Bram's Vampire Hunter Handbook

Chapter 4 - Transformation

Ah, the transformation process. One of the most interesting topics of research about vampires, both for the magical and biological phenomena it unleashes.

But fine, I know you are here to check if you are not turning by accident. I will not discuss the more interesting medical facts about vampire transformation. Let me just present a summary of each stage of transformation and their external signs.

Stage 1 – Infection

When a wound is infected with vampire blood, you might experience one of those two effects:

- If it was a little amount, you will feel the wound tingle, but will not feel as much pain as you would expected from a bleeding cut.

- If it was a big amount, the cut will instantly heal itself. As the blood spreads in your vessels, any other wound in your body will heal, too.

Vampire blood ingestion feels no different from human blood ingestion. It will upset the person's stomach and might lead to vomit. It might be noted that vomiting the vampire blood will not avoid the infection. One drop left behind might still kick-start the transformation (albeit a slower one).

Stage 2 - Agent-A takeover

Vampire blood has two virus-like components that coordinate the transformation, named Agent-A and Agent-B. Agent-A is responsible for adapting the body to vampirism, creating the fangs, enhancing the magical ability of the person, setting the regenerative magic and so on. Agent-B mainly do the irreversible part of the transformation, in which the soul is almost severed from the body.

Agent-B only kicks in after Agent-A has done its job. To this end, Agent-A takes over white blood cells to multiply and get into every single cell of the host's body. It might take a long time for this take over to happen if the original infection only involved a small amount of blood, like one drop. There are not enough data for an average time to be calculated, but there are transformations in which stage 2 happens in a few hours, others in which it take years.

This stage has no external symptoms.

Stage 3 - Body changes

The classical changes start as soon as Agent-A is inside every single cell in the host's body.

External symptoms of this stage start with a sudden and persistent sensitiveness to light, that grows worse with time. All the senses of the person become sharper, sometimes to overwhelming lengths. Then comes the insomnia at night and a feel of lethargy at daytime. Magic spurts usually start at this point (the person randomly getting super-strength at a moment, then nothing). Together with the magic bursts, the eyes might flash red. As the spurts become more frequent, the person also starts to feel an annoying thirst that cannot be sated by drinking water or other common liquids. Eventually, the person will start refusing to eat solid food, at which point they will notice that their teeth are sharper. The fangs are most probably already developed by this stage, but will only come down when the person realises that they are thirsting for blood (usually happens when they smell blood and get a craving for it).

It is at this point, when the body is ready for blood consumption, that the next stage starts.

Stage 4 - Agent-B takeover

Differently from Agent-A, Agent-B only needs to take over the person's red blood cells. While Agent-A is working the changes in physiology, Agent-B usually infects the bone marrow and stays dormant, waiting for the chemical signal that is released by Agent-A on the first time that the transforming person craves for blood.