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But just as I peer under my wet lashes over to Dessin, I know immediately it’s no longer him. But a new alter designed to take this on.
Calm, wise eyes like an ocean’s horizon. He doesn’t even open his mouth to breathe. He takes slow, shallow breaths in through his nose.
Aquarus. The god of sea. An alter that split to withstand the simulated drowning.
While the priest chants, I smile up at him. “I’m Skylenna,” I whisper.
I know, he mouths, “Aquarus.”
“Look at him, child!” the priest shouts at me in a fit of passion. “Think about your attraction to this man. Visualize it. Feel it.”
And we’re being lowered again. This is some kind of trained response conditioning. Every time I think about Dessin or another alter, he wants me to associate that feeling with drowning. I wince underwater.
Someone needs to inform this priest that he isn’t saving our souls before we get sentenced to hell.
We’re already in it.
We go through another five rounds of this until I’m heaving, seizing, and blubbering like a dying woman. Because I am. My lungs are going up in toxic flames, my chest is taking a brass-knuckle beating, and my eyes are practically bulging from their sockets.
I’m hanging over the tub with strings of saliva hanging from my mouth. And yet, Aquarus is mildly panting. I’m sad and also jealous that he’s been through enough in his life to be able to have this many defense mechanisms in his arsenal.
I’m seeing spots in my vision, and the room sways like a boat in a storm. Oh god, please don’t let me be sick in this tub. Please, please don’t let me vomit in the water we both have to get dunked into.
Surprisingly, despite the internal flogging I’m suffering through, I haven’t cried. I’ve been too busy struggling for oxygen, thrashing, screaming, begging.
The creaking noise of the contraptions flip on again and I let out a guttural moan, watching the water come closer and closer.
“No,” Aquarus utters across from me. “Stop.”
His contraption isn’t lowering anymore. They’re going to make him watch me drown alone now. These evil, vile, insidious human beings.
“I feel nothing for her! Your treatment has worked, Father!” Aquarus’s voice is booming, tumbling across the echoey walls of this treatment room, complete with a hint of a northerner accent.
“Is that so?”
The tip of my nose touches the water first.
“Yes! But I don’t want to watch you kill someone,” Aquarus argues.
“She isn’t going to die.”
My face is submerged next.
“Oh no? Her lips have turned blue and her eyes have sunken in. Signs that her brain is not getting enough oxygen. You drown her for another round and you’ll be carrying her out in a body bag.”
The sounds are muffled and distorted as I’m lowered the rest of the way into the tub. This time, I don’t have enough air to stay calm. I wasn’t able to take enough breaths this time around. I sobbed, panted, and choked but I couldn’t take any deep breaths. And now I’m certain this time will drown me.
Scarlett, I miss you every day.
I imagine her kneeling next to me, rubbing my back as she watches me die.
I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry you had to relive your trauma by working in this hellhole. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you during your last moments on this earth.
My lungs are outraged. My throat is shredded to blood and acid. And my body goes ballistic, flopping, bucking, kicking, lurching like a bull being hunted.
I release the only air left in my chest to scream underwater. I have nothing left to spare.
Yet my body is reeling upward, like a fish caught on a hook. And I’m crying now. Hissing, shrieking, and wailing like a newborn baby.
