T: Welcome back, I'm so glad you decided to join me again, but sadly I fear our time together is drawing to a close… but fear not I promise to make our last helpings very yummy… now if you would, sit down and prepare yourself for the next helping

Red

Ruby, crimson, scarlet, the color of fire, passion, anger and pain… Red… oh how I love it… it is beautiful, the boldness, the warmth of the color stirred something deep inside me… it whispered to the very core of my being… dark, seductive, velvet promises of unrivaled pain and pleasure… it made me feel alive… but it was so rarely found pure, untouched… Red… its essence… I could only behold it in fleeting glimpses… It always vanished before I could really appreciate that loveliness… Blossoms wilted, make-up faded, the garments passed by just as quickly as they came and were never quite the right shade… I hungered for something deeper… richer than those glimpses of beauty… It was then that something occurred to me… the color of fire, color of passion, of anger, of pain… it was also the color… of blood.

Once that idea took hold of me I made sure it didn't relinquish its hold easily… Blood was everywhere, whole rivers of it, pulsating through the veins of billions of people around me… I realized… I had enough to paint the whole, bleak, tired world with it…

I cut up my first a year ago I believe… I remember thinking… her skin would make a wonderful canvas… smooth and pale… and it did. Skin is so boring… so neutral and flat. So I took her to a narrow, winding street that ended in a dead end… I had offered to walk her home since it had become very late… then… as we reached the dead end… I reached into my pocket and closed my trembling fingers around the handle of the blade I had sharpened earlier that day… I painted her red that night… she and I both… I felt a strange rush of… something akin to euphoria… dragging the sharp, gleaming steel across that white, soft surface… and watched it come alive with red… I drew back… and cut her again… and again and again in long, sweeping curves… Back, torso, shoulders, hips, stomach, wrists, thighs… It was even better than I had ever imagined… Rich flowing crimson flowed out of every deep gash and onto my hands, my knife, my clothes, the streets… No one heard her screams, just as no one heard my delighted laughter as I sliced open her neck in one clean movement… watching as the last, lovely bit of red poured out… warming and gushing into the street… into the dark, deserted street, as the last spark in her eyes went out

I stayed for a while, with her still warm corpse in my arms… relishing the fresh, glimpsing color… smiling gently… I knew right then and there… that I would do this again… without the slightest hint of remorse… She had just been like everyone else… plain and unnoticed… I had made her beautiful… I had painted her red, every inch with the most beautiful, brightest, purist form of red I could find… yes it was a bit messy but… it's expected for my first time… The next one would be… a work of art

I don't understand… they made me stop… I was completing my master piece… two children… brother and sister if I remember correctly… I had planned to carve rose buds in their skin… I had gotten quite good at making various patterns… but… they put binds on me… forced me into a flashing, wailing car… covered up my hard work with ugly rags of cotton and… they asked me questions of which I did not understand… they called me awful things… a psychopath, a murderer, a lunatic… they took my knife away… I was only an artist… I tried to explain that to them… I was only an artist and that my blade was my paint brush and the world was my canvas, its people my ink… I made them beautiful in death… if only they would let me show them, let me cut them… then only would they see how lovely it was… but they didn't let me… no one understood… They kept repeating themselves aimlessly… murder, homicide, mutilation, assault, kidnapping, killing… ugly words… hateful words… they just wouldn't listen… did they want the world to be boring? Did they want to live their lives in their own little shadow instead of what I could have made it? Perhaps they did… they wouldn't answer my questions… all they did was throw more words at me… senseless, awful words… I wasn't any of the things they called me… I was an artist… I Spencer Shay was an artist dammit… they were the cruel ones

But in the end… it'll all be ok… even though I was kept out of reach… even though I was kept in this shiny, white… unreasonably clean, metal box they called a hospital… even though they won't let me see anyone else… its ok because… I don't need a knife to cut… I didn't need others to paint… I had gallons of red… pulsating, running through my own veins… I had my teeth, my nails as brushes… the clean, white walls would make a perfect backdrop… the only bad thing was… I wouldn't be able to enjoy my final piece of art work… this last splash of red… myself