This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction. I somewhat admire the fictional character of Hannibal Lecter and I hope that I have done the character justice in what I have written.

Just a short story where Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter talk about a nightmare that Will has just had.

Hope you enjoy reading it.

Will knocks on Hannibal's door.

"Dr Lecter… Are you there?"

Will hears a faint reply "Yes my dear friend, one moment please…"

He looks down on his watch, the time reads 0632. Will is sweating from his forehead. A glistening bead roles down the side of his face. In a panic he wipes it off but manages to push his glasses off as well.

He hears footsteps approaching on the other side of the door and then the clunking snap of the lock as the door is opened.

Will picks up his glasses off the floor and stands up to see Hannibal dressed in his usual outfit of a three piece tailored suit. His hair in its usual fashion and the pungent aroma of fleshly applied cologne.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, you arrived sooner than I had anticipated." Announces Hannibal as he quickly scans Will from left to right in a zigzag motion. Will is dressed like he was in a hurry. He missed a button on his red plaid shirt. One cuff is undone. His shirt is mostly tucked into his jeans. The belt has missed one loop on the jeans on the right side of Will. His shoes are brown in colour and the left shoelace has come undone. He stops at his shoes, slowly blinks and then looks Will in the eye as he opens his. He cracks a small smile as Will replies.

"Sorry" Will scratches his head and continues "I rang you as I was in the car on my way over."

"It's quite alright, come on in."

"Hannibal, I'm terribly sorry, I just can't cope with this anymore" exclaims Will as he brushes the hair on the back of his head with both hands, then tightly gripping it as if to pull it out but stops at the moment of pain and sighs.

Hannibal pushes the door closed and replies with "Will, you and I know that's not true. You have managed perfectly well so far and you have been through a lot."

"Yes but that's the thing, I don't know how much more of this I can take. These nightmares, they are growing more and more real. It's getting hard to distinguish between what is actually there and what I'm imagining."

Birds are chirping outside the window and catch Hannibal's attention "I apologize Will but we appear to be interrupted, come with me."

Hannibal gestures towards the window as he walks towards it.

Will follows him to the window without making eye contact and staring at the ground. "Hannibal please… I really need to get this off my chest before it's a blur again…"

"One moment Will and I promise that you will have my full and undivided attention."

Hannibal widens the curtains and opens the window.

He points out side and says "Look at the bird Will."

"Alright… I'm looking."

"Tell me what you see."

"It's just a bird… Hannibal can you please tell me how this is relevant?"

"All in due time Will, now the bird, tell me about it."

"It's a... bird and it has feathers and its bird like and it uhh sings…"

Will briefly looks at the floor and then all around him finally settling on a resting point on the branch where the bird is singing.

"Yes, it's a bird and has all the properties and characteristics of a bird."

"Hannibal, get to the point. It looks like a bird so therefore it is a bird, even a 3 year old child could tell you that!"

"Will, please be patient. How do you know that the bird is real?"

"Because I can see it!"

"Because you can see it, can you also see whatever hallucinations you are having?"

"Not right now, no but I can when they are happening."

"And how do you know that they are hallucinations?"

"I don't all the time but I can usually figure it out but recently it's becoming harder and harder to distinguish between them as I'm trying to tell you!"

Hannibal slams the window shut with a loud bang which startles Will.

"Your hallucinations, they come and go like the bird." Dryly states Hannibal as he gestures towards where the bird was resting. "The bird was here and now it is gone."

"Yes, I can see that."

"My point is that your hallucinations are a chemical mixture of thoughts, feelings and memories all combined. Your mind mixes this toxic shot and delivers it to you to try and force something to happen." Adds Hannibal as he walks away from the window and towards the chair. "It will come and go as it pleases and like the bird, there are certain actions which will encourage it to come and go. Think of your hallucinations as an extended metaphor."

Hannibal eases himself into a chair and picks up a small leather bound book with golden edges to the pages.

"Now tell me about these hallucinations"

"Okay, there is this one where I am running and I don't know where I am and all I know is that my heart is beating so fast that it might explode, my entire body is sweaty and I am increasingly thirsty as I keep running. I am not running towards anything but… away from something."

Will pauses and notices his dampening forehead. He runs both his hands through his hair again and sighs deeply as an attempt to control his heart beat that has been steadily rising since he started talking.

"What are you running away from?" asks Hannibal.

"It's some kind of monster. It's hard to describe. It's not something I can describe because I never really see it. All I know is that I just have to keep running or else it will catch up with me."

"What will it do when it catches you?"

"I don't know… I'm just afraid of it. When it is close to me, I feel it breathing down the back of my neck and I am over whelmed by this pure evil feeling and it sends shivers down from my head, down my spine and through my toes. Then I trip because as the shivers run down to my toes they smash into a million tiny little pieces. As I'm falling I brace for impact and close my eyes. As you do when…"

Will notices that there are now beads of sweat running down his face. "As you do when you are about to fall but I never hit the ground. I keep falling but I never hit the ground. It's like I'm falling from a skyscraper and as I open my eyes I see that I'm not falling. The feeling that I am freefalling has left and I am now standing in my kitchen. I hear the clock strike over my left shoulder and I turn to look at it but as I do something lunges at my throat. It's like I'm being attacked by something. I'm gasping for air and the sense of pure evil is back and slow shivers run down my spine again. I look back over to see what is attacking me and my dog, Winston, is barking like mad at it. I manage to pull whatever it is off my throat and throw it on the ground. I'm not even sure what it is. It's so dark in the kitchen that I'm struggling to see. Then as the thing hits the floor, Winston immediately attacks it and chases it into the other room. I follow but before I get there I hear Winston yelp and cry out. As I get there I see him all bloodied and scratched but there is nothing there, just Winston. So I figure that Winston has either killed it or frightened it away. I bend down to see if he's alright but he pounces at my throat and I see the thing out of the corner of my eye as I fall to the ground with Winston on my throat. At this point everything is moving in slow motion. I stare at this thing. I can tell it is evil; all I can see is its eyes which are a burning yellow. At this point I'm screaming out or at least trying to but I can't. There is no air in my lungs. My throat is gravely. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I shed one solemn tear as my head hits the floor. I just lie there. I don't know how long for but I'm there staring into the beady, burrowing, eyes of this thing. Then it whispers in a coarse quiet voice." Will pauses, he notices that he is now nearly drenched in sweat. He wipes his fore head with his fingers then bites a finger nail.

"Do you remember what it says?"

"Yes… It says the same words that Garret Jacob Hobbs said as he was dying… It says "See…See…" Then it slowly creeps out of sight and walks around behind the back of my head and then bores into the small of my spine. I wake up with an aching back where it burrowed into me; I'm sweating like mad, like right now. I am terrified. I don't know what to do. I lift the phone, grab some clothes and jump in my car. That's when I rang you…"