Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,—he comes before me."

—Hamlet, William Shakespeare

It was night.

Bob was in a dream. This much he knew, from the blurred images of guards standing outside of cells. But they weren't guards—shadows. They weren't moving; he touched one. It felt ice-cold, like marble, and turned to Bob, making him jump. The only visible thing other than the body shadow was its red glowing eyes. The only feeling he could gather from that glare was evil. He knew what the look was, and what it felt like (having given plenty of the death-glares before). But this was a different sort of evil than revenge—it wasn't something he'd ever encountered. Bob only felt that this man—all of these guards in the prison, whatever they were—would inflict pain upon innocents for the fun of it, not for revenge, or for any right reason. Much like being in the middle of the worst side of prison (where the truest of the true sick, malicious men were kept).

He backed away from it, shuddering.

All of the guards had red eyes now, guarding nothingness in the cells. Almost floating around each top horizontal bar of them was a lock. Though it didn't seem like that would do much of anything to keep each shadow inmate inside (if there were any, which there weren't), it just made sense in the dream. Bob was standing at the end of the prison hallway.

At the opposite end was another cell. Ordinary looking. Dark. But unlike the rest, there was somebody in it. Bob approached the slowly moving figure cautiously, well aware of the shadow guards' eyes glaring holes into the back of his head.

Now that he was getting closer, he saw that the end of the hallway was not a dead-end, but formed a capital T-shape into yet another set of corridors from each end. The prison was a maze, he realized, that he could not escape from. Not until he approached the shadow-inmate.

The man was bent over in the corner, shuffling with something Bob could not see.

"Hello?" His voice traveled into the corridors, a wavering echo.

The man stopped moving.

He still couldn't make out the person. "Who are you?"

Silence.

The feeling that the guards were getting closer to him caused a quick spin. Just to look—none had budged. Just as he started to look back at the figure, their necks all snapped as they turned to look at him. None moved after that.

He hesitantly turned back around after counting to thirty. There were no guards over here, but the feeling of dread filled this area. "Are you alright?"

There was no sound as the man stood and turned around.

He took in a deep breath. The silhouette was Cecil, in the form of another shadow-man. His hair was messed up, arms flat against his side and legs together.

His eyes were red.

But, instead of giving off the same evil vibe the guards gave off, his were turned the opposite way in a look that screamed he was in pain. He whispered something that Bob couldn't make out.

"What?"

Whispers.

He stepped up to the bars, and placed a hand on the top horizontal bar with the lock on it. A jolt of electricity made him yank it back in pain. "Ah!"

Even with the blue flash of light that came from the floating lock, Cecil's features still couldn't be made out.

He whispered again.

"Speak up dammit, I can't hear you! What happened to you? What has Vojin done?"

Cecil reached between the bars and grabbed Bob's hand. He whispered again, "*It is not, nor it cannot, come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue. Help me, Bob." His red eyes widened into circles, and he backed away into a corner shivering.

Bob felt them come up behind him. He did not fear anything easily. Hell, there wasn't much of anything in the world that terrified him except for ideas of what could happen. Simple 'what-ifs.' Nothing physical, except the kind of pain other inmates may inflict upon one in a fight. But that wasn't terrifying, it was painful.

He turned.

The shadow guards were coming towards him like a mix of slowly moving spirits and starving zombies. The dread that hung in the air was poisoned by the evil. Foreboding doom came towards him in waves with each of their movements, and with power.

Too much power.

Bob turned around, looking at Cecil.

He was gone. Absorbed into the shadows of this place.

He turned and backed into the cell door, another jolt of electricity braking him out of numbness, making him run to the left, down that empty corridor, and to the left again. He stopped.

There was an exit sign, hanging right above a door at the end of the hallway.

The shadows were coming, and coming faster now. Suddenly, he was in slow motion, and they were at normal speed. They all caught up to him within seconds, claws coming out of their fingertips.

Whatever kind of dream this was, it was anything but a nightmare.

Professor Vojin came to the front, smirking at Bob. The demons backed away, leaving him with only a tear in his sleeve.

He was numb, unable to move.

The therapist held out his arms, "My patients…"

Bob's eyes widened.

He put his arms down and pointed at Bob. "Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind."* His voice boomed through the walls.

He opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak.

"Tis our time today, in this world . . . madman." With the last word, the ghosts leapt at Bob, claws tearing into his clothing and skin and—

Bob woke up gasping, in a regular cot. In a regular cell.

Regular guards.

He lay back down, and then leaned over the side. Still, nobody on the bottom bunk. He knew that wasn't merely a simple dream. Never before had he felt physical pain or such terror in a nightmare alone. Even in reality, nothing seemed to be able to cause anything like that at all. Springfield was almost silly in its way of life—like a cartoon, everything turned out fine in the end (mostly). When in reality, with his terrorization of Bart Simpson's life and family, any regular child would be cowering in fear of the very thought of a homicidal maniac on their heels.

They had almost become acquaintances at some points of his many schemes.

In not being a part of this . . . cartoon, Bob's life was serious. As in, affected by reality. He felt as if this world was not supposed to be his own.

Like a book. My life is almost controlled like the plot in a book, or movie, or cartoon!

But only when he crossed paths with the Simpsons, or Springfield. Vojin took away all sense of the cartoon feeling. He did not play a role in Springfield, or was supposed to—like a parasite, or a virus in a computer, he wasn't supposed to be there.

Mess up the plot of a story, disrupt the entire book. Dire consequences occur, and the parasite has complete control.

And now, for once, there was something rotten in the town of Springfield. And it all centered around Professor Vojin.

Forgive me. School and writer's block. Those are my excuses.

*- Hamlet, William Shakespeare. Not mine, of course.