by Stan Hopewell
PARIS — Sophia Dracula, the first daughter of Prime Minister Vladimir Dracula, has formally defected to Paris after swearing off human blood. Prime Minister Dracula has not yet responded to the news.
Sophia, born in 1732 to Dracula’s second wife, Morgan, has been loyal to her father for much of her life, and from 1824 to 1890 she served as his Foreign Minister. She stepped down from the position after growing bored with politics and traveled the world with several boyfriends. Considered the “wild child” of the family, which is saying something for the Draculas, Sophia has often been at political odds with her father for years. She opposed “turning” world leaders like Napoleon Bonaparte and John F. Kennedy. She was active in the Werewolf Wereferendum, granting civil rights to werewolves in the 1930s, and she’s been advocating for her father to step down from office for the past 50 years.
Now Sophia has sworn off human blood and defected to Paris. “It’s past time for me to disassociate myself with my father and his regime,” she said in an undisclosed location in Paris. “I can’t in good conscience support consuming human blood anymore. I know many people don’t think vampires have consciences, but we do, and if I am to prove it, then I must live what I preach.”
Human blood is the lifeblood of vampires, so to speak. Vampires lack the capacity to produce hemoglobin, the protein in blood that transports oxygen from the lungs to the body’s cells. Consuming blood provides hemoglobin to the vampire allowing them to live and needs to be consumed at least once a week. The life energy that allows vampires to stay immortal can come from any red-blooded animal, but since humans and vampires are related, humans are the best source of life energy for vampires.
Sophia knows the dangers inherent in her decision, but she’s confident that her alternative will keep her satisfied. “The advances in stem cell technology have been nothing short of revolutionary,” she said. “I can use stem cells from a willing donor to produce gallons of hemoglobins that I can then inject into my body once a week. Or I can inject them into a bloody beef steak for a more satisfying meal. Either way, I am not chomping down into a human or raiding a blood bank.”
Treating her vampirism as a “medical condition” with regular treatments has allowed her to peacefully defect to Paris. The French government was also pleased to learn top-secret Transylvanian information, which has been reported but unconfirmed by Sophia or the government. While Transylvania has remained peaceful for much of the past century, Europe is still wary of Dracula.
“I know my father can be rather tyrannical,” said Sophia, “but I don’t want him to be the face of vampires anymore. We are better than that, and I need to show the world that, in the light of day.” In the 1980s she embraced sunlight-reflecting technology and now wears an invisible “second skin” of nanites that can reflect 88% of the sun’s rays, allowing her to walk around in broad daylight. She now owns Solar Technologies, which produces the “second skin” along with super-thin solar cells and various hard-light technologies.
“I intend to be a full member of Western society,” said Sophia. “I will live and work on the same schedule as humans, I will eat like a human, and I will not ‘turn’ anyone. That is my promise to France and the world. I will even endure that torture that is waking up in the morning. I seriously don’t know how you humans do this.”
