The Sacrificial Hue

I'm an art student obsessed with finding the perfect shade of red. My search leads me to a reclusive and mysterious artist, Julian, who is renowned for the vibrant, lifelike crimson in his paintings. He agrees to take me on as his apprentice, but his methods are unorthodox, his studio a place of chilling secrets. He tells me that the perfect red isn't mixed from pigments; it's harvested. He shows me his true nature—he is not human, but something ancient and predatory that feeds on life to create its art. He wants to teach me, to show me how to create the perfect sacrificial hue. The price of this knowledge is my blood, my pleasure, and my pain, all offered up to his dark, artistic hunger.