A hypothetical question

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Your only child (if you don’t have one, just imagine–if you have several, imagine there’s just one) is five years old, and she has been attacked by a vampire, and turned.

No one else knows about this. She sleeps during the day and can not survive in the sun. Also, crosses or religious symbols do not harm her or ward her off. She has a terrible allergic reaction to garlic. She must have blood every day, but she requires so little that you don’t have to kill anyone. It’s a bother to procure the blood, but not impossible.

However, she’ll remain five for all eternity… or until she’s staked. You must keep her condition a secret (lest she be killed) but you also know that you can’t care for her forever (because you’ll grow old and die), and she will never be able to care for herself. She can’t learn new things, can’t talk like a grownup, can’t become a criminal mastermind the way little girl vampires do on TV. She’ll be five always.

The question: Do you (and/or your spouse, if you have one) turn yourselves into vampires, too, so she will always have someone to care for her?

9 thoughts on “A hypothetical question

  1. Scott Slater

    Well, Operating on the Assumption that a fully adult Vampire does have to kill in order to survive, then the answer is no. I’m afraid that after much agonizing It’s pretty likely that I would stake the child.

  2. Well, that’s just it. You don’t know if you need to kill to survive. You don’t know anything except that your child has stopped maturing, will live forever, and has no one else to protect her.

    Would you stake the child on the off chance that you would need to kill to survive?

  3. I could see a great short story or novella come from this, just with the parents wrestling with the moralities of it all, the changes of the child, and whether or not any of them remain the same after the change.

    And then, as one of the parents comes to a decision, the child enters the room looking hungry…..and you leave it to readers as to the final ending. :)

  4. Denise

    I’m always wishing for less morality in fiction, so I think I have to say that I’d drain her blood for my own possible use later and stake her. Though ethically, I don’t think it’d be right to keep a child vampire like that alive since without a support system she’d end up getting killed or into the hands of people who don’t care about her as a person.

    I’d think a vampire child would need a full support system and not just two parents. Five year olds don’t listen all the time. Unless the kid is knocked out cold when the sun rises, she’ll end up wandering out there. If she has any kind of enhanced abilities due to being a vampire, she’ll get past her parents. That kid is going to end up dead no matter what.

  5. Scott Slater

    Let’s work some nerd magic and analyze the concept to death. :)

    I would attempt to extrapolate based on the Observed changes:

    Is the child more Aggressive?
    * In general
    * When hungry?

    Does it have to be human blood?

    The Question as Posed Indicates that neurological development has stopped. I can only assume it stops for me as well. Because it’s not just a question about the childs future, but my own, am I willing to accept a potential eternity where I am growing farther and farther out of touch with the world around me not simply because of the supposed Ennui of the immortal, but because I am unable to adapt? I don;t think that’s much of a future either for myself or the child.

  6. !!!

    … I have to say that I’d drain her blood for my own possible use later and stake her.

    and

    … without a support system she’d end up getting killed or into the hands of people who don’t care about her as a person.

    I have to say:

    !!!

  7. Let’s see, 5-yr-olds generally have no impulse control to begin with… so you’ve got a bloodthirsty off-spring who’s as likely to run into the street without looking as tear open your jugular while you sleep… yep, that’s a problem. Stake, please. Otherwise you’ll be wishing she did what any normal 5-yr-old would do: get into the medicine cabinet and eat all of Mummy’s Valium.

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