He made no motion to cover his ears, to flinch or avert his senses from it. He only stared, enraptured by it, slowly becoming encased in it. The squeal cut through his skin, his blood, plasma, bile, acid—searching out the emptiness that it knew was contained within his vast cavity. It gripped his heart, not causing it to stop, but to beat beat beat harder against his chest, banging, thrashing his body forward and backward and forward and backward and now he closed eyes because the noise was even there, within his face, every crevasse, crease, corner, filling him with ah dear god, the pain the pain like bludgeoning stabbing bleeding pain drilling piercing cutting through essence until it finds the black-like flesh dangling from a polished bone above an open fire with ashes at its feet it will not stop it will not stop it will not stop—