The last thing Rigby remembered, he was being shoved into a box that smelled like old man feet.

Now his eyes were all crusty, his lungs felt like a smoker must feel, and his legs were [i]both[/i] asleep.

[b]"HnnnggggrrrrrrRRRYYYYAAAAAAA!!!"[/b]

He punched the lid of his box, but nothing happened. He swung his sleeping leg upward and cracked his bare foot against the lid. He couldn't feel anything -- his leg was [i]asleep[/i] -- but he figured that wasn't a good thing.

[b]"Get! Out! Git! Move! Hya! Kwah! Hnnngggg!"[/b]

He struggled, he flopped onto his stomach, he gave a heave with his arms, and he got the damn thing open enough that he could get his arm around outside and shove the thing over. Hot damn that took forever.

Now what?

Rigby scrambled out of the box and out of the pigeonhole, and he sat down on the high platform to rub the blood back into his legs. People's voices echoed all around him; people were standing around on the ground floor, having speeches and gawping and being confused and playing cool like they knew what was going on.

Nobody knew what was going on.

Rigby hopped to his feet and leaned over to peer down at them. He was ten years old, he wore gray prison clothes and a gray stained bandage around his head, his unruly hair was the color of cracked mud, his skin was as blue as a summer sky, his eyes glowed like yellow flames and his teeth were sharp as nails.

He hocked a loogie and spat it down below, hoping to hit someone over the head.

[b]"Oy, what you losers doin'?"[/b] he shouted, and his voice echoed loudly over the churn of machinery. [b]"Who's got somethin' ta eat? I'm gonna [i]starve[/i]. I'll fight ya for it. I'll fight [i]all[/i] o' ya. I'll eatcha."[/b] He flashed them a fangy grin, crouched on the platform like a monkey.

[hr]

Thunder rumbled.

Bits of plaster fell from the vaulted ceiling; new dark fissures veined the murals overhead.

Machines groaned and snapped; steam hissed and whistled.

A chunk of stone broke away from the ceiling and exploded with a CRASH against the floor, spraying the escapees with plaster and stone fragments.

Rain poured in through the widening splintered gaps, and the ceiling crumbled faster. Bigger slabs of plaster and stone crashed to the mosaic floor, threatening to crush those standing beneath.

A car-sized chunk of the ceiling broke away, hurtled downward, and crashed with a deafening impact. Mosaic tiles flung into the air, the floor shifted and broke and gave way under the weight.

The chunk of ceiling fell through the crumbling floor and crashed into the churning metal below. Through the hole in the floor, far below, was an impossible and dark network of cogs and gears and chains and boilers and pipes, churning and clanking and hissing and rumbling. It was all lit up from below by a pale orange glow, like a dying sun.

The floor was breaking.

The ceiling was falling down on top of them, piece by piece.

The woman's voice began to sing again, louder and more fervently, in a language none of them had heard before: [i]Iruditae elagri dae, ilasria lin di samnia gro.[/i]

A great hammer at the other end of the hall slammed into stone. The ogre grunted with the effort.

And above -- through the emptiness left by the broken ceiling -- darkness and violet swirled among the lightning and stormclouds. Rain pummeled down into the Stone.

Rigby pumped his fists in the air and hooted with delight.

A deep voice bellowed out of the swirling darkness in the sky -- and even Rigby went quiet in slack-jawed awe.

[h3]WHO ARE YOU?[/h3]
The voice's echo rumbled in the distance for a long minute before it was finally overtaken by the hiss of the rain.

The void in the sky awaited a response.