Hemophagia

From Alternative History

Hemophagia, otherwise known as the HemoPhagic Virus or HPV (not to be confused with Human Papilloma Virus), is a blood disease (from the Greek word "αιμοφαγία", meaning "blood-eating"). Its primary symptom is an aggressively accelerated metabolism.

It was once a rare pathogen responsible for historical accounts of vampires, but was then modified through genetic engineering by the U.S. government to give individuals superhuman abilities. These modifications also made the disease far more contagious, and it soon escaped into the general populace, where the media whipped it into a disease-based state of fear. To help combat the fact that the quarantine procedures are actually a witch hunt, the authorities have discouraged the use of the term 'vampire' in favor of labeling carriers of the disease "hemophages".

Hemophages are biochemically affected by the disease in different ways and to different degrees, resulting in a remarkably wide range of abilities. Some of the abilities exhibited by hemophages are:

• Increased strength, speed and stamina as the result of an increased level of natural hormones similar to anabolic steroids, as well as altered epinephrine (adrenalin) and norepinephrine levels. As the latter produces an aggravated fight-flight response; which affects the sympathetic nervous system to directly increase heart rate, release energy from fat, and increase muscle readiness. This is the reason for the hair-trigger temper of the more combat-oriented Hemophages.
• Enhanced intelligence by increasing the potency of neurotransmitters responsible for memory and cognition.
• A similar process is responsible for enhanced senses.
• Hemophages have an inconveniently high sensitivity to light, accompanied by equally keen night vision. This forces them to wear heavily-tinted sunglasses. The longer they are afflicted with the disease, the more sensitive they become to daylight.

However, every hemophage exhibits the following two enhancements:

• Slightly elongated canines, but certainly not the wolf-like teeth of legend. They are caused by the massively increased density of bone and dentin throughout the body.
• The accelerated metabolism speeds healing.

Although the disease has many benefits, it has two side effects: one inconvenient, one devastating:

• It cripples the body's ability to regenerate blood platelets. As a result, hemophages are pale and anemic, and they require frequent blood transfusions to stay alive.
• All the increased cellular activity takes an unwanted toll on the carrier's body. With their metabolisms speeding along at unprecedented rates, the victims of Hemophagia could expect to survive, if they were lucky, no more than ten years after their first exposure to disease.

The government uses the above traits to identify hemophages from the general human population. However, meta-suppressants can be used to temporarily suppress and slow them down to within average human range.