"How long do you think the procedure will take?" I asked when Aster stood up from his crouch by my left knee.
He hummed as he bent my arm so he could draw on it. "The last one was completed in twenty-six minutes. I aim to improve every time, so let's say twenty-five." He nodded firmly when he stood back up.
"That doesn't seem right." I furrowed my brow. I remembered when my dad got his pacemaker put in, he was in surgery for hours. I mean, I knew there was going to be three of them working on me, but twenty-five minutes to make me taller, replace my knees and elbows, all the joints in my hands, my tongue, my eyes, my ears and ear drums, and my lungs?
That just wasn't possible.
"We don't have the same conditions as human doctors, don't forget. We have what this world calls magic, and the advantage that you cannot die. It doesn't matter how much blood you lose or what we accidently cut, you will be sewn up and healed. If you close a wound you receive, it will heal on its own in a couple of days, no matter how bad. All it takes is holding it together for a couple of hours. You can always come back here, and I will help you, but just remember that when you're working." I nodded, still chewing on the inside of my lip. I really just wanted to get this transformation part over with.
"Alright." Aster started. "I'm going to get the Trima, and bring it back here so you can start on his blood." Banks nodded firmly at Aster, who quickly scurried out of the room. I liked how all the doors were seemingly giant so he doesn't have to duck through the doorway and risk hitting his head. I hoped they don't make me as tall as him. It seemed kind of inconvenient.
"What's a Trima?" I asked Banks who was putting his marker back.
"It's the machine that will replace your blood." He said rolling a cart with swabs and cotton on it towards the big table in the middle of the room.
"You don't use magic to do it?" I asked. Seemed weird, how much human stuff is being used to make me inhuman.
He laughed loudly then. "We certainly could, but I'm told it hurts much more. Come. Sit on the edge." He patted the table with his giant hand. I heard metal clang together when he did, and as I walked closer, I notice a thick silver band on his left ring finger.
"Are you married?" Seems weird, a married Reaper. How much of a life were we allowed to have, I wondered.
"Ah." He looked at his hand as I jumped up onto the table. "I was a couple hundred years ago. Now I just wear this so I don't forget her and why I became a Reaper in the first place."
I wanted to ask him more, but Aster reappeared pulling a large rolling machine with all sorts of dials and tubes. "Attach an IV to either side of his arms, I'm going to get the blood."
Aster looked very excited, and it's a little unnerving. I wasn't giddy, I wasn't looking forward to these alleged new powers I would be ever grateful for. I was just fucking terrified I wouldn't pass out and would have to feel Banks digging my eyes out of my skull.
"How long will it take me to recover?" I asked as Banks started opening packages with alcohol wipes and others with needles for IVs.
"It shouldn't take you longer than ten days to be fully mobile and ready to start your training."
"What kind of training?" I watched as he sunk a hollow needle into the crook of my arm.
"You will learn how to use your new gifts, all of them, all the way. You will prove you are an expert at using them, as well. You'll be taught all the rules, all the do's and don'ts. You will also be given a weapon, like my ax or York's katana. You'll have to learn to use that too, of course. And you'll go out with York while he works. You can accompany him for as long as you like, there is no limit to how much training you can receive. As soon as you feel ready, you'll be sent out on your own."
Aster returned again, this time holding a white bucket in his arms. Tell me that thing wasn't just full of blood.
"Push that thing over here, would you?" Banks asked of Aster. Aster quickly set the bucket on the table beside me, and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding when I saw the blood in bags in the bucket. I don't know why that made me feel better, but it did. I think I was just clinging to any little silver lining I could find at this point.
I watched as Aster helps Banks attach the IV to a tube, then to the machine.
"I'll get the other side." Aster said as he backed away from the machine and moved to my free arm. I held it out for him, and he smiled a little.
"How are you doing?" He asked as he wiped at my arm with an alcohol wipe. I shrugged, looking away to stare at the door instead of looking at whatever it was they were doing.
"None of my feelings are going to be objective until I'm done with this. It's all I can think about." I answered honestly. Banks barked out a laugh, and one side of my mouth lifted up in a small smile.
"You're very strange, are you aware of that?" Aster asked me as he sunk another needle into me.
"I don't think I'm that strange." I felt a little offended. I'd never been called weird before. I'd been called cocky, rude, arrogant, cold. But never weird.
"Do you have any idea why we've had such a hard time filling the final spot?" I shook my head, still not watching them as Banks moved to the blood bucket beside Aster. "One of the requirements to become a Reaper is the ability to be completely impartial. In the past sixty years, humans have grown extremely attached to their own selfish emotions. They think only of what they themselves feel, about what they want or what they need. They make judgment calls based on how they feel, rather than on the facts. Even the few that have come to us over the years have still been tainted and thought only of what they could achieve in their next life. Not to mention, people don't sacrifice themselves for others like they used to. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, it's just a fact." Aster shrugged before pulling away from my arm to walk back over to the machine.
"Can I ask you something else?" I looked at Aster hesitantly. I still didn't know the etiquette on this, but I really wanted to know.
He nodded and continued to fiddle with his machine. "Who did you save?" His fingers stopped for a moment, then continued.
"Sorry... if that's rude. I've just been wondering."
He laughed a little. "It's not rude." He still hesitated though.
"How about we all share?" Banks asked as he grinned at us both. I nodded, and glanced at Aster, who also nodded. "I'll go first then." Banks is behind me now, pulling all the rolling tables up around my table and positioning them.
"I was a stableman for a rich politician, and like all dumb men do, I fell for his beautiful daughter, Melody." I heard the smile in his voice when he talked about her. I found myself wondering how he felt such emotion for someone after so long. "She had the prettiest blonde hair I'd ever seen. It shone in the sunlight like golden silk. She was the most wanted bachelorette in town. And for some reason, she fell for me, just like I fell for her. I have no idea why, I was dumb, poor, and ugly compared to the other men begging for her attention. But she loved me. So much so, that she married me, in secret. When we told her father together, he went into a rage. He grabbed the closest thing he could find, which ended up being an iron fire poker. He called his daughter a disgrace and went to stab her. I stepped in between before I could even think about what I was doing. As I lay here, dying, with Melody sobbing over me and her father screaming about how he was going to sell her to the highest bidder, I just kept asking myself, why? Why am I dying for this girl? Was she even worth all this trouble?"
Yeah, I got that feeling.
Banks came to stand in front of me now, and I could see he was holding a now empty bucket. I glanced at the machine, which Aster was seemingly about to start up. "Well, I've already heard this story, so I'm going to put this up and get the stuff to sharpen his teeth from Finnegan. I think he had it last. We can do that too if Cole still isn't here."
Banks gives me a weird sort of look, and kind of motions towards Aster before leaving the room.
I gotta know who Aster sacrificed himself for.