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Edoardo Tofano
(1878)
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THE darkness that covered his sight slowly blurred and melt becoming light, artificial bulbs above his head, almost blinding him, as his lips parted in surprise, to finally wake up from his profound endless sleep.

He could only move slightly his eyes, trying to become aware of his location, while the soft beeps of a machine continued. The room was clean, neat, and strangely peaceful, different from what he experienced 8 months before. His hand, delicately directed toward his belly, was now bandaged where he previously felt being brutally opened before.

"How do you feel?" A strange voice asked at the corner of the room.

Still lying in the hospital room, feeling his throat closed as he finally spoke for the first time in all those months, Will Graham's voice came out slow and hoarse "Thirsty."

The figure revealed to be a doctor in a white coat, who kindly took a cup next to the patient's bed and helped him drink water through a straw. After drinking, will groaned, letting his head fall back into the bed.

"Someone's here very anxious to see you." The doctor announced,l and before saying anything else, left through the door.

Will could only hear well-paced steps coming closer, until a light blue dressed figure. The background behind them was pure light, almost resembling an angel coming down on earth. Maybe he was dead, he thought.

His thoughts were confirmed to be half true when he could recognize the figure's face. It was indeed an angel.

"...Ali?" He gasped, as his large half-exposed chest moved up and down anxious. "He didn't-"

"The doctors said he knew exactly where to cut you." His friend muttered calmly. "It was surgical." She smiled bitterly. "He wanted for you to live."

"He left me to die." He recalled her. "Abigail. Where is she?" The woman didn't reply, her semblance otherwise... "He left her to die." Will tried to take in the pain of losing that girl again. "What I don't understand is why you're still here."

"Don't you want me here?" She lifted one eyebrow.

"You know I do." He replied right away. "But he doesn't."

She nodded delicately, moving in her soft cloudly blue dress and sitting on the edge of his bed, looking sweetly at him. She seemed so beautiful, so peaceful, it was almost impossible to believe the vision he witness before in that kitchen when Alice became traumatized by her discovery and the attack.

"You're right." She replied. "He was supposed to take me with him, we were supposed to leave together, he made a place for us." She explained as a movie passed through her mind.

"Ali..."

"Why did you tell him to go?" She asked him in an accusatory tone. "You planned to let him escape. A serial killer."

Will looked down, taking in a deep breath. "I couldn't kill him." He muttered to the woman of his dreams. "I couldn't do that to you."

"You promised me you'd help me capture my sister's killer." She spoke seriously to him, the mouth only a thin straight line, the eyes a gelid blue.

"And you promised me to never let me go." He snapped back in an impulse. "I guess we're even now." He watched her expression become more fragile, offended. "I'm sorry..."

"You stopped me from keeping my promise." She softly said, watching his large hand on the mattress, wondering or not if she should take it. "If you didn't do that, we wouldn't be here."  She reproved. "No one had to die."

Will sighed heavily, broken to hear those words. "It's hard to grasp what would've happened, what could've happened, and in some other world did happen." He swallowed dry.

"I'm having a hard enough time dealing with this world." Alice mourned. "Hope some of the other worlds are... easier on me."

"Everything that can happen, happens." Will wondered. "It has to end well and it has to end badly. It has to end every way it can." He breathed heavily "This is the way it ended for us." Will lamented.

Alice softly touched his cold hand, her touch was simply surreal and warm. Her eyes tenderly met his as she whispered "We don't have an ending." He gave a half smile. "We never had one, had we?" Will smiled softly, watching their hand above the mattress. "But neither I had a proper ending with him." She obscurely said. "He didn't give us one yet." She paused her sentence. "He wants us to find him."

Will frowned his eyebrows, frustrated to see that her feelings wouldn't simply disappear as he wished them to. "After everything he's done, you'd still go to him?"

"If everything that can happen, happens, then you can never really do the wrong thing." She whispered mystically. "You're just doing what you're supposed to."

Will's head spun, and the sight blurred into a dream that darkened all his surroundings. He woke up in the middle of Hannibal's office. In an old memory covered with papers being burned and wrongly written clocks affirming insanity.

He found himself at that moment again, at the Persephone and Hades reminisce, where Hannibal burned his old registers of patients and any proof related to his crimes as he confessed his dreams to him. "When we have gone from this life, I will always have this place." The doctor pondered as he let the papers fall gracefully into the flames.

"In your 'memory palace'?" Will from the past questioned, standing by his side and helping him in his schemes.

"My palace is vast, even by medieval standards." He looked up, visualizing his ideas. "The foyer is the Norman Chapel in Palermo; severe, beautiful, and timeless, with a single reminder of mortality: a skull graven in the floor."

Will looked down at the papers and then at the ceiling that shaped itself into an ancient and elegant structure filled with mesmerizing details of an artistic period he couldn't name exactly.

But one thing he knew: where to find him.

▫️

The magnificent and secretive walls were illuminated by the mosaic crystalline windows and the warm mystic candles that lightened the grandiose golden altar.

Through the prayers and worshipping of sinners in that ancient temple, their steps were careful, the voices turned into confessional whispers watching the sanctity corrupted by the evil that passed by.

"Even in an enlightened world, we come here to feel closer to God." Will Graham muttered, watching through his glasses those who begged for holy forgiveness high above.

"Do you feel closer to God?" Alice Mallory whispered by his side. Her presence was just as bright as the colorful mosaic windows.

"God's not who I came here to find." He responded seriously.

"I remember you didn't believe in God back in college." He gave a half smile, holding her hands behind her back as they walked. "I tried to take you to church with me so many times..." She snorted. Will almost smiled, he remembered making faces whenever she mentioned it until she finally gave up. "But I never stopped praying for you."

He stopped on his feet, turning to her. "Even after I left?"

"I prayed even more for you after that." Her gaze met his intensely. "So God could save you."

"God can't save any of us because it's inelegant. " He corrected her. "Elegance is more important than suffering. That's His design."

"You say that quote too often." She grinned sweetly. "But are you talking about God or Hannibal?"

"Although you worship him, Hannibal's not God. He wouldn't have any fun being God." He replied seriously, analyzing the huge pillars that sustained the golden ceiling above. "Defying God, that's his idea of a good time.'" He looked down, as they directed themselves to a skull painted on the ground, the same skull Hannibal mentioned to him. Will looked up, observing the doctor's memory palace with attention. "Nothing would thrill Hannibal more than to see this roof collapse mid-Mass, packed pews, choir singing..."

"He would just love it." Alice accompanied his thoughts with a weak smile.

"And he thinks God would love it, too."

They watched the fake wall the police had put into the crime scene, covering the atrocity as the cops tried to take the worshippers away to preserve the area.

The "artifact" was found that morning, probably done during nighttime, and left as a memorandum of an atrocity that would be printed in people's minds for many decades.

A heart.

Bleeding, exposed one. Not a common heart, but one the size of a human, made by a human and from human material. The flesh was lightened by the sunlight as the blood slowly dripped onto the soil.

The Italian police gathered around and took pictures, trying to understand what happened, but none of them had a clue.

"Is it him?" Alice whispered in Will's ear.

"Per favore, signore. È proibito qui. La cappella è chiusa." One of the officers tried to take him out of the scene.

Just when the officer did that, another one came foward "LaManna, non lasciarlo uscire. Voglio parlare con lui."

"What did he say?" Will questioned the previous policeman.

"He said he wants to talk to you. Signor Graham.."

▫️

At the busy station, sitting side by side, a man, maybe already in his 50s, with a serious but determined semblant, analyzed Will Graham's figure, trying to solve the mystery beside him.

"Chief Investigator Rinaldo Pazzi. Questura di Firenze." The middled aged man introduced himself.

Will wouldn't let himself be intimidated by the authority. "You're a long way from Florence."

"You're a long way from Baltimore." Rinaldo retorted. "I read everything I can find on FBI profiling methods. I read all about your incarceration."

The curly-haired man made a face. "Keep reading. I was acquitted." He mocked.

But Rinaldo wouldn't give up just yet. "You come to Palermo a day after a body is discovered." The man explained. "Due to your history, it is quite an interesting timing, since the press just let out the news about 'the heart'."

"You think I'm attracted to death?" He smirked. "That I flew all the way from Baltimore until here so I could witness this carnage?" 

"Sort of it." The investigator stared intensely at him, studying any sort of sign or clue. "But I believe you came here because of who did it."

"Signore..." Another cop appeared, gesturing for Will to follow him. "Vieni con me."

"Ciao." The investigator muttered as Will git up from his seat.

But he didn't bother replying to him.

It didn't take long for Will to be freed from questioning, he was already leaving the station, spotting next to the doors that adorable smiling creature that accompanied him through his journey. He smiled back, willing to go after her when he noticed another pair of eyes at him.

The investigator again.

Alice quickly disappeared, as she hid somewhere, as Rinaldo came again. "Is Will Graham here because of the body at the Cappella, or is the body here because of Will Graham?" He looked into Will's eyes for a moment. "Or maybe because of someone Will Graham knows...?"

Will bothered himself with his questions. "Why are you here?" He complained.

"I'm like you. I do what you do. We share the gift of imagination." The FBI agent tried to ignore the man but failed at it. "You know who murdered that man and left him in the Cappella Palatina."

"Don't you know?" Will retorted.

Rinaldo approached him silently until he revealed it carefully. "I met him 20 years ago. Il Mostro, the Monster of Florence." Will's skin gained shivers at the declaration. "It was his custom to arrange his victims like a beautiful painting. Il Mostro created images that stayed in my mind." The investigator took a picture of his pocket, a crime scene's one, where it illustrated a dead couple in a made-up green scenario with flowers. "20 years ago, I was dwelling on a couple found slain in the bed of a pickup truck in Impruneta. Bodies placed garlanded with flowers..."

"Like a Botticelli," Will whispered unable to take his eyes from the image.

"Exactly like a Botticelli." The investigator took a mother picture of his pocket, showing him the comparison between them both. "His painting Primavera still hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, just as it did 20 years ago."

Everything matched perfectly. It like the assassin had recreated, brought the painting to life.

"The Uffizi Gallery... that's where you met il Mostro," Will suggested.

"That's where I met..." the inspector set the pictures aside and took an older, black and white one "...this man." The image was almost unbelievable to Graham's eyes. He was younger but with the same intense eyes. "The Monster of Florence."

Hannibal Lecter.

▫️

Back to the crime scene, now taken along with Rinaldo Pazzi, Will observed the rotting heart exposed. The haunting image matched perfectly with the symbolic and peaceful church as he circled the exposition with amusement.

He ignored everything around her, only focusing on the art left by the fugitive cannibal.

"I splintered every bone, fractured them dynamically." He saw it in his mind. "Made you malleable." He watched the meat bend over strong hands. "I skinned you, bent you, twisted you, and trimmed you, head, hands, arms, and legs." He stopped admiring the heart, chuckling darkly. " A topiary." He stepped forward for a moment, touching the surface of the bloody flesh with his fingers, almost able to feel the heart pulsing and beating. "This is my design." He whispered, almost able to see everything now. The lips parted in surprise with the discovery. "A valentine was written on a broken man."

He turned around, to face the back of the church, the entrance where huge doors stood, spotting the red stained dressed elegant figure he never expected to visualize in his empathic episodes, especially Hannibal's.

Alice Mallory.

▫️

48 Hours Before

"Where are we?" She asked as he guided her to walk forward. He smiled at each step and question she made through the silent night that consumed them, there was just something about it that made it...eternal, permanent, and secretive between them.

"Just a bit more...here." He stopped her. "Ready?" She nodded as he slowly took his hands that covered her eyes.

Alice let out a small gasp of amusement at the sacramental church they were in. When Hannibal told her immediately that they were going somewhere minutes after killing Anthony, she didn't understand it, until now.

It was huge than any church she has ever been to, and there was something about the mosaics, the concrete, and the outstanding pillars that brought some authority to it. It was a place of perfect equilibrium.

"It's so beautiful..." She muttered observing the many candles lightened around the church and the huge altar with saints and baroque paintings. Alice turned around, meeting Hannibal with a symbolic, genuine smile as he stared at her. "Is this..."

"My memory palace." He replied sweetly, as he gently took her hands in his. "We're finally here."

She held her breath, absorbing the warm sensation inside her chest after all that storm. Touching his skin against hers became therapeutical again, not repulsive as it was. She could feel it again, those butterflies that exploded inside her stomach and the heart speeding as lightning.

Alice looked around the church and tried to be optimistic, giving a small smile. "It could've been a nice wedding church, you were right."

"It still is." He made a sassy expression tilting his head. He suddenly let her hands go and took fast backward steps, standing his hands in the air with magnitude in such joyfulness that almost resembled hers. "Imagine it, on a sunny day with no clouds in the sky, just as we wished it to be." He came back to her, landing his hands on her shoulders, standing behind her. "And you prepare yourself in your spectacular wedding dress, about to enter the aisle, while all the guests stare at your enchanting sight"

"Hanni!" She chuckled finding that silly behavior adorable.

He hushed forward, gesturing to the empty wooden pews, as the moon shined through the windows reminding them of reality.

"And all the people we wished to be are here." He muttered. Alice suspended her breath emotionally. "All of them."

"Colin.." She mumbled sadly.

"Yes." He nodded delicately, trying to cheer her up. "And...Abigail...Jack, Alana."

"Katia, Taye-"

"Taye was a criminal." He said.

"Was?" She widened her eyes. Hannibal stood silent. "You killed him??"

"He and Nadira were scammers trying to gain profit from you, I discovered it."

"Oh my god, and Nadira-"

"She used your brother to reach you. So they could gain profit on you."

She looked at him a bit shocked. "Hannibal you can't just kill everybody-"

"I'll explain everything later. All you need to know is that they weren't good people or your friends." He concluded. "Continue your guest list"

She took a deep breath. "Okay...um...Freddie Lounds-"

"Freddie?" He lifted one eyebrow laughing.

"She's not as bad as it seems."

"...Fine, she is invited." He rolled his eyes.

"...Will...?" She looked into Hannibal's eyes, and he could feel that wave of mixed emotions that shook inside her whenever she spoke about her friend.

"Wouldn't forget my best man." He said softly as she gave a half smile.

Alice looked at the end of the aisle where some sort of structure was covered with a veil, she didn't care though. Her thoughts drifted to somewhere else, and Hannibal immediately knew what she was thinking when he looked at him with tears in her eyes.

"And Bree," Hannibal said instead, as Alice held the urge to cry. He walked forward, slowly, with a broken smile as he cupped her face softly.

She took a deep breath, feeling the warmth of his touch as she looked back at him kindly. "And Mischa." She muttered while staring with those shiny eyes at him, lighting his soul into a pure and soft feeling that he could only feel with her. He smiled, vulnerable by his sister's name. "It would've been the perfect wedding." She whispered.

"I know this isn't enough, that it isn't what you deserve." He spoke in that hoarse low tone that always enchanted her. "But if you accepted this...you'd make me the happiest man to ever exist."

Alice smiled genuinely, caressing his sharp cheekbones with her fingers. "If you don't mind a bride with a blood-stained gown." She chuckled.

"You never looked so stunning as now, darling." He kissed her forehead and parted from her arms, hushing her to the front of the alter as she laughed watching him run. Hannibal was euphoric as never before and that just made her so...happy. "A choir begins, you will walk down the aisle!" He shouted from the altar.

"What are they singing?" Alice asked him before starting to walk.

"Whatever you'd like!"

"Never Gonna Give You Up?" She joked, Hannibal rolled his eyes with a smirk.

"Please, don't." He chuckled.

"Okay, so I'll just walk." She indicated to him as Hannibal nodded adjusting his posture.

"I'll be waiting for you." He softly whispered as his eyes watered when she started walking down slowly through the aisle. "I'll always be."

Her eyes searched around the church, taking a deep breath as she glanced back at the man at the altar. He stood elegantly, the hands still a bit red, glued to each other as he waited for her a bit anxious.

Each step she took was a way to give away the past and her old self. She was making a choice, a choice to be with him, to love him forever, and search for that ethereal happiness she could only feel by his side.

Alice couldn't understand at first when she met Hannibal, she couldn't get how opposites like them could work so well, or how they could cherish the little things together and create a paradise together. But now she knew, she knew he was made for him, and he was made for her...even as cursed as it was.

She wouldn't lie, it hurt. It hurt her the fact that she had to imagine those who weren't there to be on those pews. It hurt how she needed to embrace what she once hated in him.

But at the same time, she never felt so free.

And Hannibal...my God the way he stared at her...

The most interesting part of a wedding when a bride walks down the aisle isn't the dress, the walk, or the guests. No, it's the look in the groom's eyes.

He stared at her as if she was something holy, sacred, that even just staring was dangerous. He stared at her as if his life depended on it, as nothing else mattered besides her. In his eyes she was the most spectacular thing to ever exist, surrendering himself just to be in her presence. That was the look in his eyes. Passion, respect, and most of all, true love.

Alice could feel Katia's smiles to her, Colin's mockings but also cryings as Nadira and Taye comforted him, Jack smiling sweetly, maybe even fatherly, as Alana secretly handed him a handkerchief to wipe off the tears.

She could see Bree by the left, her Maid of Honor, giving the brightest of smiles and wishing her well as Alice arrived at the altar.

Her eyes crossed to the figure behind the groom, the friend who never stopped loving her and never would. But even through the pain, gave his best support just to make her happy.

Hannibal took her hands in his softly, holding them as precious jewels. "We don't have a priest or any authority to officialize our union." He whispered to her as they vowed in secrecy in the empty echoing church. "Let God be the only witness of what becomes of us, and the passion that we lay upon here."

Hannibal turned to the structure covered by a veil a bit behind them, next to a mark where a skull was painted on the ground. He carefully removed the fabric, and Alice gasped petrified.

"Let Him witness that I present you my soul, my existence, and, especially, my heart." He showed the sculpture he just revealed. "I give you this as an eternal symbol of my love and commitment to you."

Alice stared at the figure, a red flesh displayed and bend into the shape of a heart that almost dripped blood on her feet. If she stared at it for a solid second it could almost beat it in front of her how terrifying yet incredible it was.

She glanced at him a bit scared, definitely surprised, as Hannibal tried to calm her, placing a hand above her shoulder.

"Is This Anth-"

"It doesn't matter anymore." He replied instead. "Can you see it?" He looked at her. "My confession."

Alice watched his art for a while, still amused, as she slowly tried to get used to the image in her mind. He made that for her, shaped and crushed those bones and flesh for her. That different and intriguing sculpture was exclusively made for her, and her only.

Her hand trembled a bit but slowly could touch the surface of it. Her breath was shaken anxious as Hannibal accompanied her expressions with a warm and proud smile.

"It's..."She mumbled, turning her head to him, watching those entrancing eyes and the man she adored. "...alluring." a weak smile formed on her lips as she stared back at the art.

Hannibal smoothly removed something from his suit's pocket, allowing the red stone to shine against the moonlight in front of her blue eyes.

"I, Hannibal Lecter" He spoke fiercely, as she automatically let her take her hand, slowly entering the engagement ring she once threw away on her finger ".... take you, Alice Mallory, to be my wife, my faithful partner, lover, and companion from this day to eternity. I offer you my solemn vow to be your loyal valentine in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we both shall live." His teary eyes met her already crying ones, as he spoke with all the feelings inside his soul. "All I want, is your happiness, since you are the reason I still breathe and exist, I can no longer keep on living without you." They both admired the ring on her finger for a moment, sparkling with the vows they shared into that night "I promise to never hurt you again, to be by your side and swear upon all the sacred and the cursed, to love you forever."

Without a second ring, she warmingly just held his hand in hers and looked deeply into his eyes, pouring her feelings out. "I, Alice Mallory, take you, Hannibal Lecter, to be my husband, my partner, my friend, and my soulmate..." Her voice trembled as she smiled at him, giggling as a teenager. That was their love, an adrenaline dangerous rush that consumed them both endlessly. "I will cherish our union and love you more each day than I did the day before. Through all the differences between us, I will trust you and respect you, laugh with you and cry with you, love you faithfully through good times and bad, regardless of the obstacles we may face together." She took a deep breath gaining courage."Because I know that you are the one for me, that you truly understand me and love me for who I am, and I will love you for who you truly are as well." She held tightly his hands reaffirming those words. She would accept his flaws, the monstrosity he had inside his soul, and that meant everything to him. Because after all, like anyone else, even not trying to show, Hannibal just wanted to be understood by someone else. And she understood him. "I feel that from the moment we met each other, we were destined to be together, and I believe in it...I want to believe in it. So I give you my hand, my heart, my soul, and my love, from this day forward and forevermore. They're yours, and no one else's."

Breathing heavily because of the emotion and gazing at the altar where the saints witnessed their love, Hannibal took a needle from his pocket, and softly pierced the surface of his finger, as a small red bubble emerged from the surface. Alice let him do the same, as they vowed permanently.

Her finger united to his, mixing the blood in an affirmation under the crystalline mosaic moonlight. "May this be a vow to not only unite us in words, but in bodies and souls," Hannibal spoke to her, as he vulnerably smiled in ecstasy. "You are now, my wife, Alice Mallory." He declared out loud feeling his chest explode.

"And you are now, my husband, Hannibal Lecter." She grinned happily as a child, letting the emotion take over her senses and simply enjoying that moment, forgetting everything else that once distanced them both. "I believe you may now kiss the bride." She chortled sweetly.

"I was just getting there.' He smirked, and, leaning forward, gently, he touched her lips against his, and they almost melt by how sugary they were. His arm pulled her closer, with a strong impulse, tilting a bit of her body down as in a movie scene.

It wasn't lusty or afraid, it was a pure, genuine happy kiss. It was a way to seal that act between them, that gesture in secret but so important that made a mark between them both. They swore to be theirs, and no one else's, that this was their story and nothing else mattered anymore.

And that thought was simply heavenly. It was a delightful dark paradise they shared, as their hearts beat for one another nonstop.

Never in Hannibal's life he would imagine himself in that situation, but he never felt so glad, too jubilant to have that woman to share the rest of his days with. And never in Alice's life had she imagined not walking or carrying everything on her own, she never imagined being desired, understood or loved the way she felt with him, but there was no other place she'd rather be, and no other man she'd rather love.

It hurt to let the past and the lies go. But it was even harder to ignore that surreal connection that they shared, so they decided to deepen that connection.

Cause when they parted and looked into each other's eyes the world immediately turned quiet and warmer because they knew.

They knew this was love.

▫️

48 Hours Later.

When he opened his eyes there was nothing else there, only a tear that singly dropped from his eyes as he watched the doors after his vision.

Walked back towards a corner where he could stand privately, trying to recompose himself.

"Will..." That sweet voice called him.

He barely could look at her. But did it anyway. Alice was there, in front of him, the gaze broken to see him so sad.

"You accepted him." He whispered as his chest tried to pace his heavy breathing. The fists closed frustrated. "He didn't leave this to the church or for anyone else..." Will shakes his head. "He gave you his heart." She didn't speak, confirming his insanities as he ran his hands through his face. "And you accepted it...I can't understand..."

Alice sat by his side by the steps of the cold church' floor, looking down with a bit of sadness reflected on her expression.

"It is hard to distinguish what is wrong or right when your life becomes dependent on someone, Will." She glanced at him in a nostalgic wave. "You know that very well."

"After all he has done...you still want to be with him"

"I do." She whispered with a weak smile. "I am following the journey he had planned for us. What would have happened after he served the lamb that night."

"Where would you have gone?"

"Somewhere only we knew." She smiled warmly.  "A place we could call it home. Away from the pain, from the sadness."

"And from me," Will whispered vulnerably, Alice frowned her eyebrows with pity.

"Will." She carefully held his hand, looking into his eyes, speaking fiercely. "You need to let me go."

He swallowed the tears, pursing his lips in denial, shaking his head. "Ali, this isn't right, he is dangerous you can't-"

"It's not for you to"

"I miss you." He whispered helplessly, showing his bright teeth. Her sad image lightened in front of him by the holy sunlight. Never he had suffered so much in a church before. "I miss you so much that my mind is already trying to comfort me with crumbles of my perceptions of you." He lifted his hand to touch her, smiling painfully. '"Trying to make me think you're still here, with me."

"But I'm not." The illusion lamented.

"No, you aren't. You've never been." He spoke to the ghost of his consciousness. "But now I know where you are."

Alice sat still, watching the temple and thinking deeply for a second. "Don't come after me, Will." She whispered. "You can just live your life, let it all go. This is your chance."

"I've wasted my chance a long time ago." He spoke determined, a glisten sparkled in his eyes. "But I'm not letting it slip through my fingers this time." He looked into her blue eyes, mistaking love with madness. "I won't let you run away, even if that's the last thing I'll ever do."

▫️

He awakened from his trance, lay on the steps of the church, and observed the ceiling in his black suit that contrasted his distinct eyes that contained a hidden fire within them.

"Are you... praying?" Rinaldo mocked as he crossed the crime scene line to approach Will.

"Hannibal doesn't pray. But he believes in God... intimately." The empath replied, still wondering.

"I wasn't asking Hannibal Lecter."

"How do your prayers feel?" Will questioned the investigator.

"I hope my prayers escaped, flown from here to the open sky and God."

"Praying you to catch him?" Will git up from the ground, slowly walking through the adoration temple. "You should be praying he doesn't capture you."

"I didn't head the Questura di Firenze for nothing," Rinaldo spoke proudly, blindly believing in his abilities.

"You couldn't catch him when he was just a kid; what makes you think you're going to catch him now?" Will snapped back realistic.

"You." The investigator confessed. Will Graham turn around?

"What makes you think I want to catch him?"

"Signor Graham..." The investigator's voice became muffled. Will's ears shifted silently as his sight stopped at another entrance that led to hidden catacombs. It called him, almost as a siren, entrancing as a hellish spell. He could feel it in his bones, hainting, creeping into the shadows.

"If you could possibly be content, I would suggest you let il Mostro go." The curly haired declared still with his eyes locked at the entrance.

"I can't do that any more than you can." The investigator insisted.

"He's going to kill you, you know. I'm usually right about these things."

"You know why he did this." Rinaldo tried to understand. "For who he did this? Who he sent his heart to." Will didn't respond. "Where has he gone now?"

"He hasn't gone anywhere...He's still here."

▫️

Through the dark corridors almost unable to take a glimpse of his own feet on the ground, Eill guided himself by the small candles hanging on the rock walls as the soft breeze that squeezed into the cracks passed by.

He knew it. He could feel his presence.

Rinaldo also tried to search for himself but almost got lost in the hallways, only found later by Will, who heard his desperate callings.

"You shouldn't be down here alone." The FBI agent muttered creepily as a ghost.

"I'm not alone. I'm with you." The investigator insisted stubbornly.

"You don't know whose side I'm on."

The investigator wouldn't appear scared in his presence. He thought he knew how to play that game...but he didn't. "But you're not on his side as well." He concluded. "Whose side are you on?" He questioned, Will didn't alter his expression. "Il Monstro's muse's?" He didn't receive an answer but was correct in his assumption. "What are you going to do when you find them?"

"I'm... curious about that myself."

"You and I carry the dead with us, Signor Graham. We both need to unburden."

"Why don't you carry your dead back to the chapel before you count yourself among them?"

The investigator looked deeply into his somber eyes. "You are already dead, aren't you?" His whisper echoed through the rock walls.

Will Graham slowly stepped back, the face a mix between mystery and hauntingness, matching perfectly with the aghast ambiance that surrounded him as his body disappeared into the shadows "Buonanotte, Commendatore." He breathed coldly.

The investigator Rinaldo had no other choice but to get away from the catacombs and return to the surface, letting Will deal with the ghosts...or better, the living.

Because as Will walked through those aisles he knew it already. He could feel the slow breath between the cracks, the hazel eyes that burned his skin, and that unspoken cursed connection shifting into the air.

"Hannibal..."He called, not showing fear but certainty, determination. Into the darkness he knew the monster he chased was there, listening. That was the peace before a war, the period of silence before death. They both knew that the game was only about to begin. Will stopped on his feet, whispering through the air, as Hannibal hid behind a wall, listening attentively to his next, but final words. "It's time for Persephone to return to the surface."