Redemancy

11.

Amara

I take a deep breath before swimming from one side of the pool towards the other side of the pool underwater, trying not to come up.

I've constantly challenged myself to swim to the other side of the pool without coming up to take a breath even once, no matter how big the pool is.

I have been trying to do so at this pool for an hour, at which I haven't seemed to succeed in yet, which is why I'm going to try it for the last time right now, before trying again tomorrow.

I have been swimming for as long as I can remember, since I was only a few years old, and I have loved it ever since.

There is something about swimming that makes me feel free and somehow careless as if I'm the only person in the world.

The feeling I get from swimming is great and unsurpassable, I have never felt this way doing anything other than swimming.

But besides the pleasure and enjoyment I get from swimming, it has some health benefits as well. Of course, it builds body strength, but it also builds endurance and cardiovascular fitness.

But swimming also has benefits for your brain and the way your mind works. Swimming can make you smarter because it improves your memory function and thinking skills as well as improves your attention span and verbal ability.

Swimming does take a certain kind of focus, concentration and calmness, and once you've found that, you can apply it to other things you do on a daily basis.

before I almost reach the other side of the swimming pool, I am pulled out of the water by quite a muscular arm as I'm being sat on the poolside.

"What was that for?!" I slightly yell as I push my wet hair out of my face before looking up, seeing it's Valerius, without a pint of emotion showing on his face, as usual.

"You know the rules. You want to do something, you ask. Did you ask anyone to swim? I don't believe you did." He says with his arm crossed as I stand up from the poolside, grabbing a towel to cover up my body which is only covered by a small bikini slip and a bikini top.

"Besides, it's still winter. Lucifer and Xerxes would be mad if they'd know I'd let you slim whilst you could freeze to death."

As if Valerius would be scared of Xerxes and Lucifer.

"Who cares, Valerius. I don't, and neither do you. You just have to ruin every single thing for me. First, you kidnap me, then you guys somehow manage for me to accept it and let me think it's okay." I say, taking a breath.

"That's no-" Valerius starts but I cut him off before he can finish his sentence.

"Quiet. I'm not done. Secondly, you lock me up in a cage whilst the only thing I'm allowed to do is cook, sleep or read. Then, I'm allowed to watch TV but Seth scolds every single thing that I watch, so now I can't even watch TV anymore. You then allowed me in the backyard, and I find a swimming pool and you have yet somehow found a way to ruin that for me as well!"

"Don't use that tone with me." Valerius directly expresses, as I see Xerxes and Aeron walking into the backyard as well, walking closer to us.

"Let me count, that's four things you have yet ruined for me, what's more, to come? What, you're going to get rid of blue? You are awful people, all of you! God, I wish you'd just let me die in that school!" I say before running away, into the house whilst passing Xerxes and Aeron whose shoes I hear walking towards the pool.

I run up the stairs in a rush, going into my room before I unlock the door. I grab a bag out of the closet which I found somewhere in the house a few days ago.