Chapter Text
i.
You are twenty.
You’re studying to become a surgeon, you hold the scalpel in your hand for the first time and break the skin of the cadaver. You’re a natural. The professor encourages.
You smile.
ii.
Your accent is strong.
Your dorm mates mock you behind your back. They say you mangle your words and suck the music out of them.
At night you count their breaths like others count sheep. There will be time for revenge.
You could wait a lifetime.
iii.
There’s a job opening down the street at a butcher’s shop. You pull the flier from the board and wander into town.
What’s your name boy? The fat man in charge asks him.
Hannibal. You reply.
Can you manage a knife?
You nod. You’re a natural.
iv.
You learn how to cut and hack, the way to harvest meat from the never ending stacks of bodies rotting away in the giant freezers. Sometimes when everyone has gone home and it’s just you, you sit inside of one and watch the bodies swing from the meat hooks.
The cold clears your head. The smell of death fills it with ideas. A pig’s skin is no tougher than a humans, you tell yourself.
v.
Her name is Louisa. She is your lab partner for one of your classes. She tells you one day she wants to be a mortician. Her eyes are brown and sharp, but hold a gentleness that you do not like.
She has no friends, rarely leaves her room. She will not be missed.
vi.
You are more nervous than you’ve ever been in your life. Your white button down shirt is now red as you look into Louisa’s soft brown eyes. She looks so different with a knife sticking out of her chest.
You followed her, you were so patient and you planned this for months. No one will notice her absence, she said she was going to go to Maine for spring break. Louisa is crying and you grab her face, you want her to see you, to know that you did this to her. You want the satisfaction of seeing her fear and betrayal.
She does not know you, the fear in her eyes is as generic and impersonal as can be. You wait for her to place your face but she does not, you’re forgetabble. In a childish fit you stab her three more times, she is dead long before then and you’ve ruined several of her internal organs.
With a heaving chest you peel off your shirt and let it crumple onto the asphault, only the headlights of her car on this abandoned road will light the path you’ve chosen.
The people at the deli praise this new steak. You tell the fat owner that you visited home. Grass-fed cattle give the most tender meat you say. He believes you and gives you a few extra dollars that week as thanks.
Louisa tastes bitter in his mouth. She did not remember him.
vii.
You are twenty-five.
The bar you are sitting in is smoky and crowded. You sip your expensive wine and survey. The ones who drink alone are the easiest to track, they are sad and drunk and put up little fight. You don’t normally select meals like this but today is your birthday and this is a gift to yourself.
There is a woman across the way from you, her eyes are blue and unclouded. She is a fox in a herd of cattle.
She meets your eyes and you feel something curl in your stomach that is unpleasant. She looks at you and she knows.
You leave the bar and do not return.
viii.
Will Graham’s eyes are soft and brown. He is a lamb crying for his mother while the wolves circle. He shoots Garrett Jacob Hobbes but he takes no pleasure from it as you would.
Will Graham cries like Louisa.
You watch him, he sees just as you do but he does not see you. You do not like this, you kill a pretty girl just for him in hopes he’ll catch on.
You are forgettable. Immature hurt pricks the surface, uncovering memories of days you do not want to remember.
Will Graham smiles at you, his eyes are warm and brown and gentle, but you like it. You cook for him and he compliments you, you smile back.
ix.
Come down from there Abigail You order. Abigail Hobbes looks afraid but you both know this is not the case. She is the fox, the fear does not reach her eyes. While Will Graham cries over his sins she revels in them, you admire this.
I’m a monster she tells you, there are tears in her eyes. You feel responsible, you recall your first night on that abandoned road. The only sounds were your first victims stereo playing a song you have long since forgotten.
Will and I will protect you you reply. She embraces you, but all you see is the coy woman in the bar watching you through the cloud of smoke.
Abigail Hobbes looks the most beautiful with blood splattered on her pale face you decide.
x.
You’re the Chesapeak Ripper Will Graham tells you during one of your sessions. You straighten your back and look down at your hands. The hands of the butcher boy.
You are sad that you must kill him, but he knows too much. The letter opener is on your desk and you grab it, muscles tense and ready for a struggle that never comes. Will Graham does not move as you walk towards him with the small blade at ready.
You look into his eyes and you see Louisa’s face. You see her as she should have been. Waves of brown overwhelm you, Will Graham doesn’t run even as you ready to strike. He is a lamb who has accepted his fate. He closes his eyes but you see the expression on his face.
Familiarity.
His brain would’ve made a lovely stew, you think. His lips feel lovely on yours.
Will Graham sighs into your mouth, his eyes swallow you whole and you like it.