In the dark, the boy wakes, gasping to a foggy awareness in the chill air. Confusion and pain swirl around him like mist - his head aches with a dull throb, and he cannot recall anything apart from a blow to the head, and then nothingness.
He tries to move and when he cannot, a distant echo of fear rises in his heart. But it is an only an echo; he cannot focus the fear, nor can he think well enough past the ache in his skull to determine where he is.
It is cold here - wherever here is. It is a cold as deep and nauseating as the chill void of space; it not only seeps into his bones, it penetrates his very soul.
Slowly, he realises that he is lying flat, tied by his wrists and ankles to a rough surface; but before he can think further, he hears a faint scrabbling sound from somewhere near his head. His mind paints horrors on the darkness.
There's a loud scratch and he sees a match flare in the gloom, overwhelming his dark-adapted eyes for a moment; but gradually, he makes out the outline of a man standing to his left.
Something about this man feels other, but what it is he cannot tell- he is tall, but not excessively so, with a general air of disrepair about him, though the boy cannot pinpoint anything specific that tells him that. The face is changed but familiar, though he cannot place it, and the shock of red hair above the grey eyes...
Those eyes, the boy realises with a shock, those eyes!
From the man's eyes shine a nameless something which is neither sanity nor madness, but that something gives the impression of a being neither native nor friendly to the world of man. They promise him horrors beyond his imagination - he would shrink from that gaze, as one might shrink from a corpse, were it not for his bonds.
The man, who has not yet spoken, moves his hand to touch the match to a candle - and then he speaks in an oddly familiar voice, looking down upon the new-kindled flame. 'I am the harbinger of war. I am the beloved of tyranny and death, and of agony - and in the end, I shall be your destruction and your renewal. For you shall be consumed in the belly of the fire-wyrm, and you shall be reborn in his flame, to serve his will until his fires consume the world.'
It is recited in a dry whisper, like the slithering of a snake over silk, and whether it is a prayer or a threat, the boy cannot tell.
The man takes a deep breath, and deigns to notice the boy.
'Little Bart Simpson.'
The captive trembles to hear his name spoken in such a tone. There is no anger in the man's voice - it would be better if there were, for he sounds almost jolly.
And he realizes suddenly why that voice is so familiar. 'Sideshow Bob?
'Not so much as I once was - and yet, more than I'll ever be again.' With this cryptic statement, the man turns away from the boy, facing a rough stone wall behind him that is barely illuminated by the flicker of the candle.
Squinting, he can see that the wall is painted here and there with dark splashings of old blood, and hung occasionally with bones that may or may not be human.
Even that, though, does not touch on the true horror. There is something moving behind the wall.
At first, the boy thinks that the movement is a trick of the light, or else that the pain in his head has done something to his eyes; but Bob turns his head enough to meet Bart's confused gaze and smiles. It is that smile that nearly unhinges the boy with fear.
'Are you ready?' The man does not wait for an answer. Instead, he turns back to the wall, running his hands over the wall in an intricate pattern. He begins to chant in a language that cannot be human, something with too many consonants that the boy's mind refuses to parse.
The cold strikes to the captive's heart, and as he watches, the something behind the wall grows clearer and more distinct, until...
His mind, desperately trying to protect itself, does not put name or form to the creature. Something primeval inside him gibbers in fear until he finds his voice, screaming his terror to an audience that does not care.
The man watches the spectacle with his alien eyes, sighing in satisfaction. 'Ahhh,' he murmurs to the unhearing captive, 'at last you understand!'