The Peculiar Alchemist

22 || Full of Regrets

There was no excuse for how stupid he was being.

Aubrey landed quietly on the floor, barely causing an audible thump as he did so. Everything was dark around him, but he still had enough visibility to see that he was in a nursery. There were toys lying around – some of them might squeak if he stepped on them – and he felt so awful breaking into someone's house using their baby's room.

This just wasn't something Aubrey would ever do, necromancer or not, they had an innocent family. Just what was he thinking allowing himself to do this?

"Stupid Kellen. So stupid." He hissed quietly not knowing what to do, so he went back to the window to get out from the way he came, but it was a long way down. Climbing up was much easier when he couldn't see how far from the ground he was, and in a moment of dizziness he stepped back and decided on another alternative as he gripped the crib next to him for support.

He'll just sneak out and pretend this never happened.

It was easier said than done, though, because Aubrey couldn't exactly cast spells whenever he wanted to. There was no way he could illuminate his way, and no way to defend himself if the occupants of the house discovered him as an intruder. They had every right to attack him, and it just made him curse his stupidity even more because he shouldn't have listened to Kellen.

Why did he in the first place?

Trying his best not to lose his cool, Aubrey had no choice but to slowly approach the door and carefully open it to see if anyone was around. As far as he could see, the hallway was dark and there was nobody there. So as he stepped out of the nursery, he couldn't help but think how strange everything was.

Not that there was anything unusual about the house itself, but it was still too early for anyone to be asleep at this hour, and the baby wasn't in the crib. Worried, Aubrey thought that whoever lived here might be downstairs, yet there was still something that remained consistent in all of this.

It was dark everywhere, and every room had its door closed shut. Even when he peered down the stairs, he could see that there was no source of light. It was as if nobody was home.

But there's one door which was ajar, and a very faint light came out of it.

The smart thing to do was to avoid that door altogether and just head down, but something was amiss. Something made Aubrey approach it with recklessness caused by his curiosity and carefully push the door open to take a peek. This is when he realized that there was a strange sound emitting from the room, a sound which was very weak and dull for him to notice without coming this close.

It sounded like the gurgles of someone struggling to breathe, and that someone was slumped on a leather chair facing a barely-lit fireplace as they wheezed when they exhaled.

A stench wafted around giving the illusion that it could be physically felt from how strong it was.

The disgusted sound which came out of Aubrey was involuntary, and he quickly covered his mouth from the fear of being heard. There was no way he could control what just happened, the stench was putrid. It was the smell of something rancid.

Aubrey believed that he was looking at someone's corpse, especially when he noticed a few flies swarming all over the slumped man's body. There weren't many to make them instantly noticeable, not in the dark, but once seen they cannot be unseen.

And that's when a terrifying thing happened.

The seemingly dead man turned his head to meet Aubrey's eyes, and in his fright Aubrey let out a whimper when he saw patches of skin melting off of the man's face as if they rotted away. His eyes were barely focused, and they were bulging out of their socket with a blue hue surrounding the black irises.