Hannibal closed the door and took a deep breath. The calm smile he had to fake for the last session with a patient vanished in the darkness of the room, in which now he could return feeling like himself: inspired. It was 5.00 pm and there was no time to waste. There was a dinner to prepare, and as he always said, guests can never be disappointed when it's about food, especially not the guests he was expecting that night: Will Graham and Alana Bloom.

Hannibal rushed into the kitchen, wore his Italy-made apron and took out of the shelf two wooden boxes. He opened the first one and and carefully browsed his handwritten recipes. Chicken Liver Pate, Peppercorn Niutton, Parmesan Crumbled Lambs Brains, Briskowsky Burgundy Sauce, Braised Beef Lungs: Yes, the Braised Lungs would have been quite perfect for that evening.

Then he opened the other small box, and took a long look at all those the business cards.

Meryl Nimerfro? No, by the smell her skin had, he could say that she was a smoker, and the lungs he was looking for had to be healthy and fresh.

Christopher World? Hannibal raised his head from the box and tried intensely to focus. If he recalled well, that poor man was one of those stressed employees that are thirty years old but look like they were on their late fifties because of all the worries and problems they have. No, he was looking for someone young, someone healthy.

Doctor Lecter moved the cuff of his silk shirt and looked at his watch. 5.40 pm. Was there still time to go hunting? No, there was no time and this dinner had to be just perfect, mostly because after the Dessert Froid he was planning on something new. Something big.

Darrell Ledgerwood! Yes, young man, jogger, healthy eater; he was the perfect prey for this plate.

After opening the fridge and taking out the still pink-colored lungs, Hannibal removed gently the piece of trachea and couldn't resist to smile: every time he came to the part of the recipe in which he had to cut the flesh, he just couldn't help it. It reminded him of his youth, as he was a junior surgeon, as he discovered his peculiar curiosity towards the human body and found the holding of a scalpel in his right hand extremely pleasant, as if it was a scepter. The soft curvature of the flesh as it came in contact with the blade was like the tuning of the musical instruments before the beginning of the opera, holding a beating heart in his hands made him feel like he was the most powerful man in the whole world, as if he was capable of anything. He closed his eyes, a slight thrill ran through his whole body.

Subsequently he violently stepped on the meat and carefully dusted it with flour. As the lungs came in contact with the warm wine on the pan, the fire underneath burned up in a powerful flame, caused by his quick wrist movement. Hannibal closed briefly his eyes and thought about his guests. Alana Bloom was an interesting person, it's true, but she wasn't comparable to his special guest. There was something about Will Graham, something dark and mysterious that he found interestingly attractive, even if he could't tell exactly what it was. Maybe it was his peculiar skill that made him a special FBI agent, the ability to deeply empathize with serial killers, a skill that made him day after day so incredibly vulnerable and unstable. Hannibal was a psychiatrist, his job was to understand people and read their minds, yet the more he tried to analyze Will, the less he could get a clear view: all he could see was darkness. Thick and deafening darkness. He just couldn't see him like the other human beings, like a prey to play with.

Will had a monster inside, who was getting more and more powerful, created by the evilness he had to face everyday, and doctor Lecter found it incredibly fascinating. But that night, that night was going to change everything. The move that Hannibal was planning for weeks now, would have revealed Will's true semblance, it would have awakened his monster.

The doorbell rang; Hannibal raised his head from the pan and smiled calmly. It was showtime.