The Peculiar Alchemist

63 || An Interesting Subject

There was a perturbed look on Kellen's face when he looked up at Sammy. Everything was so confusing now, and it made him feel a little bit guilty when he realized that this was how Sammy felt whenever it happened to him.

But Kellen could remember his day going normally, it wasn't eventful, and he could remember it up until he returned to the cottage where anything could have happened. Thing is, Kellen simply couldn't remember, but he hoped that Sammy could help him with that as he looked around the place with more confusion.

It was much darker than he remembers, clearly he'd been out for a while, and he was certain that he was sorting the things his grandmother had asked him to bring just as she asked. Then it became murky.

"What exactly happened to me?" He asked Sammy as he sat up from the floor, and he found himself right by the fireplace a distance away from where he last remembers being.

Smiling amusedly, Sammy pointed behind him. "He happened."

It was no surprise when he turned around to see Aubrey sitting there looking down at his empty hand in fascination. The source of that fascination was a mystery to Kellen, but at least he had some sort of an explanation to what was happening to him lately. "Is killing me becoming a regular thing?"

Who was he kidding, it has always been a regular thing.

"Your finger just disintegrated when you came back." Aubrey told him still looking at his empty hand where Kellen's finger was, and although he knew he had all his fingers now, Kellen still looked down at his hands just to make sure.

It became clear to him why this was happening. "Are you studying me?"

Aubrey was suspiciously quiet for a few moments before shaking his head. "No."

Somehow, Kellen didn't believe him and got up from the floor with a sigh. "Aubrey..."

"Okay, so apparently, the duration of how long you stay dead varies depending on the injuries you sustain, and you come back to life approximately two seconds after your body fixes itself." Aubrey blurted out, too fascinated with all his findings to care about the disapproving look Kellen was directing at him. "It's all so interesting. Everything else about you is human though. Makes me wonder about your organs."

"I can't die, but I am slightly scared. Let's not go that far." Kellen muttered fearing that he might soon find himself cut open and observed by a very curious Aubrey. He was pretty sure he had normal human organs. "Very adorable how interested you are in my organs, though."

Sammy had witnessed and heard so many messed up things when he was with Briar, but even he couldn't help but be a little bit weirded out by all of this. "Is this a normal thing to you two, or is it just me?"

"He can't die." Aubrey shrugged, not really seeing what was wrong, and what was even more bizarre was the fact that Kellen nodded his head in agreement.

Truly a match made in heaven – or maybe hell is more accurate.

"You won't find out any of his secrets by digging into his organs." Sammy told him feeling like he was the only sane person in the room – other than the ghosts that were around, but one can't be too sure. "And you should not find any of this adorable. Do you seriously not see a problem with any of that?"

"I do, actually." Kellen said, finally displaying some degree of normalcy in his reaction when he directed an annoyed look towards Aubrey. "If you're going to kill me, the least you could do is make it painful."

At this point Sammy had just given up. Especially when Aubrey gave him an apologetic look as if that was something he should be apologetic about.

"Those poisons just take a lot of time to brew." It was clear that Aubrey was excited about learning all he could about the inhuman creature near him, even if that creature was supposedly his significant other. He was too impatient to make anything painful.