Prequel charting the making of a maniac as the formative years of Hannibal Lecter - surely the most gruesome childhood in history - are recounted. 1941, Lithuania and the Lecter family, residents of Lecter Castle, live an idyllic life. Until the Nazi invasion of the Baltic turns everything upside down and the family is hunted for its life. They escape to their hunting lodge where they shelter for three years as the war rages. The Soviets finally drive the Germans out but in their retreat they blow up a Russian tank, which kills the whole family but Hannibal and his younger sister Mischa. The two seek refuge and must turn to cannibalism to survive. Rogue Russians who have collaborated with the Nazis are roaming the countryside trying to evade a certain death. The brigands come across the two starving children and commit a brutal act that is the first notch in shaping the monster Hannibal is to later become.