In the year 2020, Vampires took control of society and ordered all humans placed in vampire custody. The people who were not captured formed a Resistance movement, headed by the Human Council, who began to plan the Insurgence.
I am, of course, indebted to Stephenie Meyer for this world we all play in, and these characters we all adore. Additionally, I am indebted to hitntr01, who has graciously allowed me to use certain concepts from her wonderful story "In Need of Rescue", which constitute much of the background of my own story. These include: the language Vampiri, the Rules, the machines used to draw blood from humans, Manners Training, and the plot theme of Edward working as a guard at a facility holding humans. Thank you, hitntr01.
The Insurgency, Chapter 4
Human life on the colonies
There were colonies throughout the wilderness. Some humans had managed to evade capture during the initial round up, and they were joined by others who had escaped vampire custody. These people had frequently formed colonies. The more stable colonies, unfortunately, tended to be discovered. However, as vampires liked to hunt, the colonies were left in place, and hunting teams would raid the colonies at certain points throughout the year. Sometimes they would catch and release the colony members. Sometimes they would watch a child growing up. When he or she reached a certain age, the hunter would get a contract for the child, ensuring payment, and then snatch the child for the buyer. As the population in the Human Containment Facilities began to collapse due to the lack of births and rising maternal mortality rates, the colonies became an important source for children.
It did not escape the colony leaders that they were being hunted regularly, and they began to bitterly refer to themselves as "the King's deer", only being left free in order to serve as vampire sport. During cold winters, the vampires would drop off blankets, firewood, and food, so there would still be prey to be hunted when spring came.
The colonies were a source for resistance fighters. The established colony leaders were generally in contact with the Human Council and were trained on the now developing vampire fighting techniques. At the time of the Event, humans knew very little about fighting vampires. After over a decade of living around them, and being hunted by them, humans had begun to develop weapons of varying effectiveness against the vampires. They also had been given some insights into vampire physical powers and weaknesses by the Allies, those vampires not killed by Aro for protesting the state of the humans. These vampire Allies were critical to the human resistance, but for a vampire to be discovered to be an Ally meant death to the vampire, even though the human resistance movement was not taken seriously by Volterra.
The status of a colony, and their allocation of resources, began to depend on the number of "breeding age girls" within the colony. The girls and children were considered the heart and prize of the colony, and the colonies' defense tactics centered on keeping them safe. The young women and children were considered the future of the human race, if there was to be a future, as the human population dropped rapidly in the years following the Event.
People began to use a new calendar in tandem with the traditional twelve month calendar. The day of the Event, July 1, 2020, became Day 1. Days were then number from that date forward. Throughout history, people in captivity had counted the number of days they had been incarcerated and also counted down the days to their freedom. Since most of the human race was now in some form of captivity, the Human Council decided to use a linear calendar, beginning with the day of the Event, both in honor of, and as a constant reminder of, those humans still in vampire captivity. They planned an insurgence against Aro and the Volturi brothers residing in Volterra but wanted to negotiate with them for better living conditions for the humans in captivity while still planning this insurgency.
Colony members could read, but books were difficult to carry and keep, so the colonies began to revert to oral traditions. Members would memorize various key documents from the centuries of human writings. There were religious documents, including the source books such as Bible and Qur'an, and rituals, such as weddings and funerals. They also memorized political documents, such as various treaties and founding documents of nations, including the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitutions of various democracies, the British Magna Carta, and other documents. Works of science and technology were needed for survival and military purposes. And of course, they memorized works of literature, including poetry and plays, to recite in the evenings and long winter nights around fires.
Life on the colonies was hard and strict. The colony leaders carried pistols to be used on any colony member who engaged in behaviors that threatened to expose the colony. They had guards posted constantly, and guards were frequently killed during the Hunting party raids.
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