Chapter 10: Opposite Persona

A matinee calling to the ego of the dead permeates the echoing rain pouring relentlessly on this lonely cadavers resting in their coffins suspended on the wall of rock. A whisper comes to the conjurer of emotions, soaked instruments drawn for another plea in the cessation of her sleeping self.

'Estinto, dear friend… I see that you have had a change of heart. What gives?'

The voice holds a power pulling Estinto in a state of a believing mess.

'Ah… Anaphrea… dear old Anaphrea… You've always had a soft spot for your mistress.'

'Schwig,'

Estinto lazily waved him aside in a calm repose as though he had been there.

'Hardly, I'd rather call it dedication.'

A lyre, a violin and a cello played by itself while Estinto guided his slender fingers in a minuet with a piano of strange pheromonal call.

The skies have rescinded their claim to the hanging coffins and the surrounding area but the sleeping remains of the ancient people have made no respond at all.

'Poor Esti, your attempts have proven to be futile.'

Another mocking voice filled his head and the clear skies have been drawn into a grotesque image of an inhuman form of a creature, holding his stomach in a fit of laughter.

'Perhaps, your dedication put your staff to the void and your mission to fail because you have attempted to render their existence null.'

Estinto stopped the music and considered the possibilities of it truly happening and that the unconscious ego has sensed their animosity towards it. Thus, the outcome is what has befallen him. His staff trapped in a curse where they are never to be seen or heard of again.

All because of a decision he made, he broke the sense of the mission he led plus all the missions ahead of him. His failure will drag everyone into a pit of absolute madness in the middle of all the chaos he made.

Darkness hovered over the skies again as it reclaimed the area in an endless rainfall.

'Schwig, you kin of deception and trickery! You are I so help me and in time, I'll help you from that accursed, formless, peerless state you are prison of.'

Estinto opened his book, held it downward and from right to left, he lifted it as the book dissolved as a mask on his face. He disappeared from the hanging coffins and appeared at the gate of Doctor Dechat and Arte's estate.

'Clever indeed but I can smell the stench of my kinship here. Quite a few really, though I tell you this now, they are unlike myself.'

The voice faltered in the direction of the headwind to the shadowy figures watching the mansion with black flowers growing on its yard.

'I thank our connection Schwig, more than ever. I can hear the melody of your existence while you can read the notes of my desires.'

Estinto positioned himself like he holds a flute and began to play as it conjures into existence. Whoever was watching the home of their mission, they dispersed unquestioningly.

'I do admire how your music makes people think the way you want them to. They won't even have inkling about what they had been up to.'

The breeze brushed over the black flowers and finally the doorbell. The door opened with a creak sound and out came a man, stethoscope on his neck, dark spots under his eyes and a white robe for doctors. Doctor Dechat stared at the dripping form of the tall but lean masked man who wore a tuxedo and brushed up hair. Finally, the doctor focused at him with the help of his glasses, realizing the strangeness of how he came to such a wet mess even though there was no rain earlier that day.

'Come in sir. Come dry yourself inside. I shall bring you a change of clothing and a towel.'

The Doctor opened the door completely as a gesture for him to proceed. Estinto anxiously smoothed his clothing as drops of water spilled from the garment to the cemented stair where he stood.

'My ear is jingling! I can sense him, Estinto. You must hurry for time is of the essence. We don't want to irate the ego of this one. Women are harder to handle when they're upset.' The breeze toppled over paintings and calendars in the wall to the upper floor.

Estinto hurried for the stairs and to a door opened by the breeze, revealing a black haired female sleeping soundly on her bed. Beside her is a young boy, presumably the persona behind her book. Just as he approached the sleeping figures, a book on the table opened and appeared in the hands of the already awake persona of Vylemor.

'I sense a kith. What are you in a hurry about? You have disturbed my slumber.' He wasn't talking to Estinto.

'You sharp, little and conniving boy! I have taken a liking to you young one but just in case, are you positive that you can detect me?' The breeze circled him, probing and listening.

His upper lip twitched in obvious annoyance, 'Very rudimentary accursed one. I sense that I am involved in whatever mission your authors had given you. Let's get this over with, shall we?'

Doctor Dechat came unannounced, overhearing the conversation but remained silent near the door. He had a pair of clean garment and a towel on his hands. The books persona or Vylemor ignored him, 'speak now, publisher. I am aversed to waiting.'

'Okay so, as her opposite persona. You are capable of convincing her ego to depart her former shell and take home within her present one which is the young lady sleeping here. She will only awake if her ego comes back to her. If not, she will sleep forever and if you don't complete a mission within a timeframe, you will be erased.'

Estinto blurted the consequences like a businessman would and not a storyteller would a horror one.

The doctor rushed to Yve's bedside and held her hand. He tried to hold back tears from his eyes but the overflow of emotion betrayed him and the dam eventually broke.

'I don't understand all this but please, save my daughter. She is everything to me. Even as a doctor, I couldn't find a remedy for this abnormal sleeping disorder.' He turned to Estinto with a pleading look, 'I beg of you sir, help save my daughter.'

Estinto was greatly affected by the doctors pleading and his undying love for his daughter so he played a calming music with his flute, relieving the doctor of the stress he had been under all those days Yve had been asleep. However, the ever impatient opposite persona of Yve, dragged Estinto away to the hanging coffins. Before he could take another blink, they became drenched in the rain.

'Remarkable, may I inquire as to how you have known that our mission is located here?'

Estinto asked Yve's opposite persona with wonder accompanied by fear of him or specifically what he is capable of.

Another twitch visited his upper lip, 'very rudimentary, Anaphrean publisher. You carry the smell of the past and as a matter of fact, need I remind you that I have been in this era as I have served my author's publisher.'

The clouds grew abnormally darker and are laced with indiscriminate lightning plus revolting thunder roars over the distance. Yve's persona drew his hands to a ball of fist, dropping to the ground and pounded on the bare earth.

'Grief, hatred, anger, guilt, and a dozen more emotions…' The breeze whispered inside Estinto's mind.

'He was doomed in the past and he blames himself and those who have wronged his master. Quite a tragedy if you ask me, poor boy he truly is.'

Schwig is in fact Estinto's opposite persona, his books persona. However at the same time, his opposite persona earned his own identity as Magi's publisher. It means that even though Schwig is a part of Estinto's book, Schwig has his own book making Estinto as his opposite persona. The difference between them though is that Schwig lost his title over an action which he had committed in the past and was cursed by Madam as a result.

Estinto began clearing the rainclouds just like his first attempt but Yve's persona shocked him with a speech of his own, 'If you truly desire for someone to come back to you, you must accept all of them. It is a most rudimentary fact.'

'So I had been doing wrong all this time. I never thought that the rain was caused by her. It was very foolish of me.' Estinto made amends immediately to put the younger persona at ease. He began internally bragging to Schwig about his own maturity as Schwig readily agreed as they themselves have been all along just the same person.

In an instant, Yve's persona took on a more familiar form which he had been in as her security, a purple-black winged serpent. He was very large, he might be as big as 8 buses in total but he chose to reduce his size to ¼ of his original one. Estinto remembered that form very clearly now. It was from the past when even Anaphrea lost her composure and fell into despair once because of the insurrection.

At that time, even Magi lost most of his publishers and were powerless against the disillusioned creatures he and the other authors had been nurturing for thousands of years. It was the ultimate form of betrayal, costing the mortal author his life followed by his publishers. Of course, they have learned their lessons the hard way, reducing their overall population to near extinction.

In time, Anaphrea came to forgive them and began establishing her missions to them. Magi had slowly done so after much observation following Anaphrea's footsteps but never will they reveal themselves again.

It was a cruel reminder that their capabilities give rise to people who will then again attempt to have the powers of the books for themselves.

'My master's heart is very fragile. I implore you to remain immobile and to you my kith, refrain from provoking her under any circumstances,'

Yve's opposite persona ordered them. Estinto's sympathies for the group dissolved into past memory and already, his ear began twitching red but he is keen for discipline so he did as he was told.

'I suppose I might have gone and advertised my knowledge on the one responsible for their tragic fate,' Schwig confessed to Estinto.

'If you have a soft spot for your master, I on the other hand am drawn to that little opposite persona.' If Estinto isn't mistaken, Schwig settled beside him fondly anticipating the next event.

True enough; the serpent flew to the dozen coffins held by enormous vines called the hanging coffins. There were some few chairs hang alongside them as well but the serpent stopped to only one. It didn't have a name but he was absolutely sure that it is the correct one he is looking for.

'Master, I Vylemor have come back to fetch you.'

The serpent just hovered over the coffin and never laying a single claw on it for fear that it may scratch and ruin the resting place of his master even if it would become an empty shell eventually.

'The author is beginning to awake, we must prepare for him. I beg of you to come with me to the offing where you have successfully rebuilt your physical body.'

The coffin remained as it had been, pierced by the pouring of the rain and the constant gloomy weather as though mirroring the feelings expressed by the dead publishers who served the mortal author and the mortal author himself. They all have been put to rest on that very rock wall next to the atmosphere where they may remain the top of all despite what had befallen them.

'I am of great failure to you in this life but please allow me to make up for it. I'll serve you the best I can and exceed it. We cannot lose you for you are an integral piece of the set which is the mortal author's publishers. He will be greatly saddened if ever he will awake and you aren't there or for any of his most valued family.'

Still nothing happened and the serpent cried in desperation. He fell to the ground, sobbing and reasoning with the catatonic ego within the shell of flesh resting in the coffin.

Schwig is surprisingly quiet while Estinto is tempted to blow a calming and soothing music but decided against it after remembering the child's orders.

'Come on! What? Just because you were betrayed 3 times doesn't mean that that's the end of it. It doesn't matter how many times they betray you because I am here and I'll never betray you. Have I? Is that why you won't come with me? I don't care what you think of me! I beg you, please come. Isn't it that the reason we are hurt when someone betrays us is because we love them? I know you love them so much that it cut so deeply but you've never hated them. The reason you're sulking here is because you are hurt, so hurt but I know your love for them will outgrow it so come with me. Let's show them how love conquers all.'

The serpent, Vylemor as he called himself banged his head to the muddy earth while clawing to it under the heavy downpour of the rain. He shouted over the rain, wailing like the little kid he really is. Estinto who was as soft as a pudding fell to his knees beside Vylemor and bowing till his head hit the ground, he said, 'I believe I am at fault as well so I present myself before you and even though I am at fault as I have said so myself, I plead with you to accompany us back to the offing.'

Both of them waited and waited and waited in a bowing position like crazy and even though a minute, it felt like an hour. Finally, after what seemed like forever the coffin moved. Tears began flowing from both Estinto and Vylemor like a stream when a ball of light freed itself out of the coffin and settled itself into Vylemor's waiting hands.

Estinto didn't waste time on going back to the Doctor's mansion and putting the ego back to its original owner. Schwig chose that moment to finally make a comment, 'I told you. Women are very hard to appease with, truly terrifying indeed.'

'As much as I'd like to stay, I have to commence with my mission. The other publishers need a little convincing before they can agree to come with me to this era.' Estinto didn't want any more reason to get attached since the possibility is high that they will clash against one another in the near future because of the differing missions they follow.

The doctor invited him to a meal but Estinto declined so he gave him a lunchbox containing handmade sandwiches, his specialty. He thanked him again and again for when he and Vylemor arrived, the ego settled, Yve stirred to consciousness. Vylemor is no less of a rewarding grateful person for he gave Estinto a scale.

'That is my scale,' he said. 'When you are in a situation your book cannot handle, break it and i will come rushing to protect you at any cost.'

Estinto responded with a warning, 'we found the shadows roaming around the estate. Be careful with your book and be wary of them who desire around you. It is the forerunner of what most people label as evil'

Vylemor gave him his first smile as a parting gift, 'Are you what you really are? Anaphrean missions entail peace for people but you're making us paranoid with your speech. Don't worry though, I've noticed them too.'

Estinto bowed slightly before disappearing into nothingness, Yve receiving a phone call from Karne.