The Artist Bleeds First

The brush hovered above the canvas like hesitation made flesh.

Aanya stood barefoot on the cold tile floor of her apartment, hair pulled back, sleeves rolled. The rain outside fell soft and slow, tapping against the skylight as if trying not to interrupt.

The restoration shift had ended hours ago.

But she hadn't gone to sleep.

She couldn't.

The studio's silence had followed her home like a shadow.

Or maybe it wasn't the silence.

Maybe it was the way Leonhart Moretti had looked at her—as if he already knew what she would do before she did it.

As if he had drawn her before she had learned to hold charcoal.

The canvas had cost her half her week's stipend. She hadn't meant to buy it. But when she passed the old art shop on Via delle Terme, something in the back of her skull buzzed like a wasp trapped in glass.

She walked in.

She bought it.

Now it stood before her. White. Untouched. Waiting.

Her fingers tightened around the brush.

No underdrawing.

No planning.

Just breath.

And a need.

The first stroke was wide. Heavy.

Deep umber across the center. A suggestion of shadow, but thicker. More like weight.

Then another. And another.

Her hand didn't shake this time.

She didn't sketch a face.

Or a figure.

She painted touch.

Not as it looked. As it felt.

A hand—not fully formed—pressed against a spine. A jaw tipped back in surrender. The vague outline of silk where wrists should be, red bleeding into the grain.

No eyes.

No names.

Just ache.

By the time she stopped, her throat was dry. Her breathing was too loud.

She stepped back.

The painting was a storm held behind skin. It was not beautiful. It was not safe.

It was what had lived in her chest since that night in the gallery.

What had clawed at her since the alley.

She didn't sign it.

She didn't title it.

She just pulled a sheet over it and sat down on the floor, legs crossed, forehead resting against her knees.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that.

But when she finally looked up, the air had changed.

Softer. Lighter.

And she felt—

No, not better.

But emptied.

The next morning came grey and blurred. Emilia knocked twice before letting herself in, balancing a paper bag of pastries and two small coffees with impressive skill.

"Tell me you haven't been up all night again," she said, brushing past her and heading straight for the kitchenette.

Aanya didn't answer.

Emilia paused mid-reach for the sugar jar.

Her gaze drifted to the canvas in the corner.

It was still covered. But the sheet clung too closely. The shape beneath it was too loud to ignore.

"Did you paint something?" she asked softly.

Aanya nodded.

Emilia approached it without touching. "May I?"

Aanya hesitated.

Then nodded.

Emilia pulled back the cloth with care.

She didn't speak at first.

Her eyes scanned the image slowly, the way one reads a confession written in another language—careful, reverent, uncertain if they should be looking.

Then she let out a breath. "Jesus."

Aanya looked down.

"I mean…" Emilia swallowed. "This is—this is not a restoration project."

"No."

"This is you."

Aanya nodded once.

And in that quiet, while Aanya turned away—maybe to breathe, maybe just to retreat into herself—Emilia lifted her phone and took a photo.

She didn't plan it.

She didn't explain it.

She just… did it.

Later that night, she uploaded it quietly to the studio's internal archive—tucked beneath the student works, under a simple label:

"Unnamed – A. Roy."

She didn't tell Aanya.

And she didn't know who else might be watching.

That night, an alert pinged softly across Rafael Santoro's screen.

He was browsing the restoration logs for internal entries—routine, predictable—until a new file caught his eye.

He clicked.

The image loaded slowly.

A woman, spine bare. Mouth open. Wrists suspended in suggestion, not bondage. Silk that bled into absence.

His breath caught.

He didn't need context.

He didn't need a name.

He just forwarded the file.

No message.

No subject line.

Only the attachment.

Leonhart opened it alone.

The screen lit up his study in the dark.

He didn't sit.

He didn't blink.

He simply stood there, one hand still on the edge of the desk, eyes locked on the screen.

What she had painted was not a cry for help.

It was a map.

Of power.

Of restraint.

Of something given—not taken.

The lines weren't hesitant. They were calculated. Controlled. But aching.

She had painted surrender.

Not as tragedy.

But as instinct.

He stared at the painting until the screen dimmed.

Then he reopened it.

Studied the brushwork.

The silk.

The hands.

They weren't his. Not exactly.

But they were close enough.

Close enough that even the absence of a face didn't matter.

Because the woman in the painting wasn't unknown.

It was her.

It was always her.

He picked up the phone.

Dialed.

Rafael answered on the first ring. "You saw it."

"Yes."

Rafael was silent for a beat. "You're moving too fast."

"No," Leonhart said. "I've waited long enough."

Back in her apartment, Aanya couldn't sleep.

She kept her sketchbook closed.

She didn't draw.

She just lay in bed with the rain creeping in through the corners of the window, the canvas still in the corner, humming with something unfinished.

She didn't know what she had painted.

Not really.

But she knew something had shifted.

Something she wouldn't be able to take back.

The next morning, the studio smelled of old varnish and linseed oil.

Aanya sat at her usual workstation, gloves on, trying to focus on the delicate repairs in front of her.

Her fingers moved carefully over a 19th-century seascape, rebalancing the sky.

But her thoughts drifted.

To the canvas still sitting in her apartment.To the sheet that barely concealed the skin beneath it.To the brushstrokes she hadn't dared to look at again.

She didn't notice Emilia approach until her friend leaned in and whispered, "Don't freak out."

Aanya tensed. "What?"

Emilia glanced around and lowered her voice. "I uploaded a photo of your painting. To the internal archive. Just the image. No name, no title. I didn't think— I thought it should exist somewhere."

Aanya's stomach dropped.

"Why?" she asked, too quietly.

"I don't know." Emilia bit her lip. "It just felt like... if no one ever saw it, it would've been wasted."

Aanya didn't respond.

She didn't yell.

She just turned back to her painting, but her hands didn't move.

Later, while cleaning up her brushes, she passed a group of interns whispering near one of the side terminals.

One of them tapped a screen. A dark image flashed briefly before it vanished.

She didn't see the full painting.

But she saw enough.

She saw red.

She saw silk.

She saw herself.

And someone had been looking.

Final Lines:

Art was never supposed to hurt this way.But maybe that was the price of truth.Because what Aanya had painted wasn't fiction.It was a warning.And someone had heard it.