The faint sound of cracking and a stench of iron and decay greeted him as he stepped through the doorway. Soft whistling-wheezing, hardly rhythmic anymore, reassured him of the captive's continued existence- even if that life was no longer a blessing but a curse. Once the feeble light of an ancient lamp fell upon the limp form, the captor broke into a grin. The captive, however, keened in fear and tried to pull away, even bound by chains to the great table as he was. Torture, or 'punishment' as the prison master called it, had reduced the creature on the table to more animal than man, clothed in its own blood and skin-shavings as it was, once well-groomed hair a tangled, matted, quickly graying mass covering the prisoner's face from view. Had the prisoner been capable of coherent thought, it would have been glad for that.
The warden walked forward and palmed the knife, dull and serrated and stained a rusty red from blood, and laughed quietly. The noise sent the thing on the table into a frenzied panic, and through the fur a pair of eyes appeared, once blue and now a pale milky white from so long in the dark and countless times of squeezing shut so hard blood flowed like tears. The blind eyes stared at their tormentor, and he thought perhaps a knife wouldn't be neccesary today… No, knives made everything more fun. There would be knives.
The tormentor laid the knife-hand on the prisoner's belly, and watched in delight as his charge's thrashing disemboweled itself. Hot blood, and the delicious tang of it, sprayed him and the thing as its writhing intensified. Putting his now-spotted hand to his face and wiping away the worst of the bloody spray, he sliced perpendicular to the first cut, creating a nice, if raggedy, "X". He then went on to safety-pin back the skin flaps and poke and investigate the exposed organs, having a good deal of fun quizzing himself on what their names were. This would probably kill the prisoner, and he would laugh as it died, but he was sad his new favorite toy had to break. It had been so much fun…
The prisoner was visibly paling under bloodstained skin; from blood loss, or fear, he didn't care, but he wanted to hear his lovely doll dying; so far it had only continued the obnoxious keening.
"Scream for me, toy, scream for me and I might end it quicker, just one long, lovely scream…"
It only intensified its keening, interspersed with whimpers, and continued to bleed everywhere. The smell of panic, and fear, and the dark presence of death hung in the air like a plague, and without a scream—but the toy's death nearing—he knew that scream must be gotten somehow, because he desperately wanted his plaything to scream.
He dug his hand into the prisoner's gash and poked around in there, able to feel much more distinctly the susurration of blood and all the wonderful little doodads in his toy's body desperately working to keep it alive, but failing despite their efforts. He pressed against the ribcage, having torn the diaphragm, and poked the warm wet soft things that must be lungs. The prisoner's breathing had long since ceased regularity and it was now respiring in short, agonized bursts. Reaching in a little farther he found the heart and, curious, poked it. As that elicited a squeak, he reached his now blood-soaked and wrinkling hand in a little further and took hold of the small, spasming thing.
It screamed, loud and long, with unfathomable agony twisted in for a wonderful undertone. Well, now it had screamed, and he may as well end it nicely… So he squeezed the heart, and ripped it out of the tortured one's chest. It dripped on the dying man, and he slatted it onto the poor beast's face. As it expired with its scream, there was one thing said to fading ears:
"Sleep well, brother."