AN: I hope dividing this in half made it less tedious and lengthy, so here is part two. Let me know what you think. Oh, and we still credit Mrs. Meyer with our creation.
Journal Entry One – Vampirism 101-B
Part 3 – Vampire Physique
As Bella once claimed, our bodies are nearly perfect making us extremely alluring to the human eye. Our skin is flawless except for the occasional scars from vampire bites. In fact, that is the only way our bodies will scar because vampire venom is not only poisonous to living beings but to other vampires as well; the major difference is the venom will cause a human to change but will cause scars on vampires. Our skin is pale almost pearly white, cold, hard and impenetrable; it is, however, not as hard to the touch as granite. There is actually some suppleness to our skin. Bella, for instance, once remarked how smooth and soft my skin felt. She compared it to a baby's bottom, but I found the comparison less than flattering because most of the babies I have been near smelt dreadful. The one characteristic that we do not possess is skin that sparkles, although I wish this characteristic were true because I would love to see Bella's skin sparkle.
Besides being flawless, our bodies are extremely hard, but I personally attribute the hardness to a muscular hardness much like that of body builders, and I would attribute the impenetrability aspect to the muscles except that would not explain why our skin cannot be penetrated by any fabricated tool. Even if someone could penetrate our skin, our bodies have a natural built in healing ability that allows our bodies to instantly heal all wounds – with the exception of vampire bites that take longer to heal – even those injuries that might otherwise appear fatal.
In addition, our hair and nails are also unnaturally strong, and we cannot cut them nor do they grow – Bella once remarked that she would have to refrain from biting her nails after her transformation since she would only do it once and then her nails would not grow back. Not only are our teeth and fingernails strong, but also extremely sharp, they can easily cut or pierce a human's skin so we must be careful when interacting with them. And no, we do not have fangs. I can't even imagine what it would feel like to have something growing out in my mouth and then retracting. I find that a disgusting thought; leave it to a human to think of something that revolts even a vampire.
The one major physical difference between the Twilight vampires and us is our eye color. We all retain our human eye color, but the color darkens as we become hungrier and lightens after we have quenched our thirst. Vampires who drink only human blood have dark red almost maroon rings around the outside of the iris, but those who exclusively drink animal blood have a golden ring. Many vampires, however, drink from both humans and animals resulting in a pink colored ring around their iris. These color changes are how Carlisle is able to tell if one of us slips, and I slipped a little too often during that first year.
I also need to add that we don't breathe, sleep, or have a heartbeat – since we are technically dead. We are unable to reproduce for the same reason. I couldn't help but laugh at all the stories out there that have Bella and I having a child, or any vampire having a child – the possibility 'does not' exist.
Part 4 – Nourishment and Venom
As is true in all vampire lore, we have only one source of nutrition and that is blood. At one time it was believed that we could only live on human blood and in ancient times no vampire even attempted to change that belief, but then some inquisitive vampire wondered why the blood of animals wouldn't meet the needs we had. No one ever bothered to find out who was the first to attempt drinking animal blood, but it soon became a widely known fact among our kind that animal blood could also quench our thirst. Of course, it was also discovered that animal blood wasn't as sweet, tasty, or satisfying as human blood, but that it would work as a substitute if one had no other nearby human source. This realization began the practice of supplementing human blood with animal blood. Over the centuries, many of us began the practice of drinking only animal blood, and Carlisle was one who adapted this practice right after being changed. Today, many of us feed mostly, and some of us only, on animal blood because, as Carlisle says, drinking human blood is as cannibalistic as eating human flesh.
I should point out that most vampires very seldom kill their human food source despite what most fiction writers claim. Most of us are still more human than animal, so we can control our desires, just as humans can when eating. In our world, only renegades drink from their host until they die; they also seem to take pleasure in the kill, not unlike humans who kill for the pleasure of killing. We also try to avoid the words victim or prey because of the negative connotation that it denotes to them and us.
When extracting blood from our human donor we have to be careful of the venom in our mouths because it is poisonous to humans and it affects their blood in one of two ways if it enters their system. It will either kill them or change them. Generally, when drinking from a human, we suck our venom out with the blood; therefore, if we are careful, we can drink from humans without killing or changing them. In addition, if we use our nails to make a small cut near an artery rather than our teeth, then we can avoid injecting any venom into our human donor, and we leave less of a mark that might alert some to the fact that a vampire has dined upon them. As vampires, we have one other advantage over humans; we can use our power of persuasion to cause them to forget the incident.
The one major advantage of drinking from animals is the safety factor. Animals, unlike humans, cannot undergo a transformation. First, most animals are small enough that they are completely drained of their blood, and depending on one's thirst, larger animals can be shared with another vampire. Emmett refers to it as dining out with his wife.
Secondly, something in an animal's physiology causes the venom to kill it rather than transform it. Carlisle has tried to talk Jasper into majoring in biochemistry and performing experiments on animals to discover why this is, but Jasper has no inclination in that area. When Bella ascertained that Carlisle had an interest in uncovering the reason why animals did not undergo any transformation, she pointed out to him that such experiments would be inhumane, and that it was bad enough that humans saw vampires as monsters anyway, so humans didn't need any inhumane actions from us to help reinforce that stereotype. Of course, it didn't matter to Bella if humans knew we were actually performing experiments or not, to her it was just the idea that someone might uncover the fact that bothered her.
Another physiological feature of vampires is the fluid that flows through our bodies and veins. Our venom is the only fluid, besides the fresh blood we drink, that flows through our bodies. Interestingly enough, as the freshly drunk blood circulates though our systems, it slowly changes into venom just like the natural body fluids we once had as humans also transformed into venom as our bodies changed.
One unique aspect of the vampire-human relationship involves the mutual co-existence of our two species. In this relationship, a vampire will select one human, by mutual agreement of course, that he or sometimes she will keep around as a food source until the human dies, but many of us choose not to subject a human to that form of life.
Part 5 - Changing
Many of you may be wondering how one becomes a vampire. That was one of Bella's questions. It is just as painful as Mrs. Meyer describes, and there are risks involved but it doesn't take as long.
First, we have discovered over time that the process is easier when more than one vampire is present. The process begins by biting the human near the heart, and then in three or four other strategic places near or in major arteries so as to inject the venom directly into the blood stream. This helps accelerate the process. As the venom circulates through the human's body, it mingles with their blood and releases a chemical as it passes throughout the body. The chemical then causes the organs in the body to shut down slowly while also changing the cells throughout the body so that even though the organs are dying, the human is not going to die a natural death. For some unknown reason, the heart is actually the last organ to die. In addition to killing the internal organs, the chemical produced through the mixture of human blood and venom slowly changes the human into a vampire. Eventually, the new vampire's mixed blood transforms into his own form of venom. Carlisle believes we each add something different to our venom and as a result, the scent produced by it is different for each of us. When I first considered changing Bella, I wondered if her venom would have a scent similar to that of her blood.
When deciding whether to change Bella, I also considered all the risks and thought about each one with her as the victim, so I will use her as my example in this explanation. The first risk would occur after I bit her. When biting her, I had to know I could totally control the desire to drink her blood or else I would suck too much venom out of her blood system. The more venom in the blood system, the quicker the transformation and the less venom the longer it takes. Too little venom would cause Bella to die rather than change because the venom would have been too weak to affect a quick change. Carlisle says this problem has occurred in the past and the human suffered an agonizingly slow death. This first risk is one reason why any wise vampire would have another vampire present to watch and make sure the biter stops in time. I made sure both Carlisle and Emmett were readily available in case I lost control. I was not taking any risks with the most precious gift entrusted to me – my true love.
As Bella's body started changing, I knew the pain would be inescapable because she would remain conscious and aware of everything occurring around her including the changes taking place in her body. Unfortunately, the first vampire characteristic that all human experience is heightened senses; therefore, the pain becomes even more acute, and taking morphine or any other strong painkiller does not alleviate the pain. Moreover, I knew Bella would suffer as each organ in her body ceased to function and then died. I knew the entire process could be accomplished within the space of twelve to twenty-four hours and that its length would depend on how much venom I injected into her blood system.
The second risk Bella would face was the actual change. If her heart wasn't strong enough, the change could actually kill her before it was completed. A person's heart must be strong enough to withstand the pain and stress of the change and it becomes the last functioning organ in the body. In addition, the pain could become more intense than Bella might have been able to handle mentally; if that had happened, it could have affected her mind. For some humans, the torturous change results in adversely altered brain functions that lead to mental instability, but I trusted the Bella mind was stronger than that, especially since her mind was strong enough to keep me out of it.
The other way the process could have affect Bella's mind would have been if I had not injected enough venom to cause a quick change. As I mentioned before, too little venom in the blood system causes a much more painfully prolonged change. Between the extreme pain and extended time, the human's mind can deteriorate also resulting in mental instability or a twisted form of mental retardation.
One of the major questions arising from changing any human is how much pain the human mind endure before it is finally broken. When a person becomes mentally broken or unstable, then the best course of action is to drain the blood of the human and allow that person to die. If the person does change, it is more than likely that the person will become a renegade and a menace to vampires and humans alike because a renegade's basic instinct becomes survival at any cost and his or her only real pleasure comes from the kill. I had Carlisle help me take every known precaution so this wouldn't happen to Bella while she was changing.
Changing any human is not an easy decision to make because you are risking the actual death of the one you are attempting to change. I had to ponder long and hard about whether I was ready to accept the consequences if the procedure failed because, in our case, the risk was exorbitant because I was attempting to change the love of my life, and unlike those of us who Carlisle changed, she wouldn't be dying from some other cause.
The hardest part for me was deciding if I had it in me to end her suffering and eternal misery if the change caused any mental instability during the transformation. I would have to make this decision before completion of the process because once Bella had changed it would have been much harder to kill her, and not only because I loved her. Killing a vampire is not as easy as just tearing them apart and burning them, although burning does become part of the final process.
Because our healing process is almost instantaneous, it is not just a matter of tearing a vampire apart but burning the pieces as soon as they are torn from the victim, and the fire has to have a fuel source like lighter fluid or gasoline because a vampire can heal even from fire if the fire is not hot enough to incinerate the pieces quickly. A raging fire inside a burning building might suffice as long as the heat is intense enough and the heat inside of a crematorium incinerator is definitely hot enough to complete the destructive process (please don't ask how I know this). What everyone has to realize is that killing cannot just suddenly occur; it must be preplanned so the necessary items are available at the time of the destruction. Injecting large quantities of venom into the intended victim also helps because another vampire's venom helps slow the healing process; this is one reason why it is better to tear the other vampire apart with your teeth instead of your hands.
But, this is Bella's story, so now it is time to focus on her and the first time we met.