Work Text:
Poland, 1943
He decided it was the music that soothed him. The cacophonic symphony of the dead and dying played idly against the sizzle of flesh. A little piece of home in this otherwise frozen wasteland.
"You know," he mused, examining his newest patient thoughtfully, "Back home, in my workshop, I had this apprentice...Clever lad, really. My best student in over a century...He once strung up four souls in the back corner and arranged their intestines so they moaned when you strummed them. A regular string quartet."
"Herr...Doktor..."
"I wonder if you're a tenor or a base?"
"Bitte."
The scalpel sliced with buttery ease.