“How about you clean up this mess?” Strangely amused, Aska stood a few metres away from me, still keeping the water away from himself. Sadly, he didn’t look as hurt as I wanted him to, but his pride certainly took a big hit.

“You wanted to learn boyish stuff. Here you go, a man always cleans up the mess he made.” Did he really want to play that kind of game with me, or was he just joking again? Sometimes, I couldn’t say what it was and this was one of these cases.

“Is that so? I also wanted equality, so I suppose you have to cook half the time.” He grimaced and made a very wise decision. He snipped and the mess was instantly solved. The water on the ground and the leftovers simply vanished, the table repaired itself and even the chairs were placed in their proper position. I was a bit envious of his powers, but I was sure that he would teach me how to do these kinds of things eventually. Still, there was one thing I wasn’t happy about at all. “You forgot something.” I pointed towards my head, then towards my still dripping clothes.

“Oh? No, I´m sorry. You’re an adult now, I cannot possibly help you with cleaning yourself.” When did he decide that I was old enough to be considered an adult? I was incredibly frustrated by his statement because I just didn’t know how. I realized that he helped me with a lot of things I took for granted like cleaning me.

“How?” Disgruntled, I walked towards the door but waited for his reply. He took his time and even took a sip of tea that came out of nowhere. He grinned as he finally found the perfect answer.

“Normal people take a bath, I guess.” Frustrated, I slammed the door shut behind me and made my way towards the bathroom to retrieve a towel. There was just no way that I would throw myself into water and so I only dried myself and changed my clothes in the bedroom once again. With a slightly better mood, but still feeling dirty, I made my way back towards the kitchen where I sat down on the chair. He still drank his magically refilling tea while I stared at him, expecting him to start talking.

“Soo … your plan was quite marvellous, with one slight problem. What would you have done if you wouldn’t be able to change my behaviour after we slept together?” This was a part that I was worried about as well, but I thought I had a pretty great solution.

“Sleep with whatever crossed my path and resist you with all my might.” He nodded slightly, probably thinking if this would really work. It was doubtful, but the best I could do if nothing else worked. Luckily, I didn’t have to go that far.

“You are a manipulative little bitch, aren’t you?” I found his words strangely fitting and couldn’t really deny them. Still, I smiled as I said my next words.

“And you are an abusive, sadistic, horrible shitty god.” He smiled back towards me and emptied his cup in one go.

“I think we would make a perfect couple.” I tilted my head and began to comb my wet hair with my fingers, trying to get some knots out of it. Truth be told, I wanted to buy time to think about an answer that would satisfy me and him.

“I don´t like getting abused that much though …” I didn’t want to outright deny the possibility that presented itself in front of me, but I couldn’t accept it either.

“That’s a thing of the past. I won´t hurt you anymore.” He already promised me that much, but my intention wasn’t to ask about that. I wanted to know the reason why he hurt me so much when he didn’t have any fun doing it at all.

“Then tell me, why did you hurt me in the first place? Why did you whip me till I couldn’t lay down anymore, why did you …” I was digging my nails into the table as much as I could. Just thinking about what he did made me furious now that I didn’t have to fear his retribution anymore.

“You weren’t yourself back then. Do you know how much I hated that you threw yourself at me while I hurt you so much? I wanted you to rebel against me and stab me back, but you did neither of that. Instead, you tried to control me through the only thing that I still loved about you. What I thought was your undying love for me was actually your way of trying to control me. I am quite surprised how well that worked though …” Now it was his turn to grip the table harder than he should have and glare at me. I immediately knew how much he hated being manipulated and knew that I shouldn’t try that too openly.

“What do you need me for? You don’t spend your time with me to keep me as your pet, so what do you want?” The way he looked at me clearly showed that he didn’t like hurting me at all, but rather saw it as a necessity. While I still hated these actions, it also showed how invested he was in me. And this kind of confused me. What could I do that a god wasn’t able to solve within a single second?

“You will understand eventually on your own. Telling you that right now would ruin everything.” I exhaled loudly as I knew from my experience that this conversation was basically over. If he wanted to keep a secret, I had no hope of actually squeezing that out of him.

“So, what´s next?” With a wide grin, Aska slapped on the table and made the cup stir. I, meanwhile, started at the object that appeared in his other hand and struck me in my chest afterwards. Despite saying that he wouldn’t hurt me anymore, he threw a dagger at me without any second thought. Surprisingly, the expected pain never came as he didn’t want to hurt me this time and the dagger was harmlessly pushed out of my chest again. I always healed unnaturally fast in purgatory, but this speed was quite unexpected even for me.

“Let´s play hide and seek. Each time I hit you, I will wake you up one minute earlier.” Needless to say, I wasn’t very keen on this training at all. Sleep and food were holy to me, although I would never admit the food part to Aska. Although I disliked it, I also knew that he wouldn’t budge. Still, I needed to make some changes if I ever wanted to sleep again.

“And if I hit you, I get an hour extra?” I grinned boldly. I mean, how hard could it be to throw a dagger at him?

“Sure thing.” Before he finished talking, I grabbed the dagger that fell on my lap and threw it towards him. Unexpectedly, he vanished before the tip touched his skin and even managed to throw another dagger at me while I stood up. Two minutes lost. What a bummer.

Anyway, I didn’t try to hit him this time, but thew the dagger towards the window which cracked. Without wasting any more time, I jumped through the window, accompanied by countless shards and three daggers in my back.

Sixteen hours. I was hit for the equivalent of sixteen hours. Based on my usual sleeping time of twelve hours, that meant … yeah, we both didn’t know what to make out of this number. I considered wanted him to sell that the number overflowed, meaning that we would only have to distract four hours from my sleep, he wanted me to ditch sleeping completely. Somehow, we ended up with six hours of sleep.

First, I had to wash the dirt away though which proved way harder than I thought it would. At first, I filled the bathtub with water, but couldn’t even bring myself to empty it again. Just by looking at it, I was kind of freaking out. Dumping a bucket of water over me was another possibility, but that was really my last resort.

“Your fear of water is way worse than expected … and it´s getting worse by the day.” I knew that he would sneak into the room at some point because I took too long and thus didn’t even undress. He stepped behind me and started to massage my sore shoulders while we both stared into the water. “Are you okay?”

In disappointment, I shook my head wildly. “No, I am not. I fear water. W.A.T.E.R. Do you know how absurd that is? Fearing water, just because I died a few times to it.” I tried to laugh but failed miserably as my throat was rather dry.

“You died a whopping four thousand times to water already. I would say that’s a bit more than a few times. But still, why do you fear water that much, and yet don’t fear me who hurt you so much over the past few years.” To my surprise, the number seemed to be right. I always thought of him as a person who avoids math like the plague, but apparently, I was wrong. Still, I couldn’t exactly say what the difference between him and water was, but I did have an idea.

“Pain is more bearable when you know a way out of it. I always knew that one day you would stop, but I don’t know if the time when I will get freed from this fate will come. Except you …” I didn’t want to ask him for help anymore. I wanted to rely on nobody but myself and make him proud of me. After all, a large portion of why I managed to live through the pain he gave me was because I loved him, albeit in a very obsessive way. I obviously didn’t tell him that as I didn’t want him to think that his actions were always forgivable. In fact, most of them weren’t and I would definitely pay him back at a later date, despite my love for him.

“I cannot help you for at least two hundred years.” I couldn’t believe what he said at first, but as soon as I looked behind me, I knew that he wasn’t joking. Reality sank in and hit me like a truck. If I was fearing water that much after a mere four thousand deaths, what would seventy-three thousand do? Would I fear the rain? Sweat? My own blood? My heart clenched just by thinking about how messed up I could become.

I knew I needed some way to overcome this fear but finding such a thing was incredibly hard considering that the progress I would make over the day would be ruined after one single night. Despite my conviction to stop relying on him, I really wanted his help but was way too stubborn to consider asking.

“Although they don’t exist on Solaris … How about we try out a shower?” The water inside the bathtub vanished and I calmed down immediately. Honestly, I had no idea what a shower was but was willing to test it out. After I nodded, he calmly walked into a corner and seemed to take measurements. After several seconds, a shower with glass doors appeared out of thin air. It was the largest object he created in front of me and it even fitted perfectly in the stop.

“Where do you get these things from anyway?” I never asked, but this place was completely barren so there was no way he actually made it himself.

“wish.hvn  it´s … a marketplace for gods?” His explanation was more than vague, but I was already accustomed to his weird antics. Instead of wondering about how this actually worked, I eyed the construction suspiciously. How should I put it … it was a normal shower. As I took too long to figure out how it worked, Aska explained it to me.

“You pull on this lever and then … here you go.” A torrent of water came rushing out of the showerhead which already made my heart skip a beat. Not in reality, but figuratively as I was pretty dead. Still, I wanted to give it a try and thus stared at Aska, hoping that he would get what I wanted. “What?” Yeah … he didn’t get it.

“Do you want me to go in there fully clothed or what?” I would definitely not strip in front of him if I were to gain nothing from it.

“No? You obviously need to undress … don’t tell me you don’t want to do that in front of me?” As if I ever wanted that. I was desperate in the past, so I had to do it, but that didn’t mean I would give him this view for free.

“I´m too young to be seen naked by you, remember?” He was kind of unhappy by my reply but nevertheless gave me a bikini to wear and vanished shortly afterwards. I hurried up and changed quickly, knowing full well that he intended to come back. A minute after I finished, he came back wearing swim shorts. Suspiciously, I raised an eyebrow and looked into his eyes.

“Do you plan to go on a family trip into the shower? I´m touched that you want to do this with me … but I don’t wanna.” I didn’t want him to see me freaking out at all cost as I didn’t want to make me look even more pitiful.  In return, he smiled and pointed towards the flowing water.

“Do you really think that you can do this alone? Lucinda, it is my fault for missing your fear completely until now, so let me help you with this.” I should have declined. I really should have. He never gave things away for free, not even for the person he loved. Instead of shooing him away, I stepped into the shower, Aska following closely behind me.