie cameras for private films of Rose; those films are strictly for his viewing pleasure only. Besides, nobody else in the family is interested in watching them accept Rose.
Submitters Note: Just for the record, I still accredit Stephenie Meyer with the ownership of the Cullen family and Bella.
