Decipher | Watty's 2017

LXXXIX. Agastopia

Agastopia

/agg-uh-stow-pee-ah/

noun

a love for a specific part of one's body causing them to protect it at all costs

The memories began to play back faster than I was able to shut them off, sensations and fears creeping their way into my body as the room that I had been tortured in came back into frame. I began to shake, having to sit on a chair outside of the room in order to maintain what little composure I had left. Chains hitting the ground echoed in my eardrums as I saw the familiar brown eyes of my mother and the blue ones of my father staring down at my barely conscious body.

"Do you think she'll live?" the man asked. Although no one ever called him by his name, something about him seemed to cry out that he was related to me, which made the pain shooting through my chest even worse as I struggled against the ropes holding me down feebly. At this point, I had been submerged in the water tank they kept on hand for nearly four minutes without being able to take a breath.

I knew exactly what they were doing, but that didn't make the pain in my chest lessen any. The exact feeling from a few hours prior exploded within me as I recalled how I had been on the edge of suffocation when I was pulled from the water and allowed to breath. Besides the cruelty behind the action, I did not understand why this was the option of torture they had chosen.

"I think she can survive another minute, maybe." The woman before me was beautiful-but in a cruel and malicious way rather than traditional. Her eyes were always narrowed as she stared at me as if she were assessing how much more I could stand at all times. Her body was somewhat tones and her hair was straightened to frame her face which held a devious smile at all times.

I couldn't tell what I had inherited from her, but when I looked at the male standing beside her, I recognized my facial features instantly. He didn't look as strict and powerful as the woman, whose name I had come to find was Farsha Williams. The man appeared to be calmer, more free flowing and gentle; however, I knew that attitude did not carry over into his morals as I, his daughter, was barely conscious in a two hundred gallon water tank.

The walls surrounding me were all glass, enabling both of us to stare at each other for as long as we desired. As I slipped into unconsciousness and finally began to find solace, I heard the woman's voice screech out for the guards to get me out of the water. I vaguely remember the top of the cylinder shaped container being removed and my body being hoisted up by three men whom had performed the task dutifully for the past hour. When I was almost fully out of the water's grasp, I began gasping for air, water being spit out as I had inhaled some while attempting to catch my breath.

"Did you have a refreshing swim?" Farsha asked, approaching my broken figure with her tall and confident one. Her nude pumps clanked against the metal of the temporary awning near the tank. I hadn't even noticed her outfit before then, the various shades of red mixed with blacks and grays, almost as if she were trying to convey that she was heartless simply through her wardrobe choice.

"I don't know, how about you try?" I spat back at her, watching as her eyes crinkled slightly in amusement and her lips remained stoic and unaffected by my rude remark. Behind her, the blonde man remained standing, hands behind his back as though he were incompetent to do anything other than that. "Hey dad," I spoke up, coughing up more water while the contents of my stomach were emptied onto the awning.

When I glanced back up, the man's reaction was dumbfounded as though he never expected me to figure out that we were related. Farsha simply looked at me with amusement as if she had been expected this attitude from me. She bent down beside me carefully, not wanting to ruin her precious outfit with the outcome of my suffocation.