Oh help! Here it is again. I thought it'd gone, gone soon after the whitecoats took me and made this hole in my head. I'd almost forgotten it, save for that pain, that throbbing pain… there it is again! Hurting and hurting and driving me wild! Like the day… that day I killed my master. The whole world exploded in noise. That came from my head too, everything bad comes from my head, that's why the whitecoats did what they did, it has to be. That's why it hurts, because they tried to make me better. But why won't it go away?
The rocks were laughing at him, laughing in rich mocking tones from inside his head. Just as the flies droned within, so the rocks laughed. Snitter, sinking his front half to the ground, buried his muzzle in his paws, closed his eyes to the world and whined. Why wouldn't it go away? What was it they were trying to tell him?
"Go away!" yelped Snitter, scraping and scratching with a forepaw at the plaster encasing on his head. Yet still the rocks continued to mock him; at least the flies had the decency to settle down once in a while. "Leave me alone! Let me be! Rrrowf, Rowf!" He barked, jumping up and snapping wildly at the air around him before being interrupted.
"Snitter, what is it? Snitter. Snitter!" Rowf called, trying to break through the sea of confusion that surrounded the small terrier.
"Oh, Rowf, it was awful. They were all laughing inside my head and they wouldn't stop. No matter how hard I tried to block out the sound, I could still hear it. At least they seem to have scared the flies away."
"What on earth are you on about, Snitter?"
"Can't you hear? The flies aren't so loud anymore. It's almost as if they've flown over the hills in the distance." Snitter said, cocking his head to the side as he stared past Rowf's black form, which was silenced as he gazed with curiosity at Snitter. His small friend seemed to pass momentarily from the world into another before suddenly shaking his head to and fro, ears flapping about the plaster on his head as he returned. "These damn flies!" Snitter growled, lips curling back as he sat down on his haunches and scratched at his ear with a hind paw. "Oh, Rowf, what has become of us? Will we ever get out of here?" he asked sadly, padding over to gaze out the mouth of the tunnel.
"Come now, Snitter. Of course we will. We just have to find the right little spot for us to settle down in, then no one will ever find us and we can live free and safe from those… those damn whitecoats!" Rowf replied, sitting his form down next to Snitter, nuzzling warmly between the terrier's ears.
"There just doesn't ever seem to be a place to go. Not with a master, anyway."
"Snitter, what are you talking about? We don't need a master. I don't know why you keep going on about them or want to look for one in the first place; they're just all going to be like those damn whitecoats. That or they'll turn us in." Rowf growled, threatening Snitter with a glare.
"No, you don't understand, Rowf. My master –"
"I don't want to hear about you and your master, not again! Not ever, Snitter. It's you and that hole in your head, that's all it is. There are no masters, Snitter. So just let it be!"
"But Rowf…" Snitter protested.
"NO! No buts about it, Snitter. You go looking for another master and he'll end up just like that last man. And like your master, it sounds from the way you talk about him." Rowf growled.
Snitter said nothing more to that, and simply lay down on his belly to rest his head on his paws with a despondent sigh, gazing out into the dark night as Rowf left him to return to the inky darkness of the tunnel.
