Crimson Oath 🩸

The smell of antiseptic always calmed Dr. Elias Voss. It was the perfume of control. The bright lights of his private surgical suite buzzed softly above him as he adjusted the tubing, watching with obsessive delight as the ruby stream filled the reservoir.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

Patient #51 stared blankly into nothingness. Drained. Hollow. Like the fifty before her.

He logged the procedure in his encrypted tablet under the alias Case Study: Type-O Symphony. Then he lit a candle in the corner of the room and sat beside the body, admiring his work with ritualistic reverence. Blood was purity. Blood was truth. He wasn’t just killing—he was cleansing the world.

Three months earlier…

Detective Lila Harrow ran her hand through her copper hair as she stared at the whiteboard. Photos. Names. Time of death. All linked by a grim thread—every victim exsanguinated, with no defensive wounds. No signs of struggle.

Fifty bodies. No leads.

And one common detail that clawed at her gut: they’d all been patients at Arlindale Medical Center. Her hospital. The same one where Elias worked. The same hospital where they’d first met. Danced. Fell in love. Spent nights tangled in each other, trading secrets and lies between kisses.

She shook her head.

“This has to be someone with access, skill… and no conscience.”

Her partner, Detective Reno, scoffed. “So, a surgeon.”

She didn’t laugh.

Back in his clinic, Elias watched news coverage of the task force. Lila’s face filled the screen—determined, exhausted, gorgeous. He smiled softly.

“She always was the clever one,” he said to the corpse on his table. “But not clever enough.”

He believed she’d never suspect him. He played the part too well—the calm, charitable doctor. Volunteering at the orphanage. Hosting charity galas. Even Lila’s own mother had said, “He’s the kind of man you marry, not suspect.”

But something had shifted in the past week. Lila had started asking tighter questions. Her texts were colder. She dropped by his office without warning. A cracked window in his perfect performance.

So he prepared for the end.

Lila’s suspicion hardened the day she traced the supply records. One name appeared too often—discreet orders for blood storage equipment. Odd disposal requests. All routed through E. Voss, M.D.

Her stomach twisted. Could love be this blind?

She used her clearance to request security footage. Dozens of nights where Elias worked late—too late. She visited his surgical suite, alone, under the pretense of returning a book.

The metallic scent of iron lingered beneath the disinfectant.

Then she found it—a small, locked refrigerator. Inside: blood bags. Patient ID tags. Numbered, labeled. A personal collection.

A scream built in her throat but never escaped.

That night, she didn’t go home. She stayed at the station. Compiling, building a case she never imagined she'd need. Elias Voss—the man who once traced poems into her back—was the one turning people into ghosts.

Three nights later, she returned to his clinic with a warrant.

He was waiting, perfectly composed, as if he knew this moment would come.

“You figured it out,” he said gently, hands behind his back.

“I did.”

“I was always careful.”

“You got greedy,” she replied. “Fifty was too many.”

He stepped toward her, slowly. “You of all people should understand. You chase monsters. I remove them. I see what they are inside—once the blood is gone.”

“Don’t,” she warned, gun trembling in her hand.

“But they were filth,” he said, voice rising. “Child abusers. Rapists. Wife-beaters. I chose them. I purified them!”

Lila’s breath caught. She had read the files. Some of the victims… had records. But some were just sick. Dying. Ordinary people.

“You didn’t kill for justice,” she said. “You killed because it felt good.”

Elias laughed—a hollow, chilling sound. “And yet, you loved me. Makes you wonder what that says about you.”

“I wonder every day,” she said, then snapped the cuffs around his wrists. “But not tonight.”

As she led him out, media lights flashed, bathing the cold night in white fire. Elias smiled for the cameras.

“I gave them peace,” he whispered as they passed body #51, zipped in black.

Lila didn’t look back.

---

Epilogue

Elias Voss was sentenced to 316 years without parole. In interviews, he remained eerily serene, often speaking of “the beauty in emptying the body of pain.”

Detective Lila Harrow received commendations but turned down a promotion. Instead, she transferred to Missing Persons, far from hospitals, blood, and candles.

But sometimes, in the silence of night, she still heard him whisper:

“You of all people should understand.”

And she wondered if, just maybe… she did.