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The winters in Lithuania were cold—buildings covered in the pure white sheddings of Nature’s coat. There was more this year than he’d ever seen. Hannibal wondered if Nature was bitter of the invasions in her lands, whether the snow was a biting cold meant to send the Germans back out to their own land and away from his home.
It wouldn’t work.
His mother and father hadn’t come back from the snow since they left two years ago. Hannibal could only lie to his little sister Mischa for so long, though he knew she was smart enough to catch on to what he wasn’t saying. They weren’t coming back anytime soon, if at all. He wasn’t sure himself whether they had died from the frostbite or had been chained to the walls for camp fuel, but he couldn’t linger any longer on it.
“Do we have food?” Mischa asked. “I’m hungry.”
Hannibal frowned, hands grasping at her cheeks to try and bring some warmth. “You’re cold. Are you sick, love?” There was a flush to her, but not enough to bring her any warmth.
Mischa shrugged. “Food?”
“I don’t know how much food we have left.” Hannibal whispered, hands resting in her hair now.
They didn’t talk much after that. They very rarely ever did—only to warn the other when a soldier was coming or if one of their aunt’s friends was on the way to bring food. Words spoken for other purposes were energy wasted.
Mischa had a habit of huddling closer to him during the cold, when the fire was stoked at the pire in the middle of their abandoned manor. Hannibal liked to imagine that Mother Nature granted them a fire brighter than most to keep them alive longer.
“I love you Mischa.” he whispered quietly.
There was something cruel about the sight of Mischa near the fire. She was close enough for the fire to singe the ends of her hair or the frays of her sweater and scarves. He’d tried his best to knit something warm for her, but he wasn’t a good knitter or craftsman. Not like his mother or grandmother used to be.
The soldiers were coming more often to him. The manor must’ve had something alive in it for them to return so much—they searched every nook and cranny they could find themselves or their guns in. Hannibal kept him and Mischa away in the tips of the attic. Far enough to watch, even farther than the soldiers wanted to go. There were holes in the roof and he couldn't stop the snow from coming in.
“You’re going to catch on fire,” he scolded, hands prying her away from it.
Mischa whimpered quietly. “I’m cold.”
Hannibal sat down next to her, letting her rest her head against his, his hands wrapping around her easily. Mischa was such a precious thing to him—so much potential warped underneath the pressure of the war and the biting, white cold. He could only stop the shivers inside of her body for so long before they became permanent. How long until that was? How long until permanent damage happened?
“I can make us some soup?”
Mischa smiled and nodded. Her mittens were on his hands now as she tried to rub them both warm.
“He said he had a sister?”
The soldier snorted and shrugged over to the basements. His face was one that made Hannibal’s stomach twist in knots, a snarl growing wide on his face. “Locked up. A pretty young thing, she is.”
The other soldiers laughed along with him.
They hadn’t tied Hannibal’s ropes tight enough to keep him bay—a basic kind of knot. Whether it was because they underestimated him or just because he knew how to undo knots well, he wasn’t sure. What mattered the most right now was getting away from the men, getting back to Mischa.
“She’s going to starve soon enough,” one of the soldiers said. Hannibal thought him to be the leader of the group, a sterner and older kind of man. “Are you planning on giving her some meat first? She won’t survive easy in the camps.”
The first guy snorted. “We don’t need to take her there. I’ll just take her here.”
Hannibal didn’t listen to much more than that. The rope was finished, and he was starved enough to make no noise when he moved around the manor. He knew this place far longer than the soldiers did—hidden passages and a whole language they knew nothing about. Different bookshelves that opened up to faster paths. Hallways that looped down to the basements quick. Ones they spent no time acknowledging, only shooting something they hated. Hannibal didn’t understand the kind of hunger that they had—not for groups of people who were different from him. But a lack of understanding didn’t seem to help much in stopping them from doing what they were doing. Pretending ignorance was a cover left them space to do more harm. He needed to take action, and he needed to take it soon.
Hannibal found his way past the sleeping guards and towards where they were keeping Mischa. Her body was cold, barely any shivering—but her lips and the tips of her fingers were blue. Hannibal grabbed the key that he had stolen and made his way inside as fast as he could.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he said. There was no pulse in her neck or in her wrists, but he knew what should happen. What should happen was that she would wake up and they would flee together, maybe to their aunt’s house in France where they could finally get food. He would give Mischa all of his scarves and jackets and tell her to go on even if he couldn’t move without her—Hannibal would be bait for the soldiers and Mischa would be able to run away.
Still though, there was no pulse. Still though, he could wait.
Hannibal waited two days in the cellar before anything happened.
He hid in the corner of the cell when some of the other soldiers came to check on his sister—they’d pronounced her dead just by looks alone. Two days, then they would carry her. Hannibal hadn’t wanted to accept that his sister was dead, he’d sat by her side for an hour more. He was so sure that he had done whatever he could to help her, warming her hands and her cheeks with friction as best he could.
But when the smell started, he knew that she was dead.
Hannibal was always quite a silent crier. He’d cried only when it came to Mischa—but he also knew not to let her know he hurt too. All of the worry and the fear of not being able to protect her seemed to culminate brighter and brighter until the dam broke inside of him, sobs no longer quiet as he clutched her close to his chest. She was so small—he never wanted to acknowledge how small she was. How much he cared, how much he failed. But there was nothing left to do but look at it now, how her fingers barely reached half of his and her head barely weighed a thing.
Small, small child. Hannibal hadn’t even been able to celebrate her birthday with her before she went.
Hunger. What a monopolizing feeling.
Hannibal found, through small trials and errors, that one could get what they wanted with hunger. Hannibal got to feed his sister, though he was sure many were able to control others in different ways. For example, he could make someone do something when their body starved and begged them for food.
He was going to test that theory out today.
The soldiers above the basement were currently trapped in individual cells—nothing on them that would help them break the locks or pry the bars open. Hannibal couldn’t tell you how he was able to track them through the manor—just that his anger seemed to control him to such a heightened degree in that moment. He’d found their rationings early on through his search of the manor and had hidden them in one of the secret rooms. Just enough to last him what it was that he planned to do.
Save yourself, kill them all.
Hannibal had control over every person in the basement whenever he went down—just like the powers of being a Count granted. He could watch the soldiers beg and cry for food or for freedom and could spit in their face when they got too close. He could hit them and throw as many fits as he wanted. Because nothing could bring back his sister. Nothing would ever bring back Mischa.
He had tried his best to preserve her body in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer. It had slowed down the process drastically, but it didn’t stop it. Hannibal could tell that it wasn’t stopping—nothing that he could do with the freezer would ever make her feel a part of him again. Hannibal could only keep her in one, single way.
Hannibal ate her.