Twisted Minds

Naka-choko

HANNIBAL LECTER'S HOUSE - DINING ROOM - NIGHT-

Hannibal is facing Will and Caroline across the dining table. Caroline is sitting in a chair with an emotionless stare. Positioned as one would a queen. RANDALL TIER'S CORPSE Lies across the table. His head lolling at an unnatural angle. A piece of paper is pinned to his chest. On it is written: "Return to Sender." Finally Will steps out of the shadows:

"I'd say this makes us even. I sent someone to kill you, you sent someone to kill me. Even-steven." Will says, He places a hand on my shoulder. Theres still blood splatter on my face. Like red freckles. I can still feel the tearing of skin, the break of bone, the death of an animal. "Consider it an act of reciprocity. One positive action begets another."

"Polite society normally puts such taboos on taking a life." I speak up, the look on my face could rival that of my mother. If i could see my face im sure it'd be same as the one my mother wore before she stalked towards me 12 years ago. Hannibal tilts his head. She's different. "Without death, we'd be at a loss. It's the prospect of death that drives us to greatness. Did you kill him with your hands?"

Will holds up his bloody, bruised knuckles. "It was very intimate."

"It deserves intimacy. You were Randall Tier's final enemy."

They sit at one end of the dining room table, Randall Tier's body still splayed across it. Hannibal removes Will's hands from the Epsom salts bath, drying them. Will stares absently as Hannibal treats his wounds. Hannibal clocks the retreat. o inside, Will. "You'll want to retreat, you'll want it as we want to jump from balconies, as the glint of the rails tempts us when we hear the approaching train." Hannibal applies salve to the cuts and bruises on Will's hands, gently rubbing the ointment into his open wounds.

"Stay with me." Hannibal says as he carefully wraps gauze bandages around Will's hands. "Where else would we go?" I say softly. Its not a question. Its a statement.

"You have everywhere to go. As long as you buttress your mind against deterring forces like guilt. You should be quite pleased. I am." Will stares at Randall Tier's body on the table before him. "Of course you are."

"When you were killing Randall, did you fantasize you were killing me?"

"Yes." That makes Hannibal smile. "Most of what we do, most of what we believe, is motivated by death."

"I don't think I've ever felt more alive than when I was killing him."

"Then you owe Randall Tier a debt. How will you repay him?" Will considers that...I smirk with a wicked idea.

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY - DINOSAUR ROOM - NIGHT-

The large room is dark. Overhead lights begin to FLICKER to life, and the exhibits come into view. Moving through the long-dead fossils, FASTER AND FASTER – Until we find DROPS OF BLOOD, thick and viscous, on the floor.

RANDALL TIER'S HEAD or, more specifically, the top of it. It has been taken off at the TOP JAW. And placed atop the skull of the SABERTOOTH CAT Randall was building A nightmarish form of a man's head, EYES STARING, with the savage fangs and lower jaw of the great predator. the creature is now a nightmarish hybrid.

The cat's skeletal torso meets Randall's arms and legs, which have been used to replace the cat's limbs. The BLOODY FLESH at odds with the bare ivory of the bone. A grotesque amalgamation of man and beast, of long-dead bones and recently-living flesh...

Will and Caroline take it in as they approach. Jack Crawford and Hannibal Lecter follow close behind the couple. "His killer chose not to dispose of his body, but to display it." Jack says, I tilt my head at my work. I think i finally understand the beauty of the gruesome fate called death. Its an art. One to be perfected.