Itsuwari
There was a complete stillness in the room, as if they were both frozen. She was standing with her hands covering her mouth, her eyes open wide in shock, her hair blonde and unruly with streaks of blood. Her knees felt weak and shaky but she remained standing still, shocked, scared, terrified. Her friend and colleague was standing next to her, she could hear his breaths. They were calm. What she had just witnessed. What Hannibal had been forced to do, he'd done it so well. Bedelia closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them everything was the same. "There was nothing I could do," she heard Hannibal say, "he had already swallowed his tongue." She knew it wasn't the truth. "There was nothing I could do," Hannibal said again. Bedelia turned her head to look at his face. He looked calm, relaxed even. Running his hand through his hair, he put it perfectly back in place, and Bedelia thought he didn't look any different than he had before the attack. As if it hadn't happened, as if it hadn't affected him. "He attacked you, he fell back and he swallowed his tongue," he said, meeting her eyes, "there was nothing we could do."
With that, Hannibal walked out of the room, leaving her alone with the dead man on the hardwood floor. She turned her gaze to the man, to his fading eyes, to the open mouth and bloody hands. She realized that she was bleeding from a wound on her arm. From his attack. "You attacked me. You fell and you swallowed your tongue," she said, as if to make the lie a little truer. "You fell and you swallowed your tongue." She closed her eyes, whispered those words again, and then she reached for the phone and called the police.
/End.