𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒘𝒐 𝑴𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔 || 𝑯𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎 ♡

Chapter 01.

  Rays of sunlight seeped through rich, emerald green leaves, coloring the ground into a lighter, warmer shade of brown.
    Hannibal's calloused hands worked their way through the dirt as he covered a carrot sapling he planted with a light layer of soft soil and watered it.

It was the middle of April, with the winter finally gone came a lot of work in the garden.

After such a long time spent in the wilderness, Hannibal learned when to plant what and what's the best time to harvest it.
  Carrots, radishes, potatoes and many herbs could be found in the patches of well maintained soil throughout the long abandoned camp.

It's been years since he ran away, years since he interacted with another human being for more than a few minutes while grabbing recourses in a village on the other side of the deep forest.

Throughout the ages, the number of people visiting that specific forest significantly decreased. The reason being Hannibal's murderous tendencies whenever someone as much as dared to stumble too close to his humble home.
  The strange reports of people going missing after walking into the haunted forest reduced the number of tourists to 2-3 a year.

Moving on to plant some different flora, Hannibal got up from his kneeling position, standing up to his full height.
  He wiped his hands free of dirt and brushed off the needles stuck to his knees. Long fingers flipped his soft, blond hair from his eyes and Hannibal returned to sitting, only a few feet away at another patch of soil.

While carefully sowing the seeds, Hannibal's sensitive ears picked up a sound of heavy footsteps near the camp. His eyes travelled from the ground towards the sound and saw a silhouette making it's way over.
  Immediately leaving his delicate work, Hannibal shot up, standing again, and darted for one of the three cabins he occupied in the old camp, picking up a razor sharp hunting knife and waiting for the poor, innocent soul to walk right onto it.

It always went the same: some unfortunate soul decided to test if the tales of a murderous witch or cannibalistic cult and other, just as ridiculous, stories were true;
they'd get too close, Hannibal would wait and once they tried to investigate one of the abandoned cabins, he would strike and have a nice supper later in the evening.

The meat, organs and every other body part would be dealt with and honoured the following morning.

By now it was a sort of a protocol, and while he was the only one that knew how it went, everyone else seemed to follow their part of it fantasticly.

  The hunter and the prey.

Hannibal walked out of his hut and hid behind it just in time to clearly see a boy around his age approach the cabin on the left of the one he occupied-the one he stored most of his practical supplies and tools in.
  Hannibal subconsciously noted the black backpack the guy carried and cursed under his breath, knowing that there were many many potentially dangerous objects in, both, the hut and the bag, that his prey could use as a weapon.

That if he didn't find the... other things that hid amongst the rubbish filled interior.

Right after the lad disappeared into the shed and out of the view, Hannibal strapped his knife into a holder on his belt and marched in the cabin's direction. Only stepping out of the path to take the back entrance.

Sneaking through the wooden door hidden behind a cabinet, Hannibal creeped towards the boy who was curiously looking at the various sharp objects in the shed.
  Unfortunately for him, his back was turned. In the final one or two strides before Hannibal made it to him, the boy heard a screech of wood bending under Hannibal's weight and whipped around, facing the hunter.