"Blood-Marked Morning"

The cuts were long but not wide, sitting on the torso. He stared at them and prodded one, wincing at the sensation.

The room was decorated with the skulls of dogs and bowls of rosewater. He poured one into his wounds, and they came back to life.

He hissed in pain and the world went white for a moment.

He was sitting in that whiteness for a small eternity, staring at the whiteness until spots formed before his eyes and those spots resolved into teeth, a snout, sneering eyes.

Then he was back, standing in his room. His wounds were bleeding again, not just the recent ones but their hundred predecessors. The wood of his floor was going to break eventually, turning deeper and deeper red each day.

He feels like he's going to run out of blood eventually, but he knows that isn't going to happen. This is his punishment.

He laid on the floor, taking solace in the ivory scowls which surrounded him and waiting for it all to pass.