"Tick tock, tick tock," I say softly to myself, low enough I can hear the faint way it plays off the cell walls, but not loud enough anyone outside can hear. It's a ritual I started doing back when... come to think of it, I don't remember when I started doing it. I do know that it's usually followed by silence though. The dark, dreary isolating silence of these four walls, closing in on me.

"The man ran up the clock."

I look at my cellmate. That can't be right. My cellmate usually doesn't break the silence. Or is it that my cellmate isn't usually here? Wouldn't he share a cell with me if he is my cellmate? I feel the thoughts slipping away as quickly as they come.

"Something gotten into your head, Rupert?" He asks me. Fred asks me.

Fred, my cellmate. Who has always been... he was here when I became a prisoner, right?

Before I can muster a response, Fred scratches his head and looks as addled as I feel.

"Something gotten into my head maybe," he says.

I get up from the battered cot that they dare to call my bed and stand up to my full height, which I have long wished was more intimidating. My full height puts me about up to Fred's chin and it is a solid-looking chin. I gulp. I don't know why I'm feeling intimidated. I've been cellmates with Fred for so long.

"Listen..." says Fred, then he trails off. Just like Fred, always trailing off.

I chuckle, "Oh Fred, you goof."

"No, listen," says Fred, grabbing me by the shoulders and looking right at me with haunted brown eyes.

I can feel his breath on my face and see the little stubble hairs of where he recently shaved. I break away from his gaze and look down. I pinch my thigh through my rough trousers. It hurts. Nothing changes. I'm awake. I can't be awake. Nothing about this is right. It's all wrong. I feel panic rising in my throat.

"Seriously, listen," insists Fred, as if I had tried to shut him down. "Something is wrong here. I don't think we have much time, but I need you to know something. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not your cellmate, Rupert. I don't know who you are and I don't-" he grunts and flinches as if attacked, sagging a little. Then he sucks in a breath and recovers, gritting his teeth and speaking with a frightening determination, "I don't know how I got in here. I was just walking to a cafe. Someone is screwing with us both. You have to remember. You can't forget. I can feel-" he grunts again and this time he lets go of my shoulders and stumbles.

I try to react, but I'm frozen in place, whether by fear or some unknown force I can't tell. I watch helplessly as Fred falls to the ground. Something lets loose in me and I start shouting for the guards. Footsteps pound down the hall. Shouting. Key clanking, door opening.

I look at the guard and he looks at Fred. The guard gives me a contemptuous expression that guards like him practice in front of the mirror every morning, I can only assume. He spits on the ground in front of me.

"What was all that yelling about?" He asks. "It's just Fred out cold on the floor again. Probably snuck in some booze, as is his habit. Pathetic man."

"Right, right, sorry," I say, trying to look contrite and trying to fight down the urge to swing at the guard. "Lost my head for a moment."

The guard shakes his head and walks off, muttering as he closes and locks the door, "Put em in four walls and they get a little loopy after a while."

I stare down at Fred, not finding the impetus to budge an inch. I ball my hands into fists. The impotent rage causes my chest to heave. I'm going to find out who did this. I have to. I have to find the person who hurt Fred. He's always been my cellmate. I owe him that much.

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