The Palace Crumbles

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My first thought is that I'm finally free. I imagine myself fleeing from this terrible building, taking myself to the nearest police station and finally getting some real idea of who I am. Perhaps I have a family I can return to. Perhaps this can all be a distant memory.
But you return before I can even entertain the idea. You are carrying a newspaper, which you shove at my chest and leave me to catch. I fumble with it, glancing down at the page that you have flipped to.
Our faces stare up at me. Both pictures of us are mugshots.
I stare myself in the eyes, realizing how flat they are. I look like a husk of a being, like I was not even present when the picture was taken. You, on the other hand, look livid. Your brow is lowered as you glare up at the camera.
HANNIBAL LECTER ESCAPES; WILL GRAHAM THOUGHT TO BE WITH HIM
"That's what I have to say," you tell me. You cross your arms. "Read it. I'm curious what you'll have to say."
Embarrassed, I begin to read.
Early yesterday afternoon in Virginia, the body of Francis Dolarhyde was discovered on a cliffside overlooking the Atlantic. Dolarhyde is thought to be the culprit behind multiple murders in the area, dubbed under the nickname "The Tooth Fairy."
The apprehension of Dolarhyde comes with a cost, however. Prolific serial killer Hannibal Lecter is said to have escaped from his confines of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he was serving multiple life sentences. Lecter has confessed to dozens of murders under the pseudonym "The Chesapeake Ripper," although he is thought to be the culprit of upwards of a hundred deaths. He is most notorious for cannibalizing his victims, with many christening him "Hannibal the Cannibal."
Will Graham, an FBI profiler with a complex history with Lecter, has been reported missing and is thought to be travelling with Lecter. Graham was arrested years ago under suspicion of murder before later being proved innocent- he claimed that Lecter framed him for everything. Both men are considered to be armed and extremely dangerous. Report any information to the FBI tip line below or local police.
I am left speechless. I do not recognize the man printed on the paper, his lips curled up in a minuscule smirk. If that is me, then am I even myself anymore if I cannot remember a moment of it?
I am a cannibal. That is my face. I am the culprit of upwards of a hundred deaths. I am armed and extremely dangerous.
"...Tell me about this," I say, pointing to the paragraph that details your arrest. It's the only thing I can think to say, as it's too difficult to process any of the information about myself. I feel like a different person, staring in on this situation from the outside. I am a fly on the wall.
"I will, if you come sit back down with me."
I shake my head. "People are going to see us. If we're this dangerous, this notorious- we're in a building where our faces are on the newspaper mere feet away, for God's sake."
"That's what the disguises are for. And who the hell reads the newspaper anymore? No one is going to notice us."
I want to object, but there's a part of me that wouldn't mind being caught. From the looks of this article, I absolutely deserve to be cuffed back up and sent to my cell once more. It wouldn't be a tragedy upon this world if I wasn't in it.
So I go along, not with the hope of being noticed, but with the indifference to make it not matter either way.
We exit the bathroom as normally as we possibly can, depositing the newspaper in the trash and making our way back to the little table in the corner. We settle in, and I stare down at the table as you move your chair directly to my right instead of across from me. You run your hand over your buzzed hair again.
"Like I said," you begin, "when we met at first, I had no idea who you were. You were my psychiatrist, just some man that I had to get to know. We were investigating these murders, and the cases weren't kind to me." You frown. "I have autism. Okay? Just getting that out of the way. And I've got some kind of hyper-empathy. It made me a vital part of the investigations, since I could easily dive into the mind of any killer just from looking at the crime scene."
I admire your bluntness. "Okay."
"I started getting sick. I was having panic attacks, migraines, hallucinations. I was losing time- blacking out for long periods of time and waking up somewhere else with no memory of how I'd gotten there. I told you about all of these things, and you sent me to a neurologist. They did an MRI, and it was viral encephalitis. Basically a virus burning up my brain and eating away at it."
"God."
"I know. And you found this information out...and you refused to tell me." You avert your gaze. "You charmed the doctor into telling me that my results were fine, because you wanted to toy with me. You made me believe I was going crazy, that I could have done some terrible things during my blackouts. You started framing me for your crimes, because my memory loss made a perfect mechanism for me to be the killer."
"I..what? You had that and I didn't tell you?" I can hardly imagine myself being so heartless. "How are you alive?"
"It eventually got bad enough that my coworkers had to take me to the hospital. By 'bad enough' I mean that I stalked one of the criminals we were trying to catch and shot him in the gut." You rub your temple as I look at you in shock. "I found out later on, once I got a lot of my memory back, that you were making my encephalitis worse."
"Worse?!" It strikes me that I am literally the most unlikable person ever.
"You were giving me what you called 'light therapy'. It was just a way to trigger my seizures." You roll up your sleeve, exposing your left inner elbow. It is covered in small dotted scars. "While I was out, you injected a few different mixtures of hypnotics into my arm and convinced me that I had done all of these terrible things. And I got sent to jail."
"Was there any evidence at the scenes that proved you couldn't have done it?"
"You knocked me out at one point and shoved a victim's ear down my throat through a tube." You nearly laugh at the absurdity. "I threw it up a few days later, and everyone thought I was the cannibal. It was just the right amount of evidence to prove what they already suspected of me."
There's so much of me that wants to challenge all of this, to fight back, but the entire story is so insane that I feel it's impossible to make up. I find myself reaching for your arm, examining the pinprick scars that line the veins. I feel the hair on your arm graze my palm, and-
and I am in a dark office. I'm cradling your arm just like this, a white light flashing aggressively behind me. In my right hand I hold a syringe, and I maneuver the needle into your vein. I glance up at your face, and you are not yourself. You are covered in sweat, eyes rolled in the back of your head, trembling, crying, seizing, and-
and I am here. There is no needle. There are only scars. You're telling the truth.
"...An apology can never be enough," I say, defeated. "Nothing will ever be enough."
"This is enough." You gently pull your arm away from me, instead placing your hand on my knee. "I'm not innocent, Hannibal. I hurt you, too."
"But I've hurt you more. You've hurt me with intangible things, and all I've done is drug you and stab you and...I don't know." I trail off, unsure where these words have come from. They don't have a specific memory attached to them- I am simply certain that they are true. When they spring to mind, I'm thinking of the words as metaphorical, but the look on your face makes me think that they may not be.
"I didn't tell you about the stabbing," you say, shocked. "How'd you find that out, Hannibal?"
"I- I don't know. I just said it. Did that actually happen?"
After a moment's hesitation, you nod. I scoff, burying my face in my hands.
I am a sick, disgusting person. I am repulsive.
"How about we talk about this later?" You say. "We'll have to get going soon."
I ignore you. "Tell me why you stayed."
"Why I stayed?"
"Why you're here right now. With me. After everything."
You heave a sigh. "It's hard for you to understand right now. But..you have the most beautiful mind in the world. It's a palace in there." The side of your mouth turns up. "Your train of thought, your ideas, your emotions and your words...oh, they're so beautiful, Hannibal. Everything has so much grace. So much sophistication. Your brain is a work of art."
"I don't have any of that anymore, Will. I'm a blank canvas now." I feel a stinging behind my eyes. "Who am I, if not that mind?"
"You're still mine." You lace our fingers together. "And I think we have a good chance of at least getting something back. Amnesia can be short-lived."
"And if we don't? Are you okay with that, Will?"
"Yes."
I nod, but all that I can think about is the moment of silence before your answer. The second that felt like hours, the second in which you had to contemplate your true feelings.