Young Writers Society

      They were called "The Fallen" by themselves, "Unworthy" by the Judges, and "Sinners" by the zealots. People too evil in life to be allowed to disrupt the utopia on the other side. They idly wondered sometimes what that utopia was like. Not that they really cared; they didn't even believe it really existed. To them it was just a notion they may have heard of. It was just something to think about, an alternative to the pit they lived in. A pit they may or may not have known about before their rebirth, or "death" as they used to call it. There was no dying, they knew that now. There was just another chapter in futility, a self-perpetuating carcass of something once great.

      Three main groups flourished in the pit, though there were many groups inhabiting the pit. The liars were the highest, though not the strongest, for in their lives they had unknowingly chosen to familiarize themselves with one of the tools they needed to succeed in their new world. Cruelty, deceit, and misery. These were power. These were currency. These were survival. Cruelty was power, and those who had it were formidable. Those who weren't cruel soon realized they never would be, and were doomed to be oppressed. Deceit was currency. With deceit you could attain anything you desire in the pit, and those who had it prospered greatly. Those who could not understand deceit were taken advantage of, and though they might attain seats of power without it, they will lose them far quicker. Misery was survival. If you could not inflict it, you were nothing. You were lower than the vile ground they walked upon. You were fodder, or you were a slave, or you were nothing.

      Every so often, there would be a mass upheaval; for better or worse. For better would be the Judges made a mistake; something that happened far less than the alternative upheaval. Someone who deserved the utopia the One had made would be cast down by mistake, and upon him suffering would be unleashed such as was known no equal to any others but the denizens of the pit. There would be no salvation for him, and he would be snuffed eventually by the filth. For worse would be that a person of unique evil would be rebirthed, and he would revel in his new paradise; twisting the very pit itself to serve his visions. Millions would be eradicated by his very whim, and he would begin to be viewed as the One. On this unfortunate occasion, the whole pit would be purged so that he would not escape and disrupt the utopia far above. No creature would remember it, for there would be none left to remember it. Except for the Judges, who would weep openly at the sight of it, there would be no recording of it.

      And so they existed. No existence of time, or character, or anything else that would allow them to do anything but what they had done. This was how it was, and is, and will, and should be.

      The Judges were people who had rebirthed but done nothing in their life. Not "no evil", as the residents of the utopia had done, but simply nothing. The were so neutral in character that they fit nowhere, so they were tasked to judge all rebirths: good, and evil.