Everyone got old. Skin told a lot about a person. Where they had been, where they were going — freckles, scars, wrinkles, moles; some benign, some tumorous.
There was a death before the grave. Abigail wasn't buried, but she was rotting. She didn't get a funeral: the hymns, tears, flowers, black suits and black dresses, and drunken afterwards. There was no one to miss her and no one to say goodbye to, but there were people waiting for her wherever she was going. She knew she would see her father again.
He was a blood red river. The current was raging. It carried her away. He embraced her and pulled her under. She gasped for breath and kicked at him, but she had swallowed too many of his lies.
Her childhood toys outlived her. She had dust on her soul and they were pristine.
She used to think dolls were sweet and gardens were beautiful, but those things weren't for her anymore. They reminded her of what she was.
A killer.
Hannibal took her out of her bed. They walked through the woods, quietly so as not to startle the deer. They wore their suits so tightly, so well they almost looked normal, but out here they didn't need to pretend.
She ate girls that looked like her. She slept on pillows made of hair as soft as her own.
They weren't murderers. They were hunters. They killed because they had to, to survive. That was the truth, or maybe the lie was all she knew anymore.
In his jaws he snapped her neck and wiped the blood off his chin.