(Untitled)

[suspects_ravens]

They had forgotten the nightmares.

It's not something they think about.

Shattered fragments of old memory, sound and image twisted together: Grutas' cold blue eyes, the hard-edged laughter of the looters, that lullaby about the mushroom.

They've begun to fade, with time and revenge, but Hannibal still dreams: this and only this, in mirror with

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[nita_callahan]

In the Security office, everything's quiet: Baby has opaqued the walls of the occupied cells for privacy's sake; Nita's off shift and sleeping upstairs.

It's been some time since she found herself in someone else's dreams without intending to be there.

The first thing to notice here is the snow, drifted into deep piles and blowing icily around her. Definitely just plain Earth snow, though; there are trees around her that she recognizes.

There -- a house up ahead, with the fitful light of a fire in the window. Wrapping her arms around herself, she starts slogging her way towards it.

[suspects_ravens]

Laughter. Screams. Laughter. Screams.

The distinction between the two is blurred.

A small child, blonde, chubby, and pale, dashes out the door into the snow.

The men following her are singing in German.

One holds a hatchet. Another catches at the girl's arm.

[nita_callahan]

Nita sucks in a breath and breaks into a run.

"HEY!"

Damn this snow--

[suspects_ravens]

Too late.

From inside the house, the anguished wail of a little boy.

It's strangely doubled, and overlaid with another voice, maybe voices-- a man's or a woman's or both. Hard to tell.

The child and her pursuers fade from view as the hatchet comes down and the dream shifts. Less snow, now. The little girl is standing in the doorway as gunfire rattles loud and deadly around a dead woman lying in the dirt not ten feet from Nita. Her son kneels over her, tears and grime streaking his face, shouting at the child in the doorway.

"Go back! Mischa, go back!"

He hasn't seen Nita. Whether he can't, or is simply distracted-- hard to tell.

There are two of him, one overlaid on the other, a fraction of a second out of sync.