Reborn

Chapter 1
------------------------------------------

Jack awoke in a daze and opened his eyes, but the bright light shining down from above made it difficult for him to see properly.  He tried to focus but his head felt sore, so he closed his eyes again to shield them from the overwhelming glare.

"Jack, can you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?" a voice said.

Jack opened his eyes again and squinted into the light, then the figure of a man came into focus.

"Can you talk?" the man asked.

Jack tried to speak, but it felt like the words were stuck in his throat, he couldn't make a sound.

"If you can understand what I'm saying, please blink twice," the man instructed.

The bright light seemed to recede and his vision became clearer.  Jack could see a bespectacled man stood over him, then he realized that he was lying down in bed.  Jack blinked twice.

"Very good, I'm Doctor Palmer and I'm going to ask you some questions, he explained, "blink twice for yes and blink once for no," he urged.

Jack guessed that he was in a hospital and he understood that for now blinking was his only means of communication.

"First question. Am I Doctor Palmer?" he quizzed.

Jack blinked twice.

"Second question. Is your name Thomas?" Doctor Palmer continued.

Jack assumed that the Doctor was testing him. He blinked once.

"Is your name Jack?" he queried.

Jack blinked twice.

"Very good. Your job, do you work in the construction industry?" Doctor Palmer said.

Jack hesitated momentarily.  His still felt groggy, but when he thought about it he was sure that he had never worked in construction.  Jack blinked once.

"Are you a laboratory assistant?" he questioned.

Memories came rushing back to him, he could recall his morning routine and his drive to work, he was certain that he had worked in a laboratory.  Jack blinked twice.

"Excellent. Are you thirty years old?" he continued.

He remembered his thirtieth birthday party, it felt like a recent memory.  He was sure that he had spent the day with his girlfriend, Emma.  Jack blinked twice.

"Do you remember volunteering as a test subject for an experimental procedure?" Doctor Palmer asked.

At first he wasn't sure.  The words 'experimental procedure' sounded ominous and he wondered whether something bad had happened to him.  Suddenly he remembered a needle being inserted into his arm and a mask being placed over his mouth.  When he thought about it more he could recall having a tense conversation with one of his colleagues.  He couldn't recall everything that had been said, but he could remember being warned that the experiment was risky.  He realized that he had agreed to participate in some kind of procedure.  Jack blinked twice.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.  The experiment didn't go to plan, there was an accident and there were some unexpected effects on your body," he explained.

Jack was suddenly gripped by panic.  The first thought that came to his mind was that the experiment might have left him disabled or disfigured.  He tried to sit up but he only succeeded in lifting his head off of the pillow, his muscles felt tired and weak.

"Please try to remain still, you need to rest. I will explain what happened." Doctor Palmer advised.

Jack stopped struggling and rested his head back on the pillow, then he braced himself for the bad news.

"Firstly, I want to reassure you that the accident was not fatal.  We've been running tests whilst you were unconscious and it looks like you're going to live." Doctor Palmer explained.

Although he was relieved that he wasn't going to die, he was becoming increasingly concerned by his inability to sit upright.

"However, something extraordinary has happened, something that has never occurred before in medical history," he went on.

The Doctor paused for a moment and cleared his throat, before continuing.

"Your body has physically regressed, you've essentially aged in reverse.  You're now younger than you were before the accident," he announced.

Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing, what the Doctor was saying sounded impossible. He assumed that he had misheard him and he wanted to ask him to repeat himself.  He took a deep breath and tried to speak again.  But before Jack could get his words out, he was interrupted by an unfamiliar high pitched voice.

"What? I don't..." the strangers voice squeaked.

Jack was initially taken by surprise and he assumed that an unseen child was talking.  But he quickly realized that the unseen person had spoken the words that he had been thinking of. He could scarcely believe it, but he was now contemplating the possibility that it was his voice.

"Don't stop Jack, you're making excellent progress, try to speak again." Doctor Palmer requested.

He hesitated briefly, then tried to talk again.

"I don't understand." Jack mewled.

He was startled again by the sound of his own voice.  It sounded far too high pitched to belong to him.

"We're still trying to understand it ourselves. Perhaps it would be easier if I showed you." Doctor Palmer suggested.

The Doctor reached towards a table and grabbed hold of a hand held mirror.

"Try not to panic, what you see might shock you," he warned.

Doctor Palmer held out the mirror and lowered it slowly towards Jack's face.  An unfamiliar reflection gradually came into view.

This can't be happening, Jack thought.

Staring back at him in the mirror was the reflection of a small child, who appeared to be no older than two.  Jack gasped in horror and as he did so, the reflection of the toddler appeared to gasp as well.

"Try to remain calm, as you can see your body has changed significantly." Doctor Palmer continued.

Jack's heart began to race and he started to feel dizzy.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing, he thought that it might be a trick or a hallucination.

"No...this can't be," he stammered.

When the words left his mouth he saw that the lips of the boy in the reflection moved simultaneously.  With a growing sense of panic he realized that he really was seeing his own reflection.  His mind raced and as he grew increasingly frantic, he lost consciousness.

"Jack? Jack, can you hear me?" Doctor Palmer asked.

When Jack regained awareness he saw Doctor Palmer looking down at him, with a concerned expression on his face.

"You fainted, probably from the surprise. Try to remain still." Doctor Palmer instructed.

Jack took deep breaths and tried to make sense of what was happening to him.  He considered the possibility that he was having a nightmare, but it felt too real to be a dream.

"We're still trying to understand exactly how this happened. You've been in a coma for the past three weeks, during that time you just kept on getting younger." Doctor Palmer revealed.

He wanted to believe that it was some kind of misunderstanding, but he had seen his own reflection.  He wasn't sure whether he could trust his own senses.

"How? Why?" Jack asked.

"I can't explain it, not yet anyway.  It's as though every cell in your entire body has been rejuvenated to an earlier state," he observed.

If it was true, if he really was physically younger than he used to be, he wanted to understand the extent of the changes.

"So...how old am I now?" Jack queried.

He recalled seeing his reflection in the mirror and braced himself for the bad news.

"Well, if we go by your height, I'd say you're the equivalent of an eighteen month old infant." Doctor Palmer replied.

Jack was dumbfounded. It didn't seem possible, but he was struggling to come up with an alternative explanation.

"Height? How tall am I?" Jack questioned.

Doctor Palmer picked up a clipboard and flipped through the pages.

"You're eighty two centimeters tall, give or take a millimeter," he replied, matter-of-factly.

Jack racked his brain and tried to picture being eighty two centimeters tall.  He remembered that he used to be around one hundred and seventy seven centimeters tall, which would mean that he was now less than half the size that he used to be.

"We ran some tests yesterday on your musculoskeletal structure, the results suggest a biological age in the range of seventeen to twenty months." Doctor Palmer explained.

Jack had a troubling thought.  If he really had aged backwards, he wondered whether the process might still continue.

"Will I get younger?" Jack asked.

"I don't believe so, a few days ago the changes to your body slowed dramatically, then they just stopped. You don't appear to be getting any younger," he imparted.

Despite having a feeling that he already knew the answer, Jack desperately wanted to know whether the changes could be reversed.

"Can you make me normal again?" he asked.

The Doctor sighed and scratched his beard, before shaking his head.

"We can't even explain what happened, let alone undo it. I'm afraid this is likely to be permanent," Doctor Palmer advised.

Permanent, the word echoed in his mind.  He felt like his life was over, but then it occurred to him that there might still be light at the end of the tunnel.

"But will I age and you know, get older again?" Jack queried.

"It's possible. Your body appears healthy, so you might just age naturally again," he explained.

Jack wondered whether his girlfriend was aware of the accident and how she had reacted.

"Does my partner know about this?" Jack asked.

"Emma? Yes, she's been to visit you several times whilst you were unconscious. I'll notify her that you're awake," he replied.

Jack was relieved that Emma knew what had happened to him, but he wanted to see her.  He needed to speak to someone who he could trust, someone who could verify that he wasn't going crazy.

"I need to speak to her." Jack asserted.

"I'll tell her that you'll be ready for visitors from tomorrow. For now, I suggest that you get some rest." Doctor Palmer replied.

Jack closed his eyes and tried to come to terms with what was happening.  His mind alternated between a state of disbelief and shock.  When he heard the sound of a door opening and closing, he decided to check whether he had been left on his own.

Once again, Jack attempted to sit upright.  On his first attempt he only succeeded in lifting his shoulders off of the bed, but after a few more attempts he managed to haul himself into an upright position.  He surveyed his surroundings and saw that Doctor Palmer had left the room.

He held his hands out in front of his face to look at them and was immediately struck by the sensation that they didn't belong to him.  He could feel them, but they didn't look familiar. The first thing that he noticed was that his skin was smooth and unblemished.  When he looked at his forearms he saw that they were hairless.  The bottom half of his body was covered by a bedsheet, but when he moved his feet he could make out their outline beneath the fabric.  He noticed that his feet were no where near to the end of the bed and he realized that he really was smaller than he used to be.

Looking down at his chest, he saw that he was wearing a hospital gown that covered his torso. But when he moved his legs he felt like he was wearing something else underneath it, there was something covering his groin.  Jack reached underneath the bedsheet and down towards his waist, where his fingers touched a soft spongy fabric.  He guessed that he was wearing a diaper.

He touched his face and then rubbed his cheeks with his fingers.  Where he would have once felt stubble, he instead felt soft untarnished skin.  When he touched his nose he noticed that it's shape had changed, he used to have a Roman nose but now the bridge felt smaller and less prominent.

He opened his mouth as wide as he could and inserted his index finger, which he used to count his teeth.  He counted twelve teeth in total and noticed that there were gaps in-between some of them.

It was now undeniable, he really was a child again.  He began to consider what his life would be like from then on.  He guessed that he would no longer be able to work or carry out ordinary tasks without assistance, but he was more troubled by the thought of how others would perceive him.  He wanted to see his girlfriend, but he was unsettled by the idea that she might leave him.  In any case, he knew that their relationship could never be the same as it was before.

Jack continued to ruminate until he was startled by the sound of the door opening, he looked up and saw Doctor Palmer stood in the doorway.

"I see you've managed to sit upright. Your muscles are still weak but you're recovering more quickly than I had expected, how are you feeling?" Doctor Palmer asked.

"I...I'm still trying to process this, it doesn't seem real," he stammered.

Doctor Palmer nodded and then pulled a chair up to the side of the hospital bed, before sitting down.

"Well, I've got some good news. I've just called your partner and she says that she's going to visit you tomorrow. In the meantime I'd like to run some more tests," he announced.