Learning to Hunt: The Bloody Tulip – Part 19

In “Descent Into Darkness“, Six months after Olivia’s attack, a hospital room becomes the nexus of a dangerous evolution. Gabriel, now unrecognizable even to himself, moves with the predatory precision of a hunter rather than an artist. His hands remain steady while everything else has changed, including the heart beating beneath his surgical scar. As Talia observes concerning patterns in both Olivia’s brain readings and Gabriel’s transformed demeanor, a deadly triangle forms across state lines. In a nondescript hotel room, Ayuna tracks Gabriel through a web of surveillance photos and medical supply requisitions, while Dima’s malicious voice purrs through the phone. The lines between hunter and prey blur in this surgical chess game, as Gabriel’s methodical pursuit suggests he’s becoming something far more dangerous than anyone anticipated. The question isn’t whose blood he seeks—but whether anyone can stop him once he starts.

Unraveling Stitches

The fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor buzzed overhead like dying insects as Gabriel stormed toward the exit, each footfall echoing with newfound purpose. His phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip, he dialed Ayuna’s number for the seventh time since leaving Olivia’s room. Each unanswered ring drove the scalpel of betrayal deeper between his ribs.

The antiseptic scent of the hospital clung to his clothes like a second skin, the sterile environment suddenly suffocating after hours spent watching machines breathe for Olivia. Sweat beaded at his temples despite the artificial chill of the air conditioning, his body burning with a fever of rage and confusion. The exit doors parted before him with a pneumatic hiss that reminded him of a ventilator’s rhythm – in, out, in, out – the mechanical soundtrack to Olivia’s suspended life.

The night had deepened while he’d sat vigil, the parking lot now a constellation of sodium lights casting jaundiced pools across the asphalt. His reflection fragmented across car windows as he passed, each glimpse showing him a stranger wearing his face. Gabriel barely recognized the rigid set of his jaw, the predatory intensity in his eyes.

The phone vibrated in his palm – Ayuna, finally. His thumb jabbed at the screen, the connection opening like an incision.

“Ayuna?” His voice emerged raw, as if something inside him had torn loose. When only silence greeted him, something deeper snapped. “AYUNA? Answer me, dammit! How could you do that to Olivia? Why would you do that!”

The silence stretched between them, taut as surgical thread before the final knot. His free hand unconsciously found the raised ridge beneath his shirt – the perfectly executed scar running down his sternum where Ayuna had opened him, placed a new heart inside him. The organ pulsed now with quickened, angry beats, as if responding to its creator’s voice on the line.

“Gabriel, this is more complicated than I could begin to explain.” Her voice carried the clinical detachment he’d once found soothing in pre-op consultations. Now it chilled him to the marrow. “Please, I swear I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I promise I will explain when I get the chance.”

A passing ambulance splashed the parking lot in strobing red light, painting Gabriel’s world in the color of trauma, of exposed tissue, of the mounting rage in his chest.

“No. You’ll explain now.” The sternness in his voice surprised even him, as if someone else had momentarily commandeered his vocal cords. “What did you do to her? What did you do to me?” His fingers pressed harder against his chest scar, feeling the rhythmic pulse beneath – a constant reminder of their intimate connection, tissue to tissue, heart to heart.

Through the phone came the sound of controlled breathing, the technique of a surgeon maintaining composure during a procedure gone wrong.

“I need some time to fix something first, then I will explain everything. But I can’t now. I’m sorry.” Her voice fractured on the final word, a hairline crack in her composure that would have once moved him to comfort her. Now it only fueled his fury.

“Ayuna—”

The line went dead, its absence filling his ear like sudden deafness. Rain began to fall, cold drops striking his upturned face as he frantically redialed. Each attempt led to voicemail, Ayuna’s professional greeting now a mockery of the woman he thought he knew.

Thunder rolled across the sky, vibrating through Gabriel’s chest like surgical saws through bone. He stared at his reflection in the darkened phone screen, illuminated by momentary lightning. The face that stared back was barely recognizable – features twisted in a rictus of rage, pupils dilated with adrenaline, lips pulled back in a snarl. His stolen heart hammered against his ribs with alien intensity, each beat pumping unfamiliar emotions through his system.

Something fundamental had shifted within him, like tissue adapting to transplant – his body accommodating a foreign presence. The rain intensified, soaking through his shirt to the scar beneath, the physical manifestation of their connection now a livid line of betrayal across his chest.

Gabriel stood motionless in the deluge, water streaming down his face like tears he couldn’t shed, while inside him, his heart beat with growing purpose – steady, determined, and suddenly, terrifyingly precise.

Precision Deterioration

Three days after the hospital, Gabriel stood in the center of his apartment, listening to the hum of the refrigerator compressor cycling on and off with mechanical regularity. The sound had never bothered him before, but now its rhythmic imprecision grated against his nerves like dull forceps on exposed tissue.

Without conscious thought, his hands began to move, rearranging objects with methodical purpose. Books once casually stacked now stood in perfect height order, spines aligned with millimetric precision. The kitchen transformed under his touch—utensils separated by function and size, canned goods arranged by expiration date, spice jars rotated so labels faced outward at identical angles. Paintings that had hung with artistic casualness now aligned with architectural perfection, each measured exactly 57 inches from the floor—optimal viewing height.

The air grew thick with the sterile scent of bleach and disinfectant as Gabriel scrubbed every surface until his fingertips pruned and cracked, leaving microscopic traces of himself on each pristine countertop. The clock on the wall ticked with relentless precision, marking time in perfect intervals while outside, the world continued its chaotic orbit.

By midnight, sweat had soaked through his shirt, yet the compulsion continued. Sorting, aligning, measuring—his mind performing triage on his environment while his internal systems collapsed.

Guilt arrived first, seeping through his consciousness like local anesthesia—numbing, then burning, then a deep, persistent ache. In the bathroom, Where the harsh fluorescent light painted his reflection in ghostly pallor, Gabriel retched into the sink, nothing but bile rising from his empty stomach.

“Did I cause this?” he whispered to his reflection, fingers unconsciously finding the ridge of his chest scar through his shirt. “If I had never gone to her, if I had never fallen in love with her, would Olivia be safe?”

The guilt evolved into betrayal as he moved through his bedroom, where Ayuna’s presence lingered like phantom limb pain. Her scent still clung to his pillowcase—antiseptic undertones beneath floral shampoo. A single long blond hair on the nightstand caught the light, coiled like unused suture thread. He gathered these remnants with trembling hands, sealing them in a plastic bag with the clinical detachment of collecting evidence.

Yet when his fingers brushed against the small silver heart pendant she had given him—”So you’ll always remember the second chance we made together”—he couldn’t place it with the other items. His fist closed around it, metal edges biting into his palm, physical pain a welcome distraction from the war within. How could he still love hands that had caused such harm? How could he hate the woman who had literally held his heart?

Confusion settled in by the fourth day, a diagnostic mystery with no clear etiology. Gabriel wandered his apartment like a patient in post-operative delirium, retracing conversations and moments, searching for symptoms he should have recognized.

“The signs were there,” he muttered, scrawling notes on a medical pad, the same brand Ayuna used for patient charts. “The way she handled a scalpel with effortless precision, even outside the operating room. Beyond just being a surgeon. How her eyes lingered a second too long on news reports about violent crimes, as if analyzing the details. And the way she spoke about anatomy, not clinically, but almost… fondly.”

The notes accumulated, pages spreading across his dining table in a chaotic contrast to the ordered perfection of the rest of his space. Each theory, each memory analyzed with increasingly clinical detachment and scrutiny.

By the second week, depression had set in like post-surgical complications. The once-pristine apartment began to deteriorate around the edges as Gabriel spent days at Olivia’s bedside, returning only to collapse in exhaustion. Dishes accumulated in the sink, their disarray somehow unimportant compared to the perfect order he maintained in his investigation notes.

The hospital visits followed the same ritual pattern. Arrival at 9:17 AM precisely. Chair positioned at a specific angle to Olivia’s bed. Monitoring equipment checked and mentally logged. His artist’s eyes noted every change in her complexion, every fluctuation in the IV drip rate, every minuscule shift in her unconscious expression.

“I should have protected you,” he whispered to her still form, the ventilator’s rhythmic hiss his only answer. “I brought her into our lives.”

He barely touched the sandwiches the nurses left for him, his body consuming itself as his mind turned inward. Dark circles formed beneath his eyes like bruises, his clothes hanging loose on his frame within weeks.

Until finally, like tissue transitioning from inflammation to healing, the rage settled in—cold, calculating, analytical. A surgical anger that brought with it a terrible clarity.

Twenty-three days after Olivia’s attack, the kitchen faucet in Gabriel’s apartment began to leak. The irregular drip-drip-drip against stainless steel shattered his concentration as he sketched. Without conscious thought, his hand reached for the wrench in his toolbox, fingers wrapping around it with newfound precision. The repair took exactly four minutes and seventeen seconds, each movement efficient, economical, practiced—though he’d never fixed a faucet before.

Something had changed. The chaos within had calcified into purpose.

The following evening, the refrigerator’s hum no longer bothered Gabriel. Instead, it provided a baseline rhythm to his movements as he prepared to venture out for the first time in days. The need for sustenance had finally overcome his self-imposed isolation. As he moved to the door, he caught sight of himself in the hallway mirror and paused, taken aback by the stranger who stared back.

Stubble darkened his normally clean-shaven jaw. Unwashed hair hung limp against his temples. The hollows beneath his cheekbones had deepened, giving him a predatory appearance he’d never possessed before. Only his eyes seemed familiar—though now they held a clinical detachment that observed rather than experienced.

The drive to the grocery store was a sensory assault after so many days in controlled isolation. Traffic sounds penetrated his car’s interior like the chaos of a busy trauma ward. The store’s fluorescent lighting cast everyone in the sickly pallor of pre-operative patients. Gabriel moved through the aisles with mechanical efficiency, basket held at precisely the same angle throughout, items selected with minimal contact.

In the parking lot, he sat motionless behind the steering wheel, the engine silent, groceries meticulously arranged in the passenger seat by weight distribution and fragility. His eyes found the rearview mirror, dropping to the V of his shirt where the top of his chest scar was just visible.

With methodical movements, he unbuttoned his shirt partway, exposing the full length of the healed incision—a perfect line bisecting his sternum, the legacy of Ayuna’s surgical precision. His fingertips traced its path, feeling the steady rhythm beneath.

“If I had never come to see her,” he whispered to his reflection, “if I had never needed a new heart, Olivia would be safe and happy instead of fighting for her life.”

Frank’s heart—his heart now—seemed to pulse in disagreement, each beat carrying a strange certainty that this was all inevitable, predetermined, designed.

As Gabriel rebuttoned his shirt, the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention—a physiological response to unseen threat. His eyes scanned the parking lot through the windshield, noting each car, each shadow with new analytical precision. Nothing seemed out of place, yet the sensation of being observed persisted, clinical and detached—like being examined through a surgical microscope.

Rather than fear, he felt a strange alertness spread through his system, adrenaline sharpening his senses to surgical acuity. The feeling followed him home, a constant awareness of being both observer and observed.

As he approached his apartment building, keys arranged in his hand for optimal entry efficiency, a voice called from the shadows near the entrance.

“Hey Gabriel, how are you doing man?”

His neighbor Victor emerged from the darkness, police badge visible on his belt despite the casual clothing. The man’s posture registered in Gabriel’s mind with new significance—weight balanced for quick movement, right hand habitually close to where his service weapon would be, eyes constantly scanning surroundings.

“Fine,” Gabriel responded automatically, then reassessed. “No. Not really.”

Victor’s expression shifted, professional assessment softening to personal concern. “Heard about your friend. That’s rough.” He hesitated, the streetlight catching the silver at his temples. “If you need anything, just knock. Professional courtesy extends to neighbors.”

Gabriel nodded, uncomfortably aware of how Victor’s eyes cataloged his appearance, noting the changes in him with professional assessment. “Thanks. I appreciate it, Victor. I’ll see you later”

Inside his apartment, Gabriel arranged his groceries with surgical precision—refrigerated items placed according to optimal cooling efficiency, non-perishables organized by nutritional value and usage frequency. The ritual completed, exhaustion hit him like post-operative fatigue, driving him to his bed still fully clothed.

That night, the dreams began.

He stood in an operating theater bathed in crimson light, the air thick with the metallic scent of blood and the sweet undertone of antiseptic. Ayuna stood across from him, separated by an operating table draped in surgical blue. Between them lay a body, chest cavity open like a textbook illustration.

“The heart needs to be excised with perfect precision,” Ayuna instructed, her voice carrying the calm authority of an attending physician. “The great vessels must be preserved for transplantation.”

In the dream, Gabriel’s hands moved with practiced confidence, scalpel gripped in the proper position without being shown. The blade parted tissue with minimal resistance, each cut placed with anatomical precision—skills he’d never learned yet executed perfectly.

“You have natural talent,” Ayuna observed, her surgical mask hiding everything but her eyes, ancient, knowing eyes that followed his movements with pride and something darker. “The heart remembers what the mind forgets.”

He woke gasping, sheets soaked with sweat, the phantom sensation of surgical steel between his fingers so vivid he had to check his empty hands in the pre-dawn light.

The dreams continued nightly, each one more detailed than the last. By day, his artistic talent underwent its own transformation. The sketchbooks that once held landscapes and portraits now filled with anatomical studies drawn from memory, Ayuna’s features rendered with clinical precision rather than affection.

Page after page of her eyes, capturing that ancient knowledge that had drawn him to her initially. Detailed studies of her hands, the precise way her fingers held a scalpel, the elegant economy of her surgical movements. The curve of her neck rendered as if prepped for incision, anatomical landmarks noted with scientific accuracy.

Each drawing executed with the same attention to detail he once gave his art, but stripped of emotional connection—observation rather than adoration.

By the third week, his living room wall had transformed into a case board worthy of a detective’s investigation. News clippings about Olivia’s attack, meticulously cut with an X-Acto knife, edges perfectly straight. Maps marked with red pins tracking Ayuna’s last known movements. Medical articles on cardiac transplantation and surgical techniques, highlighted in yellow with precisely straight lines. All arranged with the meticulous attention to detail he once gave his artwork, connected by red thread forming a web of calculated precision.

Gabriel stood before his creation, hands perfectly steady, his stolen heart beating a rhythm of patient certainty in his chest.

Something was taking root inside him, growing with the inexorable determination of purposeful tissue regeneration, or calculated malignancy. Even in his increasingly clinical mind, Gabriel couldn’t determine which.

Calibrating the Instrument

The indoor shooting range existed in a perpetual twilight, bright lights diffused by the constant haze of gunpowder that hung in the air like surgical smoke. Gabriel stood in lane seven, the weight of the Glock 19 unfamiliar yet somehow right in his grip. The pistol nestled against his palm with the same comfortable precision as a scalpel in an experienced surgeon’s hand.

His first shots went wide, the recoil surprising his artist’s wrists. But by the third magazine, something shifted. His breathing synchronized with his heartbeat—his stolen heartbeat—a steady, controlled rhythm that seemed to whisper instructions directly into his nervous system. Inhale. Half-exhale. Hold. Squeeze.

The paper target at twenty yards showed a grouping that tightened with each round, holes appearing closer and closer to center mass until the final three shots formed a triangle so precise it could have been measured with calipers. The pattern reminded Gabriel of the surgical staples that once closed his incision—methodical, exact, purposeful.

The sharp tang of gunpowder coated his tongue, oddly reminiscent of the metallic aftertaste of fear he’d experienced that night at the hospital. But now the sensation registered as stimulating rather than frightening, a biochemical cocktail that heightened his senses to surgical precision.

“Nice grouping,” the range instructor commented, approaching from behind. A former military man named Reeves, he examined Gabriel’s target with professional appreciation. “You’ve got steady hands. Natural talent for precision.”

Gabriel’s smile didn’t reach his eyes as he methodically ejected the magazine, checked the chamber twice, and set the weapon down at exactly perpendicular angles to the edge of the booth. Each movement economical and practiced despite his relative inexperience.

“You said you just recently started shooting, right. Why the sudden interest in firearms? If you don’t mind me asking.” Reeves leaned against the divider, his practiced casualness betrayed by the evaluative gaze of someone who recognized the difference between target shooting and preparation.

“Just for protection,” Gabriel responded, the lie sliding past his lips with surprising ease.

“Sure,” Reeves nodded, unconvinced. “Well, whatever your reason, you’ve got the steadiest hands I’ve seen in a beginner. Like a surgeon.”

The comparison sent an involuntary shudder through Gabriel’s frame, but his hands remained perfectly still, betraying nothing of the internal tremor. The observation hung between them, accurate in ways Reeves couldn’t possibly understand. These hands had never held a gun before last week, yet they moved with the confident precision of tools habituated to delicate, life-altering work.

After the range, the late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the parking lot as Gabriel walked to his car. The hairs on his neck prickled with that now-familiar sensation of being observed. His steps didn’t falter, but his awareness expanded outward, cataloging his surroundings with clinical efficiency. A black sedan three rows back. A figure glimpsed in his peripheral vision, quickly disappearing behind a column.

As he slid behind the wheel, Gabriel checked his rearview mirror with practiced casualness. Two cars back, a silver Audi idled—its windshield reflecting sunlight in a way that obscured the driver. Something about its outline triggered a flash of recognition, though he couldn’t place why.

“Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” he murmured to himself, though the words lacked conviction. His stolen heart beat steadily in his chest, neither accelerating in fear nor dismissing the observation. Instead, it maintained the same controlled rhythm he’d achieved on the firing range—watchful, ready, precise.

Four weeks into his new routine, the patterns became impossible to ignore. The silver Audi appearing within three blocks of his apartment on non-consecutive days. A figure glimpsed in reflective surfaces, always vanishing when he turned. The sensation of being cataloged with scientific detachment.

Gabriel’s apartment had evolved with his growing awareness—curtains precisely adjusted to allow him to observe the street without being seen, furniture rearranged to eliminate blind spots when entering. Even his clothing had transformed, colors shifting from artist’s expressiveness to tactical utility—darker tones, multiple pockets, fabrics chosen for freedom of movement rather than aesthetic appeal.

Each aspect of his daily existence now followed ritual patterns. Shower water temperature set to exactly 103°F. Breakfast portioned by caloric requirements rather than appetite. Clothing laid out the night before with military precision, each item placed in order of dressing.

The meditation that had once cleared his mind for artistic inspiration now served a different purpose—five minutes of absolute stillness each morning, training his body to maintain perfect control. The same control he’d observed in Ayuna during surgical procedures, her hands moving with the confident precision that came from knowing exactly what lay beneath the surface.

His bedroom wall had become an extension of the case board in his living room—focused specifically on Ayuna herself. Medical journal articles bearing her name. News clippings of successful surgeries. Notes from his own hospital stay under her care. A timeline of their relationship annotated with behavioral observations that now took on sinister significance.

March 17th: “A. insisted on cutting steak herself. Perfect anatomical division along muscle fibers. Commented on blade quality.”

April  2nd: “A. sleeptalked in what sounded like medical terminology. ‘Clamp the superior vena cava. More suction.’ Appeared distressed until I took her hand.”

June 10th: ” Red bracelet beads. Asked about material. ‘Blood resin’ – laughed it off as artist terminology. Rarely saw bracelet again after I asked.”

Gabriel stood before this dissection of their relationship, fingers unconsciously tracing the scar on his chest. The contradiction tore at him—how could the hands that had saved him be the same ones that had harmed Olivia? How could he still feel the pull toward someone capable of doing something so gruesome?

The question haunted him through sleepless nights, driving him back to the hospital on his fourth visit that week. The ICU night shift had grown accustomed to his presence, no longer questioning his odd hours or the notebook he carried.

Gabriel sat beside Olivia’s bed, the machines continuing their electronic surveillance. His eyes moved between her still form and the doorway of the private room, positioned to observe both simultaneously.

“I’m trying to understand, Liv,” he whispered, though whether to his unconscious friend or himself remained unclear. “What she did. Why she did it. There has to be a reason, a pattern I’m missing.”

He’d brought his sketchbook, but the pages no longer filled with random artistic inspirations. Instead, he’d drawn a precise floor plan of the house where Olivia had been attacked, each room rendered with architectural accuracy though he’d never been inside. The details had come to him in dreams—dreams where he moved through the space with Ayuna, her voice providing clinical narration of events he couldn’t possibly have witnessed.

“If I can just understand her motives,” Gabriel continued, pencil moving across paper with surgical precision, “then maybe I can make sense of why I still—” He couldn’t complete the thought, the contradiction too painful to articulate fully. Why he still loved her. Why his new heart still accelerated at the thought of her. Why part of him still sought justification for what she’d done.

The mechanical hiss of the ventilator provided rhythmic counterpoint to his racing thoughts. His pencil traced the path Ayuna must have taken through that house, clinical analysis replacing emotional response.

Each visit to this room, each reconstruction of that night, fed his growing need for control. If he could map the moment with perfect precision, perhaps he could identify where everything had gone wrong—and how to make it right.

As Gabriel left the hospital near dawn, the first hints of sunrise painted the eastern sky in shades of red that reminded him of surgical lighting. He moved through the parking structure with heightened awareness, footsteps deliberately silent despite the concrete surfaces. The sensation of being watched had become so constant he’d almost grown accustomed to it, like a chronic condition one learns to accommodate.

The silver Audi was there, three levels down, parked at an angle that afforded its occupant clear sightlines to the hospital entrance. Gabriel didn’t alter his pace or give any indication he’d noticed, but his mind cataloged every detail with photographic precision—license plate partially obscured, driver’s silhouette suggesting female anatomy, something hanging from the rearview mirror that caught the light in an unusual pattern.

As he approached his own vehicle, a subtle movement in his peripheral vision triggered an instantaneous response. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in primal warning, sending electrical impulses racing along his nervous system. But instead of accelerating his heart rate in fear, Frank’s heart maintained its steady rhythm, adjusting to support heightened awareness rather than fight-or-flight.

Gabriel recognized the shift with clinical detachment—the prey response evolving into something else entirely. His senses sharpened to predatory acuity, categorizing sounds and shadows with newfound clarity. The subtle directional shift of air currents indicating movement behind a concrete pillar. The almost imperceptible scent of antiseptic that didn’t belong in a parking garage. The slight reflection in his car window of a figure standing perfectly still twenty yards back.

His hand didn’t tremble as he reached for his keys. His breathing remained measured, controlled. Even his posture adjusted subtly—weight balanced for optimal movement in any direction, hands positioned for defensive action if required.

The strange calm felt familiar, though he’d never experienced it before. The same calm he’d observed in Ayuna during crisis moments, when other doctors would have faltered. The steady certainty of a predator assessing prey—or recognizing another hunter in its territory.

Gabriel slid into his car with fluid efficiency, started the engine, and pulled away at precisely the speed limit. In his rearview mirror, a shadow detached itself from a pillar and stepped into the weak morning light—female form, surgical mask covering the lower half of her face, dark eyes watching his departure with familiar clinical assessment.

Not Ayuna. Someone else. Someone who moved with the same predatory grace.

The recognition should have triggered fear. Instead, it settled into his consciousness with the strange comfort of diagnosis—confirmation of a suspected condition. He was being hunted. But with each passing day, with each new skill acquired and precision movement perfected, Gabriel was becoming less prey and more predator.

Frank’s heart beat its steady rhythm of approval as Gabriel drove home, hands positioned at perfect ten-and-two on the steering wheel, eyes continuously scanning his surroundings with the systematic thoroughness of surgical examination.

The transformation had begun as emotional response—grief, betrayal, confusion. Now it progressed with the inexorable certainty of cellular change, altering him from within. Each precision movement, each analytical observation, each controlled response brought him closer to understanding what Ayuna had done—and who she truly was.

And with understanding would come the power to do what needed to be done, whatever that might turn out to be.

Diagnostic Pursuit

Fifty-two days after Olivia’s attack, Gabriel sat in his meticulously organized apartment, surrounded by the evidence of his transformation. Rain lashed against the windows in irregular patterns that would have once inspired his artistic sensibilities. Now, the chaotic rhythm only served to agitate the clockwork precision his mind demanded.

The case board had grown to consume an entire wall, red threads connecting photographs, medical reports, and timeline markers in a web of calculated analysis. At its center hung a photograph of Ayuna in surgical scrubs, her expression captured in that moment of focused serenity he’d once found so captivating. His eyes returned to it repeatedly, like a patient compulsively touching a wound to confirm its existence.

Tonight was particularly difficult. The rain’s persistent drumming matched the throbbing behind his temples—a migraine that had begun during his morning visit to Olivia and intensified throughout the day. Images of Ayuna standing over his friend’s bleeding form haunted him with cinematic clarity, though he’d never witnessed the actual event. The visions came unbidden, playing across his consciousness with the vivid detail of memory rather than imagination.

In these waking nightmares, he could smell the copper-sweet scent of Olivia’s blood, hear the precise rhythm of Ayuna’s breathing as she wielded the scalpel, feel the controlled tension in her wrist as the blade found the intercostal space with perfect anatomical precision. Details he couldn’t possibly know yet experienced with sensory completeness. Fabricated by his intense emotions and vivid imagination. 

Gabriel pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until phosphenes bloomed in the darkness, geometric patterns shifting like kaleidoscopic surgical lights. When he lowered his hands, they trembled slightly—the only exterior sign of his internal war.

“Who are you?” he whispered to Ayuna’s photograph, his voice barely audible above the rain. “The woman who held my heart in her hands and gave me life? Or the monster who took a scalpel to my best friend?”

His fingers found their way to his chest scar, tracing its path through his shirt with unconscious precision. Beneath the healed incision, His stolen heart beat with steady certainty, neither accelerating in distress nor offering the comfort of clear answers. Just the metronomic rhythm of a muscle performing its function with mechanical efficiency.

The war within him had physical geography—memories of Ayuna’s gentle touch battling against visions of surgical violence, the loving whispers in the darkness at war with clinical detachment in the operating room. Intellectually, he understood they were the same person, yet emotionally, he couldn’t reconcile these dual realities. His artist’s capacity for nuance struggled against his newly developing absolutism—his growing need to categorize everything and everyone as threat or non-threat, asset or liability.

Gabriel rose from his chair with fluid efficiency, moving to the kitchen where he retrieved a glass of water measured to exactly eight ounces. As he raised it to his lips, his reflection in the darkened window caught his attention—the rigid posture, the calculated angle of his elbow, the precise grip on the glass. When had he started holding himself like this? When had his movements become so controlled, so surgical?

The glass shattered in the sink as a flash of memory—not his own—surged through his consciousness. His hands moving through the disassembly of an unfamiliar weapon, fingers executing a sequence of precise movements, muscle memory guiding actions his mind had never learned. The knowledge arrived fully formed, like a transplanted skill set suddenly activated by some unseen trigger.

These episodes had been increasing—tactical knowledge appearing in his thoughts like files accessed from hidden storage. The optimal way to clear a room. The precise pressure points on the human body that would render someone unconscious without permanent damage. The exact angle at which to hold a blade for maximum efficiency between specific ribs.

“What’s happening to me?” Gabriel whispered, carefully gathering the broken glass shards. As he worked, another memory surfaced—this one his own, but previously buried beneath layers of trauma and medication.

Olivia’s face, illuminated by the soft afternoon light filtering through his hospital room window as she pushed his wheelchair toward the exit. A week after his transplant surgery, his first day of freedom. Her voice carried the forced cheerfulness of someone trying to distract from worry.

“Oh, by the way, did you hear about the serial killer they’re calling The Bloody Tulip?”. Apparently, they use the victims’ blood to paint tulips. They think it’s a woman behind it all.”

Gabriel froze, a glass shard pressing against his fingertip just shy of breaking skin. The Bloody Tulip. He’d forgotten completely. Olivia had been following a true crime podcast—what was it called? UGB? UGC?

The memory continued to unspool, Olivia’s voice becoming clearer as the sedative haze of that day lifted in retrospect:

“That UGC Podcast has this whole series on it. They’re kind of inappropriate, but they get the latest on the case. They think the killer may have a medical background, can you believe that? All the victims have these surgical-precision wounds and a painting…”

UGC Podcast. The Bloody Tulip killer.

Gabriel’s movements became mechanical as he disposed of the broken glass and moved to his laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard in measured precise movements. Search results populated his screen like specimens laid out for examination:

“UGC Podcast + Bloody Tulip”

Episode titles appeared in clinical sequence:

• “The early years: Timeline of the Bloody Tulip”
• “Bloody Tulip: The Surgical Psychopath”
• “Hearts Out: Why This Killer Gives Us Palpitations”
• “Artist, Monster or both: Who is the bloody tulip?”
• “Medical School for Murder: The Tulip’s Training Ground”

He clicked the first episode, Frank’s heart accelerating against his ribs as the hosts’ voices filled his apartment:

“Welcome to the UGC Podcast, where we find the things truly happening in the Dark.” The host’s voice carried an inappropriate excitement that made Gabriel’s skin crawl. “Today we have a special episode for you folks.”

“The Bloody Tulip has struck again, John. But this time, there is a twist. Before she only killed men, but her last victim was female. What do you think caused this change?” The second voice was eager, almost gleeful in discussing murder.

“Phil, I don’t know man. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a psychopath but a psychopath? But if I was to guess, maybe her killings are sexually charged, that’s probably how she finds her victims.”

Gabriel grimaced at their cavalier tone, but continued listening as the hosts discussed the killer’s methodology between crude jokes and personal anecdotes.

“Let’s get back to why we call this sicko the Bloody Tulip,” Phil continued, suddenly more focused. “For those just joining our lovely descent into madness, the Bloody Tulip is our name for this serial killer working across multiple states. She–and we strongly believe it’s a she based on certain elements of the case–removes victims’ hearts with surgical precision and replaces them with a tulip. After that, she paints the victim into a beautiful portrait.”

“That’s a unique touch to a murder. The other thing that stands out,” John added, his voice taking on an uncharacteristic seriousness, “is the level of medical expertise required. We’re talking about someone who can successfully remove a heart without damaging surrounding tissue, preserving it in a way that would allow for viable transplantation.”

“Transplantation?” Phil interrupted. “You think she’s selling these hearts, John? Black market organ trade?”

“It’s a theory. These hearts are disappearing somewhere. And they’re being removed with such precision that they could theoretically be used again.”

Gabriel’s vision tunneled, peripheral awareness fading as his focus narrowed to the voices describing the signature technique of a killer who harvested hearts with the precision of a trained cardiac surgeon. The room tilted sideways as understanding bloomed like hemorrhage spreading through tissue.

The surgical precision. The miraculous timing of his transplant. The impossible coincidence.

His fingers unconsciously found the scar on his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of a heart that had once belonged to someone else—someone who had become available with convenient timing just as Gabriel’s own heart failed beyond repair.

“I was so far down the list,” he whispered, the realization suddenly heavy with new significance. “They said I had months of waiting at best.”

The podcast continued, Phil’s voice growing animated: “The cops aren’t connecting the dots, but we talked to this medical examiner in Virginia who said—off the record, of course—that the hearts are removed with what he called ‘textbook cardiac extraction technique.’ Like someone who’s done it hundreds of times. We’re talking about a cardiac surgeon gone rogue, people!”

“Or some kind of medical psychotic savant that was trained by one,” John added ominously. “The precision is the signature—almost like the killer is proud of their technique. Taking trophies from the kills, but leaving their own artistic signature behind.”

Gabriel’s breathing became shallow as fragments of memory collided with this new information—Ayuna’s sudden optimism when his condition worsened. The late-night phone call she’d received three days before his transplant. The way she’d evaded questions about the donor.

“It’s better not to ask too many questions, Gabriel,” she’d said, her eyes not quite meeting his. “Just be grateful for second chances.”

At the time, he’d attributed her behavior to professional detachment, a surgeon’s necessary compartmentalization. Now, a darker possibility emerged, one too terrible to fully articulate even in the privacy of his own thoughts.

Could Ayuna have…? No. Impossible. And yet…

His phone rang, shattering his horrified trance. Victor’s name flashed on the screen. His hand hovered over it, suddenly uncertain whose impulses guided his movements—his own, or something carried in the cardiac cells beating beneath his scar.

Across town, in the hushed confines of the hospital’s ICU, the steady beep of Olivia’s heart monitor accelerated fractionally. The EEG machine recording her brain activity registered an anomalous spike—an unusual alpha-theta hybrid state appearing precisely as Gabriel’s terrible suspicion took root. The pattern mapped across the monitor in jagged peaks and valleys, a topography of neural activity that diverged dramatically from her previous baseline.  

Dr. Talia Hartman frowned at her computer screen, noting another unauthorized access to Olivia’s medical records—the third this week. Someone with high-level credentials had been reviewing the EEG readings, focusing specifically on these anomalous patterns. Someone who understood exactly what these readings meant.

The timestamp of the access caught her attention: 3:17 AM. No attending physician would be reviewing records at that hour without documentation in the system. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, hesitating before typing a command that would reveal the user ID associated with the access.

The screen refreshed, displaying a familiar code that made her blood run cold.

“Ayuna,” she whispered, the name fogging the screen like surgical breath on a mirror.

Dr. Talia Hartman frowned at her computer screen, noting another unauthorized access to Olivia’s medical records—the third this week. Someone with high-level credentials had been reviewing the EEG readings, focusing specifically on subtle changes in brain activity. Someone who understood exactly what to look for in these patterns.

The timestamp of the access caught her attention: 3:17 AM. No attending physician would be reviewing records at that hour without documentation in the system. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, hesitating before typing a command that would reveal the user ID associated with the access.

The screen refreshed, displaying a familiar code that made her blood run cold.

“Ayuna,” she whispered, the name fogging the screen like surgical breath on a mirror.

Talia pulled up the audit log, examining which specific information her sister had been reviewing. Ayuna had methodically checked Olivia’s neurological readings, focusing on periods of heightened limbic system activity. She’d paid particular attention to the timestamps correlating with visitor logs—specifically, when Gabriel had been in the room.

Talia’s throat constricted as the implication solidified into a terrible certainty. Ayuna wasn’t checking on Olivia’s recovery. She was monitoring for signs of consciousness, for any indication that Olivia might be processing external stimuli—that she might be forming memories during her apparent coma.

“Is she checking if Olivia can identify her?” Talia murmured, the thought settling like a lead weight in her stomach. Was her sister was assessing the risk of her victim waking up, calculating the probability of exposure?  

Her eyes returned to Olivia’s latest EEG readout, noting subtle anomalies that most physicians would dismiss as normal variations. But Talia recognized their significance. These weren’t random fluctuations—they were the neural signatures of traumatic memory encoding, triggered by specific stimuli. Gabriel’s presence was somehow activating these responses in Olivia’s damaged brain.

Something methodical was happening, something disturbing in its calculated execution. Even from a distance, Ayuna was conducting a form of psychological surveillance, assessing how much Olivia might remember if—when—she regained consciousness.

Talia thought of her childhood with Ayuna, of surgical lessons learned at their father’s side, of techniques practiced with increasing precision. She thought of how her sister had always excelled at anticipating complications, at preparing contingencies for every possible outcome.

This wasn’t just a worried surgeon checking on a patient. This was someone assessing variables, calculating risk, and preparing for every possible scenario—just as father had taught them to approach each incision, each procedure, each living subject on their table.

The realization brought no supernatural terror, just the cold certainty of professional assessment: Ayuna was planning her next move, and Olivia’s recovery may threaten those plans. Whatever game her sister was playing, it was approaching a critical juncture, one that would determine who survived and who became another perfectly executed procedure in the Hartman family legacy.

Back in his apartment, Gabriel stood motionless before his investigation board, the podcast continuing its discussion of a killer’s methodology in the background, Phil and John now arguing about whether the Bloody Tulip had medical school training or was self-taught. The heart in his chest beat a steady rhythm—a rhythm that suddenly seemed less like comfort and more like a countdown.

The red threads connecting evidence points on his board no longer appeared random. From this new perspective, they formed a pattern he should have recognized earlier—the precise branching structure of cardiac vasculature, a map of coronary arteries and veins laid out across the evidence of Ayuna’s crimes.

The heart of the mystery. The mystery of the heart.

He moved papers aside on his desk, finding his transplant documentation. The donor information section had been redacted, marked only “Administrative Approval – Expedited Protocol.” At the time, he’d been too grateful to question it. Now, the clinical language felt like a deliberate obfuscation.

Gabriel’s phone continued to ring, Victor’s name flashing with increasing urgency. But Gabriel couldn’t move, transfixed by the terrible understanding blooming within him like surgical dye spreading through tissue, illuminating pathways previously hidden from view.

A new possibility formed in his mind, too monstrous to fully contemplate yet impossible to dismiss. What if Ayuna had procured this heart outside official channels? What if she had selected someone specifically? What if this wasn’t just any donor heart, but one chosen with surgical precision for reasons he couldn’t yet fathom?

His mind raced through the impossibilities. Could a heart carry more than just cells and tissue? Could memory, knowledge, experience somehow transfer along with cardiac muscle? Could the heart that had saved his life be slowly transforming him into someone—something—else?

He had noticed some changes after the transplant, but went into hypergear after Olivia got hurt. The organizational compulsions. The tactical knowledge appearing from nowhere. The cold, clinical assessment he now applied to everything. What if these weren’t psychological responses to trauma, but something more sinister—something cellular, something inherited through tissue and blood?

His fingers traced the transplant scar, feeling the steady pulse beneath. Whose heart was this? What had Ayuna done to get it for him? And what was it doing to him now?

The phone stopped ringing. The sudden silence felt like a closing surgical incision, sealing him into this new understanding.

In the reflection of his darkened laptop screen, Gabriel caught a glimpse of his own expression—clinical, detached, focused. Not his expression at all, but someone else’s looking out through his eyes.

The prey was becoming the predator.

And somewhere in the darkness, Ayuna was monitoring this transformation with surgical precision, orchestrating a game whose rules and ultimate purpose remained hidden—even as Gabriel’s body played its assigned role with increasing perfection.

The surgical game board was shifting, pieces moving with calculated precision toward an endgame only partly visible. Hunters becoming hunted. Predators becoming prey.

And at the center of it all, a heart beating with borrowed purpose, guiding Gabriel’s hands toward a reckoning none of them might survive.

…

» Blood Canvas, The Hunter’s Metamorphosis: The Bloody Tulip Part 19.5

In this blood-soaked installment, killers communicate through art while a transformed man deciphers their macabre language. As bodies become canvases for unspoken messages, the line between hunter and artist blurs beyond recognition. In the gallery of death, even the paintings have pulses—and someone’s masterpiece is just beginning.