Yay, another chapter. God I'm good. You get the backgrounds of the
Masks.... Interesting isn't it?! Yes I quite agree.
Chapter 2 - Death's Beloved
Death used you baby
As long as you're alive.
There's no escape, my darling
Eternity is so long.
"Dead?" Alice breathed, her voice cracked and her mind raced. Atman's face was emotionless and he showed no sympathy but no revelry either. He was unreadable yet he continued to watch her. His eyes kept darting to Anima and the Staff mask talking.
"She hadn't noticed. How utterly pathetic." Muttered the Gold mask with a shrill cackle but she was quietened with a sharp look from Atman. The Sword mask sniggered hysterically and was hit brutally by the Grail mask telling him to silence his prattle.
"You did not know, Alice?" Atman asked. She shook her head. She was totally speechless, she had thought that the Masks had only cautioned her, she didn't believe that they would take Yuri from her again and not like this. She shook violently and felt weak. Anima and Atman saw this and she rushed over to her to steady her on her feet. Atman held her arm so that she did not fall and he summoned the Grail mask to get her a chair.
The room immediately changed and she was back in the same house that she had been drinking tea in. It was a lot darker now and there was no table or chairs. Everything still looked monotonous and dismal but it was welcomed more than the endless obscurity of where she had just been.
The chair came and she was sitting down. What would she do now? Death with the Masks did not seem like an appealing aspect to look forward to. Atman did not appear to be as evil as she thought he had been, but then he had got what he wanted; her soul. She knew that Anima was a kind person, from what she knew of her she was very warm-hearted by nature. Was Anima dead too? Had she gone through this?
"Do not fear the Masks they cannot harm you as long as you are by my side." Anima whispered in her ear and she smiled, assuring her. She kneeled down to the left of her and Atman left them to speak to the Masks. Keeping her voice low she continued to talk. "The Masks cannot be trusted, they may appear to help you sometimes but do not fall for it. You can rely on the Staff Mask, he is a very good friend of mine. The Grail Mask, she is kind but I still do not trust her totally. I am not sure whether it is an act or not."
"How do you know that the Staff Mask is trustworthy?" Alice asked keeping her voice as a murmur.
"I have been here a long time. The Gold mask and the Sword mask are cunning and they are malicious. They will shred your soul at the blink of an eye. When we get out of here I will tell you everything but I do not know whether they will let you off without trying something on." Anima left her side and went to talk with Atman and the Masks. They left her alone to think to herself and she could still hear the muttering between the Gold and the Sword masks about what they could do to her.
After a while they dispersed and the masks came to her in a line. Their stares made her feel cold and lifeless, she could not stand it but she knew that Anima was close by. That meant anything that was done would be stopped immediately.
The Grail Lady came towards her and took her hand. She bit her lip as she saw the sadness in Alice's eyes. The cold hands covered hers and she felt something in her palm but she quickly put it in her pocket as soon as the lady had let go.
The Gold Mask was right next to her and ran a finger across her cheek bone. She gasped as the pain welled in her cheek and blood dripped down the side of her face. The golden woman gave a giggle and walked off. She stopped before Atman and gave him another kiss before she left. Surely he would stop that? But he did nothing, he stood there, looking distant and in deep thought.
The Sword Mask glided to her side and grinned in a incensed manner. He did not touch her but she felt someone in her mind. It was horrible, something pulled at all her unhappy thoughts and mixed them up into a ball. The happy memories were next and a hand tore and ripped at them, he broke them up into a thousand pieces, like a mirror. They were ruined and Alice felt limp.
She was crying and she felt like she had died again. Alice could not stop herself from weeping and she shuddered with every sob. Then she felt cool hands cup her face and they were tilted to make her look at the owner of the cool flesh.
She stared into red eyes, the ones that looked like they were on fire. He did not talk to her but she felt another person in her mind. She wailed again but this time it was soothing, and it felt like a calm wave of water passed over her. Her mind was soothed and she felt at peace within her mind.
"Do not cry. Everything will be fair, just stay strong and you will prosper. You may even see your love again."
Alice looked into his big eyes. She had not expected such a thing to be said. She nodded as he took his hands from her face and left the room. Atman had gone from the room already, and Anima was the only one left in the vicinity. She took a cloth and wiped Alice's blood from her face. She walked into the next room of the house with a gentle shake of her head.
The ashen haired woman followed and she saw she was in a kitchen. It was outfitted with pine furniture and the walls where painted in terracotta. There were all the usual machines that people would regularly find in a kitchen apart from one thing. It looked like a glass orb sitting on bronze feet but it was cloudy and she was sure that she could see pictures and people moving in it murky depths.
Anima saw Alice looking at it and the pictures were gone. The haze soon disappeared and the orb became clear, almost glass looking. Still hooded, Anima made to make the tea, she busied herself quietly and sung under her breath.
"Anima?"
"Yes Precious, what is it?" She said calmly and she turned from her kettle and looked at Alice who was standing in the door of the kitchen. At first Alice didn't really know what to say, she had just wanted to speak to someone. "Ahh, I am sorry. I am so used to being on my own I forget that I have company." The light shone on Anima's lips and she smiled sweetly while offering Alice a high stool chair next to the breakfast bar.
"You never have company? What about Atman? The Masks?" The kettle shrieked and Anima brought the tea and the cups to them on the bar. She sighed again as she brought some Custard Creams out of the cupboard and opened the packet.
"Atman is a very busy person, and as for the Masks they too have jobs but even so I am not really accustomed to their company. I have my own tasks to do, but they are infrequent and are not routine." Alice held her hands around the cup and felt its warmth, she had felt pretty cold in that dark place. She was glad that Anima was sitting with her and talking normally, she felt alive. That sounded stupid when she was dead but she hadn't actually realised that she was dead in the first place.
"So what do they do?" Anima sipped the hot tea and placed the cup upon the saucer with a quiet 'chink' and looked at her. Alice was still amazed that she couldn't see Anima's face even though she was sitting so close to her.
"The Masks or Atman?"
"Both." Alice replied in curiosity. Anima sighed and bit into a Custard Cream, she chewed it quickly and began again.
"Atman, well you should know what he does." Alice shook her head, she still didn't understand. "You fought with him and you lost. He is in a sense, Death, the personification of it anyway. He took your soul for the price of one precious to you. Yuri, I believe."
"So Yuri did not try to win back my soul?" This question hurt her painfully but she needed to know, she wanted to understand this formidable mess. Anima did not answer at first, it was like she was pondering what to say or how to say it.
"I am sure he would have done, Precious, if he had known. Yet it seems that he and his friends did not look at all the items that they found with much care. Maybe then they would known that they needed to built up Yuri's malice to fight the Masks."
"They had to fight the Masks?"
"No, because they did not know that they had to." Anima said this miserably. Could she sense the irony in the situation. Had she known all along? Did she know her fate? What was Atman planning? "The state of this escapade was not without loss it seems. What a shame that you have to loose each other at the end, but I have no control over that."
"Who does?"
"No one that I know. Otherwise I would be banging on their front door for a full refund on my life." She giggled uneasily, and sighed again as she poured more tea into both of their cups. "If only things had been different, eh?"
"Yes." She murmured. "What do the Masks do?"
"Ahh now that is an interesting question. I hope you have time to listen. Oh, we have all the time in the world what was I thinking? Well, Atman was having a hard job being Death and all, so he decided that he needed help. The Gold mask, or Gold to the others, was the first to become his aid.
She was taken from her family who were very religious. Atman fell in love with her and after a while he made her insane because his appearances where said to be the return of the devil. Her family cast her out because of these visions, into the desert far from where they lived and left her there to die.
She was known as Jin then, but as soon as Atman came for her she was turned into the Gold Mask to do his bidding. She hated him for the longest time and she was forced into becoming the form that you saw her transform from. It is a reminder to her and all of them that Atman is their master." Anima took a sip of tea and paused.
"So he made her family disown her on purpose?" Anima nodded. Alice was amazed that Gold, or Jin had been alive in the first place. How could Atman do such a thing? Despite Alice's thoughtfulness Anima continued.
"When Atman became bored of her he decided that his work was again too much and went out to search for another who would satisfy his 'love' as he calls it. He soon found it in a vicious mortician who loved nothing more but to slash open the bodies of his victims and the clients he was to inspect. Most of the people were his victims, so he had a free reign on everything. He could kill anyone he wanted and no-one would know.
His name was Kenshin, or known to you as the Sword mask. Anyway, he was willing to come into Atman's service and soon became an immortal killing machine with no mercy. Even Atman has mercy, but he was Death himself without feeling. Gold became very attached to him and came out of her shell where Atman was concerned but he had already lost his love for her. Kenshin is the worst out of all of them. I know what he did to you earlier, I am just glad that Gustav was there to help you but I'll get on to him in a minute."
"You knew and didn't do anything?" Alice replied feeling slightly irritated.
"It wasn't that I wouldn't it was because I couldn't. Gustav has better telepathy abilities than anyone, he would have been the only one able to help you and as I can see, he did." Anima said wearily. Alice felt guilty for snapping at her but she couldn't help it. She still wasn't sure whether that all of this was real.
Anima got off the chair and motioned her out into the garden, it was very pretty and the flowers where in neat borders. It reminded her a lot of home, she almost imagined her Father walking out of the shed at the end and asking her to help him pot some plants. Yet she knew that it was only a fantasy.
She followed Anima to a cushioned bench by a rose bush and sat down upon it for a more comfortable setting to talk. Alice sat down beside her with her hands in her lap, waiting of the story to resume.
"Go on, what about Gustav and the Grail mask?"
"Ahh well, you see the colours their features possess give you a clue of how they died. Jin by the sun, Kenshin by gas." Anima was interrupted.
"Gas?"
"Oh did I forget to mention that?" Alice nodded. "Hm, it was the quickest way Atman could kill him I suppose. Though green gas doesn't really sound that easy, now that I think about it. Where was I? Ahh yes. Grail. She was named Miruna, and she died by drowning. Atman had fun with her, he scared her and she fell into the water from the highest point of some cliffs." Alice winced at the thought, everything with Atman was death and having fun with it.
"He shocked her into falling and then she became another of his minions. Cursed to be a slave as long as she was in his power." Anima nodded. She picked a rose from the bush and began to stroke the rouge petals with care. Alice decided that Atman was one of the most ghastly people she ever come to meet, he and Albert Simon.
"Exactly. She lost her voice after she became Grail. I had heard that she had had a very pretty voice but now they force her to speak. It is not her real voice anymore, all the souls that she has killed have been formed to make her voice. Its horrible and I can see it hurts her to speak in such a way but she will not dare to speak in her normal tone because it keeps a part of her that is not Atman's."
"It keeps her mortal."
"Yes. After her I was brought in, not as a mask but I was the welcoming committee so to speak. Atman had designs from me to become another mask but he could tell that I was not fit for the job. So he went out to finish his collection and he brought back Gustav.
He was totally different to the others, he had no intention of killing anyone. Even now he has still to kill soul. At first Atman was going to get rid of him but then he realised Gustav's powers. After that he stayed and he is used as the finder of worthy souls, he hates it but he knows that it is the only way he can survive Atman's wrath without killing anyone himself."
"Oh my. How did he die?"
"He was burnt, accused of being a sorcerer, though that was all Atman's doing. Burned at the stake, dreadful." Alice felt sorry for Gustav and she realised that Anima's voice was saddened and she was picking at the rose with her nails. The flower was becoming ragged and tattered but Anima did not seem to worry about it. "Do they remember anything about how it all happened?"
"The elder ones do. Their memory is coming back to them, even I have no memory of what happened to me. Though I am sure of one thing."
"What is it?"
"Atman is growing tried of his collection, he wants another companion. Which means that if what I believe is true. Atman is going to make you one of them, he wants to make you into a mask."
Chapter 2 - Death's Beloved
Death used you baby
As long as you're alive.
There's no escape, my darling
Eternity is so long.
"Dead?" Alice breathed, her voice cracked and her mind raced. Atman's face was emotionless and he showed no sympathy but no revelry either. He was unreadable yet he continued to watch her. His eyes kept darting to Anima and the Staff mask talking.
"She hadn't noticed. How utterly pathetic." Muttered the Gold mask with a shrill cackle but she was quietened with a sharp look from Atman. The Sword mask sniggered hysterically and was hit brutally by the Grail mask telling him to silence his prattle.
"You did not know, Alice?" Atman asked. She shook her head. She was totally speechless, she had thought that the Masks had only cautioned her, she didn't believe that they would take Yuri from her again and not like this. She shook violently and felt weak. Anima and Atman saw this and she rushed over to her to steady her on her feet. Atman held her arm so that she did not fall and he summoned the Grail mask to get her a chair.
The room immediately changed and she was back in the same house that she had been drinking tea in. It was a lot darker now and there was no table or chairs. Everything still looked monotonous and dismal but it was welcomed more than the endless obscurity of where she had just been.
The chair came and she was sitting down. What would she do now? Death with the Masks did not seem like an appealing aspect to look forward to. Atman did not appear to be as evil as she thought he had been, but then he had got what he wanted; her soul. She knew that Anima was a kind person, from what she knew of her she was very warm-hearted by nature. Was Anima dead too? Had she gone through this?
"Do not fear the Masks they cannot harm you as long as you are by my side." Anima whispered in her ear and she smiled, assuring her. She kneeled down to the left of her and Atman left them to speak to the Masks. Keeping her voice low she continued to talk. "The Masks cannot be trusted, they may appear to help you sometimes but do not fall for it. You can rely on the Staff Mask, he is a very good friend of mine. The Grail Mask, she is kind but I still do not trust her totally. I am not sure whether it is an act or not."
"How do you know that the Staff Mask is trustworthy?" Alice asked keeping her voice as a murmur.
"I have been here a long time. The Gold mask and the Sword mask are cunning and they are malicious. They will shred your soul at the blink of an eye. When we get out of here I will tell you everything but I do not know whether they will let you off without trying something on." Anima left her side and went to talk with Atman and the Masks. They left her alone to think to herself and she could still hear the muttering between the Gold and the Sword masks about what they could do to her.
After a while they dispersed and the masks came to her in a line. Their stares made her feel cold and lifeless, she could not stand it but she knew that Anima was close by. That meant anything that was done would be stopped immediately.
The Grail Lady came towards her and took her hand. She bit her lip as she saw the sadness in Alice's eyes. The cold hands covered hers and she felt something in her palm but she quickly put it in her pocket as soon as the lady had let go.
The Gold Mask was right next to her and ran a finger across her cheek bone. She gasped as the pain welled in her cheek and blood dripped down the side of her face. The golden woman gave a giggle and walked off. She stopped before Atman and gave him another kiss before she left. Surely he would stop that? But he did nothing, he stood there, looking distant and in deep thought.
The Sword Mask glided to her side and grinned in a incensed manner. He did not touch her but she felt someone in her mind. It was horrible, something pulled at all her unhappy thoughts and mixed them up into a ball. The happy memories were next and a hand tore and ripped at them, he broke them up into a thousand pieces, like a mirror. They were ruined and Alice felt limp.
She was crying and she felt like she had died again. Alice could not stop herself from weeping and she shuddered with every sob. Then she felt cool hands cup her face and they were tilted to make her look at the owner of the cool flesh.
She stared into red eyes, the ones that looked like they were on fire. He did not talk to her but she felt another person in her mind. She wailed again but this time it was soothing, and it felt like a calm wave of water passed over her. Her mind was soothed and she felt at peace within her mind.
"Do not cry. Everything will be fair, just stay strong and you will prosper. You may even see your love again."
Alice looked into his big eyes. She had not expected such a thing to be said. She nodded as he took his hands from her face and left the room. Atman had gone from the room already, and Anima was the only one left in the vicinity. She took a cloth and wiped Alice's blood from her face. She walked into the next room of the house with a gentle shake of her head.
The ashen haired woman followed and she saw she was in a kitchen. It was outfitted with pine furniture and the walls where painted in terracotta. There were all the usual machines that people would regularly find in a kitchen apart from one thing. It looked like a glass orb sitting on bronze feet but it was cloudy and she was sure that she could see pictures and people moving in it murky depths.
Anima saw Alice looking at it and the pictures were gone. The haze soon disappeared and the orb became clear, almost glass looking. Still hooded, Anima made to make the tea, she busied herself quietly and sung under her breath.
"Anima?"
"Yes Precious, what is it?" She said calmly and she turned from her kettle and looked at Alice who was standing in the door of the kitchen. At first Alice didn't really know what to say, she had just wanted to speak to someone. "Ahh, I am sorry. I am so used to being on my own I forget that I have company." The light shone on Anima's lips and she smiled sweetly while offering Alice a high stool chair next to the breakfast bar.
"You never have company? What about Atman? The Masks?" The kettle shrieked and Anima brought the tea and the cups to them on the bar. She sighed again as she brought some Custard Creams out of the cupboard and opened the packet.
"Atman is a very busy person, and as for the Masks they too have jobs but even so I am not really accustomed to their company. I have my own tasks to do, but they are infrequent and are not routine." Alice held her hands around the cup and felt its warmth, she had felt pretty cold in that dark place. She was glad that Anima was sitting with her and talking normally, she felt alive. That sounded stupid when she was dead but she hadn't actually realised that she was dead in the first place.
"So what do they do?" Anima sipped the hot tea and placed the cup upon the saucer with a quiet 'chink' and looked at her. Alice was still amazed that she couldn't see Anima's face even though she was sitting so close to her.
"The Masks or Atman?"
"Both." Alice replied in curiosity. Anima sighed and bit into a Custard Cream, she chewed it quickly and began again.
"Atman, well you should know what he does." Alice shook her head, she still didn't understand. "You fought with him and you lost. He is in a sense, Death, the personification of it anyway. He took your soul for the price of one precious to you. Yuri, I believe."
"So Yuri did not try to win back my soul?" This question hurt her painfully but she needed to know, she wanted to understand this formidable mess. Anima did not answer at first, it was like she was pondering what to say or how to say it.
"I am sure he would have done, Precious, if he had known. Yet it seems that he and his friends did not look at all the items that they found with much care. Maybe then they would known that they needed to built up Yuri's malice to fight the Masks."
"They had to fight the Masks?"
"No, because they did not know that they had to." Anima said this miserably. Could she sense the irony in the situation. Had she known all along? Did she know her fate? What was Atman planning? "The state of this escapade was not without loss it seems. What a shame that you have to loose each other at the end, but I have no control over that."
"Who does?"
"No one that I know. Otherwise I would be banging on their front door for a full refund on my life." She giggled uneasily, and sighed again as she poured more tea into both of their cups. "If only things had been different, eh?"
"Yes." She murmured. "What do the Masks do?"
"Ahh now that is an interesting question. I hope you have time to listen. Oh, we have all the time in the world what was I thinking? Well, Atman was having a hard job being Death and all, so he decided that he needed help. The Gold mask, or Gold to the others, was the first to become his aid.
She was taken from her family who were very religious. Atman fell in love with her and after a while he made her insane because his appearances where said to be the return of the devil. Her family cast her out because of these visions, into the desert far from where they lived and left her there to die.
She was known as Jin then, but as soon as Atman came for her she was turned into the Gold Mask to do his bidding. She hated him for the longest time and she was forced into becoming the form that you saw her transform from. It is a reminder to her and all of them that Atman is their master." Anima took a sip of tea and paused.
"So he made her family disown her on purpose?" Anima nodded. Alice was amazed that Gold, or Jin had been alive in the first place. How could Atman do such a thing? Despite Alice's thoughtfulness Anima continued.
"When Atman became bored of her he decided that his work was again too much and went out to search for another who would satisfy his 'love' as he calls it. He soon found it in a vicious mortician who loved nothing more but to slash open the bodies of his victims and the clients he was to inspect. Most of the people were his victims, so he had a free reign on everything. He could kill anyone he wanted and no-one would know.
His name was Kenshin, or known to you as the Sword mask. Anyway, he was willing to come into Atman's service and soon became an immortal killing machine with no mercy. Even Atman has mercy, but he was Death himself without feeling. Gold became very attached to him and came out of her shell where Atman was concerned but he had already lost his love for her. Kenshin is the worst out of all of them. I know what he did to you earlier, I am just glad that Gustav was there to help you but I'll get on to him in a minute."
"You knew and didn't do anything?" Alice replied feeling slightly irritated.
"It wasn't that I wouldn't it was because I couldn't. Gustav has better telepathy abilities than anyone, he would have been the only one able to help you and as I can see, he did." Anima said wearily. Alice felt guilty for snapping at her but she couldn't help it. She still wasn't sure whether that all of this was real.
Anima got off the chair and motioned her out into the garden, it was very pretty and the flowers where in neat borders. It reminded her a lot of home, she almost imagined her Father walking out of the shed at the end and asking her to help him pot some plants. Yet she knew that it was only a fantasy.
She followed Anima to a cushioned bench by a rose bush and sat down upon it for a more comfortable setting to talk. Alice sat down beside her with her hands in her lap, waiting of the story to resume.
"Go on, what about Gustav and the Grail mask?"
"Ahh well, you see the colours their features possess give you a clue of how they died. Jin by the sun, Kenshin by gas." Anima was interrupted.
"Gas?"
"Oh did I forget to mention that?" Alice nodded. "Hm, it was the quickest way Atman could kill him I suppose. Though green gas doesn't really sound that easy, now that I think about it. Where was I? Ahh yes. Grail. She was named Miruna, and she died by drowning. Atman had fun with her, he scared her and she fell into the water from the highest point of some cliffs." Alice winced at the thought, everything with Atman was death and having fun with it.
"He shocked her into falling and then she became another of his minions. Cursed to be a slave as long as she was in his power." Anima nodded. She picked a rose from the bush and began to stroke the rouge petals with care. Alice decided that Atman was one of the most ghastly people she ever come to meet, he and Albert Simon.
"Exactly. She lost her voice after she became Grail. I had heard that she had had a very pretty voice but now they force her to speak. It is not her real voice anymore, all the souls that she has killed have been formed to make her voice. Its horrible and I can see it hurts her to speak in such a way but she will not dare to speak in her normal tone because it keeps a part of her that is not Atman's."
"It keeps her mortal."
"Yes. After her I was brought in, not as a mask but I was the welcoming committee so to speak. Atman had designs from me to become another mask but he could tell that I was not fit for the job. So he went out to finish his collection and he brought back Gustav.
He was totally different to the others, he had no intention of killing anyone. Even now he has still to kill soul. At first Atman was going to get rid of him but then he realised Gustav's powers. After that he stayed and he is used as the finder of worthy souls, he hates it but he knows that it is the only way he can survive Atman's wrath without killing anyone himself."
"Oh my. How did he die?"
"He was burnt, accused of being a sorcerer, though that was all Atman's doing. Burned at the stake, dreadful." Alice felt sorry for Gustav and she realised that Anima's voice was saddened and she was picking at the rose with her nails. The flower was becoming ragged and tattered but Anima did not seem to worry about it. "Do they remember anything about how it all happened?"
"The elder ones do. Their memory is coming back to them, even I have no memory of what happened to me. Though I am sure of one thing."
"What is it?"
"Atman is growing tried of his collection, he wants another companion. Which means that if what I believe is true. Atman is going to make you one of them, he wants to make you into a mask."