Day 8: The difference between vampire and vampyre explained (12,563 words)

I finally made it to my 2,000 words for the day but it is after 11 pm and I hope to sweet Jesus I don't have to do this every night after work.

It was not easy. I had to turn to the internet to discover, to my great surprise, that someone has actually written the answer to the difference between "vampire" and "vampyre". It is complete garbage, but it helped me to pad my word count. And when I got really desperate at the end, I just started quoting from The Breakfast Club, an old but still worthy strategy.

Here is some backstory about Rose and Gordon:


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She remembered the first time that she met Gordon. He showed up unannounced, always at night, every few weeks or months. She had been living with Dragonfly in the children’s house, in the care of the community parents. Creeping around the camp, with this flowing black cape and eye patch, the children would understandably run screaming from him. He was said to be a vampire, or perhaps a deflated balloon.

This time, Rose was determined not to show her fear and she stood her ground with her hands on her hips and a challenging look in her eye. It was night, of course. In the dog days of summer, few would stir while the sun was up. Gordon almost walked right by her, but something about her made him stop, an air of destiny that emanated off of her like a scent.

“Are you a vampire?” she asked, wearing the ennui that teenagers like her wore like a uniform.

“Of course not, you cretin,” he replied. “I am a Vampyre. The emphasis is on the second syllable.”

“What difference does it make what syllable you emphasize if you drink the blood of humans?”

Gordon chuckled and scratched his chin with his uncomfortably long and pointed nails. “This is a question that pops up quite often, believe it or not. What is the difference between ‘vampire’ and ‘vampyre’ and why are YOU a ‘vampYre?’ Well–here goes–and I don’t know how widely spread this answer is or if any other vampyres use the “y” for the same reason, but here is ours: The word “vampire” has existed for decades, used in conjunction with the mythical killers of fiction. They are the vampires with the special powers, the killer instincts, and inability to go into the sun. More importantly, they are entirely fictional and there is no equivalent to these characters in the real world.

“Many modern day vampyres chose the different spelling to create a class of their own. As ‘vampyres’ they were set apart from the fictional creatures and established as something quite separate. Vampyres are those which I’ve described many times before, the ones who need the energy of others to keep themselves both healthy and sane, but they are nothing like the vampires you’ll read about in horror stories or fairy tales. In short, the changing from “i” to “y” mearly separates modern day vampyres from fictional vampires so that there is finally some distinction.”

Rose was nonplussed. “I’ve got to be honest with you, Gordon. If you are trying to convey that you are a people person, there are far less confusing ways to go about it.”

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

And a little bit about the bind that Dragonfly is in, somehow made worse by The Breakfast Club:

Scarface smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. It was more of a Doug Ford smile, with too many teeth and with no sign of humour in his eyes. Dragonfly wondered, not for the first time, whether the cloning process was entirely pure. Was Doug Ford only Doug Ford? Was Scarface sourced from one person or the product of something else?

“The question is, what do you care about more. The girl or the mission?”

“C’mon man, Rose is a grown-ass woman. I know we live in post-catastrophe hellscape, but do we need to make it even worse by maintaining the worst traditions of misogyny and racism?”

 “It was misogyny and racism that got us to this hellscape, so why stop now?”

“I’m pleasantly surprised by your honesty,” replied Dragonfly.

“I’m a complex guy.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed. You seem kind of one-dimensional.”

Scarface casually drew his hand back and punched Dragonfly in the stomach. Dragonfly doubled over, winded and seeing double. “That’s more along the lines of what I was expecting,” they managed to gasp.

“I wasn’t even trying with that one. It only gets worse from here, so I suggest you stop cracking jokes or I’ll start cracking skulls.”

Dragonfly couldn’t help himself from laughing, the line was so absurd. “Is this the part where we start quoting from The Breakfast Club? How about ‘screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place.’”

“How about, ‘two hits, me hitting you, you hitting the floor.” Scarface proceeded to show Dragonfly what that looked like. As Dragonfly lay face down, partially smothered by the mouldy blankets, Scarface held his arms aloft dramatically then pointed down at Dragonfly while staring off into the middle distance, “If he gets up, we’ll all get up, it will be anarchy!” He took a bow and Dragonfly involuntarily began clapping, not the sarcastic kind.

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He stopped laughing when Scarface kicked them in the ribs and broke three of their ribs.