Davros awoke coughing. He was still upright yet his servos were deactivated and his arms bound with some rough woven rope. Something clucked. A splash of light illuminated a hen, huddled in the corner of the small, snug straw cocoon.
He coughed again. A thin wisp of smoke rose from between the planks of wood lining the floor. Behind him something squealed. A piglet. It writhed with discomfort, dashing back and forth, looking for a bolt hole. The light spilled from several rectangular slits on one side of the room.
Davros reached forward and plunged his fingers into the wire mesh and straw of the wall. Using all his upper body strength, he tipped himself over and heaved himself forward. His now useless lower mounting scraped across the rough wooden floor, his arms shook with the effort, but he managed to draw himself beside the slits. Repositioning his arms, he reached up and grasped the tangle of mesh above him. His torso ached as he stretched but, balanced on the edge of his lower mounting, he managed to angle one eye sufficiently to see out.
Through the rectangular slit he saw the semi-circle of the weak humans scum. They swayed and chanted. No, not chanted; sang. At their centre he stood, The Doctor, his nemisis, a beatific smile on his face. He was singing too. Impossible. Yet so like him; seduced by the weakness of his favorite species. That would be the end of him, that weakness. It would lead to his extermination. Davros would exterminate them all. He found he was not merely thinking this but saying it aloud, shouting it. And it felt good. It felt cleansing. And it would drown out their infernal human singing. He raised his voice, chanting his own hymn, louder and louder. Exterminate. Exterminate.
His chant was joined by a howl from the piglet behind him. The smoke was thick, now, and the animals trapped with him began to flap and struggle and wail. Davros raised his voice higher. He would drown them all out.
Then he felt the first lick of the flames…
