Damp mist drifted across the lands, nightfall was triumphant with the light of day banished to dim memory. Memory mostly lost to the surviving populace at large, a memory so far removed form the present day as to almost be a myth. The night was still was scarce a movement to catch the eye. To move and be noticed was to die, to make a noise was to die, to be seen was to die. Everywhere there was death, nowhere was there life. The cities lay barren with dust and grime layered upon the ground. Ash and dust covered the streets. Here and there the shallow outline of a corpse may be seen. Often only the most active of imagination could have pieced together that the pile in front of you was once a human, once a breathing person with cares and dreams all of their own. Now there was a shape, a shred of clothing not yet rotted away under the effect of age and entropy. The most resilient of man made fabrics will rot given enough time. Triumph of nature over man, chaos over order. A triumph if there was a living person to witness it. The cities were still, the wilderness was still, the world was dead. A carrion world by design and not accident. This catastrophe was all man made, it is ironic that man was the first to die.
Foot steps stomped through the years of dust and decay. Rather than step over the fallen obstacles of civilisation the four figures barged through with the carelessness of authority given unto them by a fallen master. There was no-one to witness their patrol, they had seen to that ages before. The only sound came from the wind and the falling of their very large and most impressive boots. Dust settled once more with their passing, the endless night continued.
With increasing crime and the overburden of population the authorities were given sweeping powers of reform. The world as we know it was on the brink of a new dark age, brother fought brother, sister killed sister in an eternal cycle of murder and theft. The worlds resources were being depleted and/or destroyed at a steadily increasing rate. The biosphere of the modern age was a sick and dying creature. Mankind had lived out it's destiny. From Adam were they spawned, from Caine's example did they learn. Accomplishment through murder, success through death, Mankind had learnt their lesson very well indeed. The world was dying, many could see it. Only a select few were willing to take the actions necessary to impede this process of self-destruction spawned by mans greed. Technology had been the murder weapon but it also could be the cure. Through embracing the ages past with the knowledge of the future was action taken. Four martyrs were taken to forefront the new rule. Man would not be allowed to kill fellow man. Man would be judged for his actions and be held accountable for them. No longer would progress be an escape of it's own, the tool would now be dropped from the careless hand wielding it. A new age began out of the destruction of a selfish race. The age of those to be known as the Dark Spirit Judges began.
Justice, for one and all was to come. No matter what race, creed, income or excuse there was judgement and sentence. No excuse was justified there was only judgement. The four walked alone as no one ordered their actions, no one but the scales of justice themselves. The Dark Spirit Judges saw and they acted, there was no hesitation and no indecision. Ruthlessly efficient the only barrier to their progress was time itself. Due to their rebirth time was but an obstacle over stepped and bypassed. The Dark Spirit Judges had seen death and returned to offers others to it's embrace. They were those who preyed upon their fellow man to survive, the cosmic judgement against mankind's own excesses. The creation had returned to confront the creator. Technology had been confronted and moulded with fable, they were Vampire.
The basis is simple, all crime is committed by the conscious. The subconscious is but a subset of the greater mind. Through thought comes decision, through decision comes crime. Only through a lack of conscious could there be harmony. The Dark Spirit Judges were created with one ideal in their minds, one basis for judgement. They were judge, jury and executioner for those they found lacking. They were from a world where sobriety is a crime and the only punishment is death! Those who were sober were in charge of their actions, they were beyond excuse and fit to be judged for their actions.
So was mankind judged, so did it fall into the dust of their shattered cities. As civilisation was bought to a halt fewer and fewer breweries were able to function. The productive of the race were noticeably sober, they were the first to be judged and executed. From there the effects snowballed into a global collapse from which there was no recovery. The intoxicated could offer no defence and were spared, the sober offered a token resistance and were destroyed. Outclassed by a new breed of predator, one they themselves had created their last sober thought was their skulls being crushed beneath the feet of the Dark Spirit Judges. The drunk survived, for a time. Without industry brewing failed. Without brewing a frightened world were forced to confront their own created murderers in a sober frame of mind, hung over and terrified they were herded into cleansing areas and removed from the gene pool once and for all.
The world was stilled, stilled of life of all kinds. After the last human was felled for being sober in the face of duty to it's species the Dark Spirit Judges turned upon the surviving members of the animal kingdom. They too had a responsibility to the planet and they too failed through the vice of sobriety. One by one the species fell and one by one the Dark Spirit Judges hunted again. There was no end to their thirst for alcohol or their thirst for justice. They had been done bred into them and none was to be forthcoming. Vast reservoirs of alcoholic beverages sustained the Dark Spirit Judges as they committed genocide on a scale unthought of or even dreamed of by their mortal creators. Soon the world was still, there was no more. All life had been found wanting of the one true crime, that of being sober and yet still behaving like a pack of bastards. With the imperative to search and judge breed into the ritual that created them the Dark Spirit Judges could not rest. They returned to the laboratory that spawned them to find a means to fulfil their destiny. To judge those found wanting. Sobriety is a crime and the only punishment is Death!
Meagre City One, a vast metropolis constructed out of the merged wilderness and city of continental America. From out of the global wars of destruction a massive city was formed. Sustained by industries largely automated the average member of the population was left to survive without thought nor care of it's own life. A basic life stipend was paid to all, not matter what their contribution or their role in society. With survival guaranteed beyond their worth the population boomed. Meagre City One, a city with 800 million lurkers feasting off a city they offered nothing towards but filling space. Screaming for entertainment, screaming for diversion the City survived off bread and circuses. Almost boundless life, bored and pathetic. Contained within towering City Blocks kilometres high into the air. Thousands of inhabitants within each City Block lived and breathed, excreted and complained, consumed and replaced nothing, just waiting for the next circus to come to town.
Many never left their City Block in their life times, being born within the Block hospitals. Raised in the Block schools, shopping in the Block stores and eventually dieing and being recycled into the Block nutrient tanks. An endless cycle of subtraction without addition, leaving the automation to pamper their every need without addition themselves. The City survived and even prospered under it's own weight. The City expanded outwards, vast tracks of ocean recovered by automated farms and construction units. Further City Blocks were built, useless population housed and reproduction continued. No thought of contributing just the endless fact of being. Meagre City One, land of the great and free.
Space warped into a shrunken ball of Mercury. Light flickered and was sucked within the screaming vortex made from the air itself. Loose objects were propelled as if by a hurricane into the vortex, to vanish into it's maul and never to return. The scream of stressed materials was broken by the shriek of alarms. Being in the upper levels of the City Block any breach of atmospheric pressure involved evacuation and sealing of the area. The alarms suddenly ceased as the vortex exploded outward to vanish with contact with a solid object. Standing in the middle of the previous warp stood a single figure. A figure thing and cruel looking as if his last beer had been stolen by a party goer without a by your leave. The figure turned and surveyed the scene. "Excelllllllllllent." Whispered the figure as it strode towards the exit in search of life, sober life. Life to be judged.
Billy picked up the towel that had just been tossed to the floor by a passer by. Billy was one of the 0.000043% of the population that actually worked for a living. Billy helped clean. It wasn't a vital job as things go in Meagre City One but every little bit helps. Every addition to the already stressed automation just made an eventual break down more likely to occur. Billy was a fourth generation lurker, his parents had been lurkers, his grandparents had been lurkers, his great grandparents had been lurkers. Billy was certain to not wish that life upon himself. Billy wished to add, to do something. To actually make a difference. Billy wished to go to bed each morning bone weary but certain he had contributed rather than sucked the marrow out of the bones of the city. The door beside Billy was slammed open. Forcing a cheerful grin upon his face Billy walked up to greet the new guest to the movie-plex. The "hello good sir or madam" was chocked short as Billy took a good look at the newcomer. Feeling an inner chill as if his grave was not only being walked upon but as if the walker had bought an entire dance tour group with music accompaniment Billy fled to alert the authorities. As with all idle populations crime was rampant, all the same this was looking worse than Billy had ever dreamed off.
The man was dressed in a form hugging suit of black leather. Wearing a short leather skirt the man's hairy legs stood out like naked redwoods supporting a condominium of flesh. A leather brasserie contained the man's mightily haired chest in a manner which bespoke of far larger breasts than the person actual possessed. The leather sparkled with the metal sheen of buckles and clasps. The entire outfit spoke of authority and kicking your arse out your throat if you should even mumbled the words "bearded warrior princess cross dresser." The centre piece of the outfit was a shockingly large silver ring mounted on the index finger of the right hand. As the hand spun in an arc to survey the room the words "Judge Rum" could be seen engraved upon the ring.
"Drink or Die, Sinnersssss!" Hissed the figure as it grabbed Billy by the little girly throat he was trying to desperately breathe through at the time. "The crime is sssssssobriety, the sssssentance is death!" Judge Rum broke Billy's back across his big manly thighs and laughed aloud. A new world, a new world full of criminals. They would all be judged, one by one they would. The greatest crime was being committed, the greatest crime there is. They were sober, they shall die because of it. Judge Rum wrenched up a seat and jammed it though the door, no one would exit from that direction. With the screams of fear beginning Judge Rum began to judge an entirely new dimension for its crimes.
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