The Power of AI

Chapter 3
The Power of AI(Chapter 3)

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Chapter Description: Dave is getting his mind back … only to feel like he is losing it again. His mother and sister suddenly seem to have forgotten he is sixteen despite being reduced to a two-year-old toddler. The house is changing to erase every hint he ever was older and to top it he loses his ability to read, count or speak grown-up. Will he find out who is behind this and will this even make a difference?

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Dave looked up at his mother, as she finished her explanation on what had happened to him after they had without success tried to age him back up via Word AI, even when the Image AI had still done its work. He did remember it, but his whole perspective had been warped. The cartoons had been so friendly and enticing. Also, the police officers had looked like out of a children's picture book for him, so he hadn't even begun associating them with trouble. He didn't remember them acting strangely, but this was probably just his attention being too occupied with the tv.

“I really did think like a two-year-old,” he noticed once she had finished. “It hadn't been that he had had forgotten that he was supposed to be older. Just under the influence of the AI it had been totally unimportant.”

“I'm so sorry,” Linda told her son, a pained look on her face. “I have been careless.”

“No mum, it is okay, you ...” Dave stopped, noticing something on the monitor of his computer behind her. “Something went wrong.”

Immediately alerted, she turned around on his chair and read.

Different process underway contradicting order. Do you want me to continue this process despite possibly difference in results?

“What can this be?” She wondered out loud.

“Just click okay,” Dave asked her. “If you notice me acting strange afterwards, you still can work on it.”

Deciding to trust her son's judgment in this, Linda clicked the okay button and saw the progress bar continue.

77 % … 81 % …

“Once it is done I will use the Image AI to  transform you back to normal,” she promised. “Don't worry, I will ...”

She stopped, looking confused.

“Mama?” Dave asked, he had wanted to say mum, but it came out wrong.

Linda shook her head.

“Don't worry dear, mommy just lost her train of thoughts,” she replied, giving her son a smile he found somehow strange, before turning to the monitor with a frown. “We were looking for funny videos with teddy bears for you to watch, but I got distracted … This is definitely not YouTube!”

Dave felt the shock over his words send shiver down his spine, even more so as his mother shut Warp-Reality-AI down, leaving him with a last look at the progress bar.

100 %

Something must have gone wrong and affected her mind as it restored mine, the regressed teenager realized. I must make her listen.

“Mama no Teddy!” He heard himself say. “Dave big!”

His shock turned to horror over these words. This wasn't what he had wanted to say … not this way. He tried harder.

“Mu … Mama member. Me big!”

“Oh I understand,” Linda said. “Is my little boy too big for teddy bears?”

Dave nodded, feeling a glimmer of hope that she had understood.

“Well, maybe it is Paw Patrol,” she continued. “You love Chase, don't you?”

He starred at his mother with open mouth, which made her smile.

“My little puppy!”

With this she crouched down over to him and began tickling him.

“No!” He screamed giggling in a high pitched toddler voice, as his mother went for his sides. “Mommy no!”

His mother showed no mercy, no matter how much he kicked his little legs and shook his tiny fists. Dave even felt his lungs grow hot, believing he would faint, when …

“Oh Davy, you are not wearing a diaper,” his mother noticed.

Perplexed the regressed teenager looked up at his mother. Of course he didn't! Why should he … This was when he noticed the warmth spreading around his groin. Looking down he noticed to his shock the dark spot spreading on the shirt were it hid his private parts.

“Me wet!”

“You sure are dear!” Linda noticed. “Let mommy fix this.”

She helped him by lifting him to his feet and pulling the shirt over his head. Numb from shock, Dave didn't resist, even as she rolled the now partly wet shirt together and dried his groin and butt with it.

“All dry!” Linda noticed.

The shock abated a bit and gave room for shame. Dave tried to hide his groin with his hands, but already his mother picked him up and placed him on his now oversized bed. There he crossed his legs and again used his hands to protect his sense of dignity, but she didn't even pay attention to him, but turned to his wardrobe.

“Now where did I put the diapers here?”

Dave starred at his mother searching his wardrobe for diapers. He knew that she would find none, but also that it would by no means save him. Some glitch must have happened when the Word-AI had changed his mind back to normal. It had changed his mother's mind to only remember him as a two-year-old and rendering him impossible to speak normally. Who had developed this piece of hell?

A movement out of the corner of his eyes, made Dave turn his head. Lily was standing in the doorway of his room, watching it all. He guessed she wondered what had happened. If he could show her how their mother's mind and his speech was affected, maybe she could correct things.

“Lily!” He shouted.

Dave felt relief, as she approached him, but her wide smile which made him worried.

“Davy!” She exclaimed. “All naked!”

He didn't know how to respond, but looked at her open-mouthed. Did she think his mind was still affected by the program?

“Can you occupy him a moment?” Their mother asked, before he could say anything. “I wanted to put him in a diaper, but I ...” She scowled as she looked back at the wardrobe. “I can't find any.”

“Davy had an accident?” Lily asked, looking at the wet shirt on the ground.

“He sure did,” their mother explained. “My fault for letting him run around like this.”

Dave's face turned red, which made his sister giggle.

“Don't laugh,” Linda chided mildly. “Little boys and girls need their diapers.”

“I'm little,” Lily noticed.

“You are four. Nearly a big girl going to Kindergarten,” her mother replied. “I …” She looked at her teenage daughter for a moment. Something in her sensed it wasn't quite right, but she couldn't process it, so she just shook her head. She had enough trouble already without seeing things. “Big girls can help their mommies with their little brothers.”

Her daughter nodded enthusiastically.

Four?! Dave couldn't believe what their mother had said … and his sister accepted. What did the AI do?

Dave didn't have any time to ponder it, for Lily had knelt down beside him, making funny faces and trying to tickle the soles of his feet. Clearly she took her chore of occupying him seriously and her mannerism … did she think herself four? Her face also looked different, like something was missing … Again she tickled his sensitive soles, distracting him from his train of thought … He had to try to reach her!

“Lily … me big! I ...” He stopped finding himself unable to formulate the number he had in his mind. “I big wrother! You big, too! Go to big school and … pway footwall ...”

“You wanna play with your football?” Lily asked.

Not waiting for an answer, she picked up the latter and held it in front of Dave's face, animating him to grasp for it. While he would not do it, he found himself too distracted to find gather the mental strength of what now seemed to be an enormous task of formulating anything.

“No ball!” He tried. “Me big!” She still playfully let the ball fall and rise in front of his eyes, making at least a part of himself wanting it. “No ball! Wisten!”

To his horror he found himself flailing his arms and legs like a real frustrated toddler, thereby leaving his private parts open for Lily to see, which made her giggle. Gathering the remnants of his self-control and dignity, he managed to stop and again placed his hands over his groins. Before he could find the mental strength for another try though, his mother was over him, gently but firmly pressing him on his back and then grabbing his ankles to lift his legs and butt in the air, as she placed something under the latter Dave couldn't see. It was only a moment later, when his mother laid a piece of cloth over his groin and connected the sides with some of the safety pins from his desk, that he realized his mother had made a diaper out of one of his hoodies … his favorite one of Green Day even! The regressed teenager kicked and squirmed, trying to get out of it, even preferring to be naked, but his mother had done good work so it held.

Lily thought so, too. “Wow!”

Linda smiled at her daughter, as she picked up her squirming son and held him close to her chest.

“It is one thing you learn as a mommy, but hope to never have to use,” she explained. “Still I wonder where all the diapers are.”

Lily seemed to think.

“You were shopping,” she noticed after a moment. “Did you leave them downstairs?”

“Could be,” Linda noticed, not convinced. “I will look.”

She went with her son in her arms and her daughter following, when the latter's jeans just fell down to her ankles, followed by her underwear. Dave watched this open mouthed, even more so as Lily just giggled … like a little girl.

She is getting younger, he realized. But how …

“Seems like both my children have problems with their clothes,” Linda commented. “Can you put on something by yourself?”

Lily nodded, still grinning widely and stepped out of her oversized clothes, including her socks.

“Yes mommy!”

“Good girl!” Her mother praised her, before turning to her son in her arms. “What a good big sister you have!”

Dave didn't reply, but kept looking after Lily, as she vanished in her room, nearly jumping, carrying her clothes. He then looked at his mother. Maybe he was seeing things now, as mad as things had become, but …

She is getting younger, too!, he realized with horror, having noticed that the wrinkles had vanished from her face, making her look like she was in her thirties. What is going on?!

Suddenly feeling very cold and alone, Dave started to whimper, hardly noticing it. Linda did though and began gently rubbing her son's back as she carried him down the stairs,

 

***

 

Upstairs in her room, Lily threw her jeans and underwear in a corner along with her socks and then got rid of shirt and bra. It felt so freeing that she no longer would have to wear them, but instead would get cute, innocent clothes, so much more reflecting of who she would soon be. Watching herself in the mirror brought a damper to her happy mood, as for a moment she couldn’t see any changes. Her breasts were still there, she still looked like a teenager … except maybe she had shrunk already … was shrinking still, as she noticed while measuring herself against her hatrack.

My glasses are gone!, she noticed, shocked about having missed it. As she looked at her hands, stretching them and bringing them closer, it became clear they were not just gone, but she no longer needed them. Four-eyes no more!

How Lily had hated when other kids had called her this. Granted it had only been in grade school and the teacher had made the other children apologize once it happened, but still … it had made her feel bad, once the rest had forgotten all about it. Her mother had kept telling her to let it go, but it had kept a place in her mind regardless, robbing her of the all the carefreeness other children had had …

Soon she would be the perfect size for all the innocent fun she had missed so long! In anticipation of this, she gathered her favorite plush animals in a half circle on her bed. Gizmo, the adorable Grem … Mogwai from Gremlins, Baloo, from the Jungle Book, Peter Pan from his own movie, Dumbo the flying elephant and maybe as a strange outliner a plush fox from no movie at all. They seemed to admire her, awaiting the moment where she could play with them without it looking strange. Maybe even take them with her to daycare and …

A sudden idea flashed bright in her mind and she rushed to the closet. Standing on her tiptoes, she managed to find what she wanted and pull it out, finally placing it on the bed. A black skirt and white  shirt. Her old school uniform from her first day of elementary school. How cute had she looked in it. Which innocent days she had had in it! And now it would all come back!

Even her plushies looked like they wanted to see her in it, but she knew she was still too large for it, her breasts being the best proof … but weren’t they getting smaller already?

No time to wait, she realized. Mommy could come back up soon!

With this in mind, the regressing teenager quickly grabbed the smallest pair of sweatpants and shirt she hadn’t yet thrown away in the closet and put them on. They barely fit, but were enough for her, as she quickly went back into her mother’s room and behind the computer.

There the monitor showed her that Warp-Reality-AI had finished 41 % of the process.

A quick exercise in math and the last one she hoped she would have ever go through, told her she was maybe eleven now, given she had been fifteen before. Just to check, she touched her breasts, noticing to her relief they were all but gone. A smile appeared on her face, which froze as she realized that by leaving the program such open, her mother could have easily come in on her search for a diaper for Dave and ended it before it had finished.

Well, I deserve some luck, she thought. Let’s see if it keeps up.

She uploaded a few pictures of the house from various angles outside from her mother’s photo folder, then she added those of the rooms to have it as completed as she could. Finally she gave the command.

Change the house. Have the room of the girl transformed to one fitting a 4 year old and that of the boy that of a 2 year old. Don’t forget lots of diapers. Make everything else fit this, too!

Lily pondered a moment, before adding:

Also change the mother’s room to be for a 25 year old mother … and make her richer, like double the income than before … but less hours at work, so she has more time for her children!

Lily thought for a moment, but for once she believed having thought of everything she pressed enter.

1 % … 3 % … 5 % … 8 % …

The regressing teenager looked in disbelief at the speed of the progress bar. This was so much faster than the progress it made when changing their age!

Maybe it is because the AI has access to so many other images of houses that it can easier make this changes than in people’s age, Lily reasoned. Maybe …

Her thoughts were stopped, when she suddenly noticed one of the results. Her mother’s monitor changed … it grew wider! Having before been 19 inch in size, it gained in height and even more in size in front of her very eyes, the very image she worked on widening, until the monitor could be called ultrawide.

53 %

Because mommy has the money she must have bought it to work better from home, Lily realized. Or she has a new position and they gave it to her … or she is just young enough to care about these things!

Whichever it was, it seemed like a sign that things were improving.

74 %

Burning to see what else was changing, Lily turned the chair around. She had to gain momentum by pushing herself from the desk, as her feed already didn’t touch the floor anymore. As it stopped turning, she looked around in the room. Not much had. Maybe the curtains looks fresher and the bed seemed to be decorated in brighter colors, but else her mother’s taste of style obviously hadn’t changed much in age … or the program hadn’t thought it necessary to change much.

92 %

Eager to see her own room, she jumped from the chair, having to grab her sweatpants to prevent them from falling down and noticing how baggy her shirt felt. Not bad, just strange … a strangeness she welcomed as freeing. Touching her breast she found it flat as that of a boy and upon stepping in front of her mother’s large closet mirror, she found herself looking a bit like one, nine or eight years of age. The shirt is dangling on her shoulder, barely holding there as the now large collar engulf her increasingly narrowing shoulder. She made a little hop and the sweatpants fell off, like her jeans had before. Giggling she also easily got out of her shirt, flinging it to the ground. Standing naked in front of the mirror, she noticed she was flat-breathed indeed. Just a little girl, far away from puberty.

Holding the clothes, she hopped back to her own room, eagerly expecting its return to the way it was when she had been four the first time.

Lily experienced a disappointment.

It was now that of a four year old girl, but by no way her old room. Where her old room had a simple bed, but a small Indian tent and unicorn tapestry, this one was plain purple with pictures of Disney Princesses. Most of all her bed was different from the one she had had at four in the first place. Instead of having a flower blanket, this one was decorated with the female puppies from Paw Patrol, she didn’t even know the names of, also it had a light veil hanging from the ceiling and on it …

No!, echoed through her mind.

Her plush animals were gone … replaced by others.

Where Gizmo had sat now sat Stich. Baloo had been replaced by Olaf from Frozen, Peter Pan had been replaced by Princess Merida from Brave, Dumbo by Nemo from Finding Nemo and the simple fox had become Nick Wilde from Zootopia! Yet, her faithful companions missing wasn’t the worst, but her school uniform for her first day of school had been replaced by a an ordinary set of a yellow skirt and a pink shirt with Princess Cinderella on it.

What happened here?!, Lily asked herself. Why hasn’t my room returned to how it was? What happened to my plush toys, my uniform, my …

The realization hit her like a slap. She hadn’t asked for the room to return the way it had been when she had been four the first time, but she had wished for it to be that of a four year old. The AI had changed what it had been fed with to the best of its abilities and used the photos as a basis, but this was it. It had used the data it had of four year old girls’ rooms, toys and clothes to change it accordingly! New data, not ten year old one.

Lilly raced back into her mother’s room, determined to undo it. Now she had to stand on her toes to use the computer, but somehow it worked. She opened the program and then the files with the photos which had to contain some of her room from back then … nothing! The only ones she found were some of her new room and a lot of her and Dave, now two years younger than her. For a moment she thought about just ordering the AI to change the room and everything in it again, but she knew no matter how good she would describe it, it wouldn’t match the original version now only existing in her memories.

Hoping the AI hadn’t been such thorough, the regressed teenager opened her mother’s closet, where she quickly found the box with her mother’s photo album. Sitting cross-legged on the floor she went through it. The effort proofed to be fruitless though, as just like the data on the computer the physical evidence of her old room had been erased … of her old life indeed, as she found the photos of so many happy moments missing. Like a trip to an amusement park, when she had been seven and Dave eight, or them spending time at the beach the next year. Instead she found a photo of herself being two, holding her newly born little brother in the arms in the hospital, smiling widely.

For a moment Lily wondered if her mother had been right. She had erased so many happy moments which belonged to her … them … No! Her mother had been wrong. She was free of the bad past now and this was what counted. This album would have so many more pictures of happy times. Much more than she would ever have had otherwise!

Grimly Lily closed the album and put it back in the box, before placing both back into the closet. She then closed the program on the computer again and went back into her room.

It isn’t too bad, she tried to tell herself, as she studied every centimeter of it. A fresh start.

Taking a deep breath, she went to the clothes on her the bed, the clothes which once had been her cherished school uniform of her first day at school. She touched it, trying to get a feel of it, then she put it on and looked at herself in the mirror. A perfectly innocent, though a bit sad looking four year old looked back at her.

Not too bad, maybe even … Then it hit her. This must be the clothes I wore on my first day of Kindergarten!

Strangely relieved, Lily gave the girl in the mirror a smile, which it returned. She then whirled around, making the yellow skirt fly as they both danced. Giggling a bit, she decided that while she would always miss her old uniform, these new clothes were okay.

At least I’m not wearing a shirt as diaper like Dave, she thought, when she suddenly remembered. Davy needs his diaper!

Lily went to her brother’s room. It was now a baby’s nursery. Blue tapestry with cute elephants, giraffes, lions and other animals. A crib where his bed had been, with a decoration of the male puppies of Paw Patrol in contrast to her bed with the female puppies. Plush toys, normal toys, picture books and more filled the shelves. His table where his computer had stood was now a changing table with a good supply of diapers.

Lily took one of them and left for downstairs, deciding to begin her new life by being a good big sister.

 

***

 

Dave felt more and more worried by the second and this had surprisingly little to do with his favorite Green Day hoodie serving him as diaper now. It was his mother whom he looked at with a sense of growing unease, as she carried him through the ground floor of their home, searching for real diapers which clearly weren’t there.

“But I know I bought some diapers for you,” Linda said more to herself than him, her brow in furrows, making her appear suddenly older than even before the changes, as she went through the cupboards again. “I just know … and where are your sippy cups?”

Dave couldn’t stand seeing his mother like this. Somehow the AI had changed her mind to remember him only as a two-year-old and Lily only as four-year-old. His sister was even becoming younger without noticing it! Yet, due to the house remaining the same, his mother was confronted by something her mind just couldn’t connect with what the AI had made her believe to be true. There had to be some way to help her and him with it!

“No diapers, no sippy cups …” he tried. “Me big!”

“Right, my big boy needs his dipees and cups!” Linda commented, rocking him gently to calm him down, even when the stress in her voice was all too clear. “Mommy will find them!”

Dave pointed at a picture on the wall. “Looky!”

His mother looked at it and frowned. It was him, but fifteen, having been taken one year before with him standing smiling on the lawn, his bike in the background. She touched it, for a moment looking perplexed.

“Oh, now I get it,” she noticed, causing hope to rise in Dave’s heart. “You want to go out. I’m sorry dear, but we must get you proper diapers first. People would find it strange for a baby to run around outside without a diaper.”

Her son couldn’t believe how blocked her mind seemed to be. “No dipee!”

“You can’t run around naked, either,” she noticed. “It is still too cold and I fear you’ll become too old for this in no time.”

Dave held back tears from his own frustration. His mother wouldn’t see … wouldn’t register the signs showing how wrong her memories of him normally being this young were. Also, everything he said came out wrong. Worse, if even if he managed to use all his concentration to get one or two words right, his mother just mistook the meaning … wouldn’t understand him, like she wouldn’t register the anomalies of the house. Was this part of the way the AI had changed her mind? Other people’s mind, too? How could he possibly get out of this now?!

As he still pondered this terrifying question, the doorbell rang. His mother went to the door, looked through the peephole and sighed heavily, before opening it. It was Mrs. Pepper. They annoying neighbor looked as annoyed as usual and she held something …

“Why was this on my lawn?” She asked, presenting a tricycle.

Now it was up to Dave to not understand. How could she think this tricycle was his? Luckily his mother seemed to have less problems with it.

“I think I told Lily earlier to take Dave’s bike inside,” she noticed, taking the tricycle. “Thank you.”

She closed the door, before her neighbor could say one word more.

“Calling the cops for me letting you drive your tricycle on her lawn ...” She commented. “And now expecting an excuse from me for leaving it there? What is this woman even thinking?!”

A terrible realization dawned in the regressed teenager. He stretched out his arm and touched the tricycle softly, just to be sure it was really there. Then he looked back at the photo he had tried to make his mother pay attention to before. Instead of him as fifteen, with his bicycle in the background, it was now him as what appeared to be a one-year-old baby smiling at the camera, wearing only a blue shirt with the T-Rex from Toy Story and a diaper. And behind him … the tricycle.

It is me!, Dave thought. But this means … no… no… no…

The regressed teenager felt himself a heartbeat from bursting out into tears …

“Mommy, mommy!” A young voice distracted him. “I found it!”

Dave turned around in his mother’s arms, only to find a little girl of four running down the stairs. She held a diaper in her tiny hands and … Realization just who she was hit him like a player of the enemy team checking him in midrun.

“Thank you Lily!” Linda praised, as the girl approached her. “Such a good helper!”

The girl giggled and embraced her mother, as the latter took the long searched diaper.

“Time to properly dress your brother.”

Her daughter nodded. “Davy needs his diapers!”

“He sure does,” Linda agreed.

She went over to the living room table and placed her son on it.

“Great you held tight for so long,” she commented, as she removed the safety-pins of the makeshift diaper. “Maybe you will be ready for the big potty soon!”

Lily shook her head. “He is just a baby!”

“Right, he still is,” Linda agreed, lifting his legs by the ankles and his butt, then removing the makeshift diaper with had such once again become a shirt. “Guess I will see this cute butt a bit longer.”

Dave’s cheeks became deep red and he was nearly relieved, when his mother lowered his behind on the diaper, pulled the latter’s front over his groin and closed the tapes.

“All safe!” She said with obvious relief, as if the strangeness of the last hour her mind had to have noticed on some level had just disappeared. “And look your shirt is still clean, too! Isn’t it your favorite?”

She presented him his Green-Day-hoodie … which had shrunk to his new size and now had Barney on the front!

Dave kicked his legs in frustration. This infantile reaction causing Lily to giggle.

“He wants to dance mommy!”

“He sure does,” Linda noticed, lifting her son from the table, placing him on the floor in front of the TV and putting the hoodie on him. “Let’s see what runs for the little dancer.”

Dave didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help it. As he lifted the Barney hoodie, he stared at the diaper with Winni the Pooh on it, holding a kite. It pressed his legs even more apart than the makeshift diaper had and rustled by the slightest of his movements.

Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination

And when he is tall

He’s what …

The regressed teenager looked at the tv, only to see the start of the show of the dinosaur whose hoodie he wore.

“Bad!” He shouted. “Bad … dino!”

“A big dinosaur!” Lilly replied. “And he has so many sharp teeth!”

She showed him her own perfectly white milk teeth and gave her version of a growl.

Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination

And when he’s tall

He’s what …

His sister danced around him, hopping up and down like a true four year old. Dave didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge the funny faces she made for him. Concentrate. He wanted to concentrate, to think about what to do next, but it was so hard with the soft feeling of the diaper, her silly antics and the songs in the tv …

“A B C D E F …”

Dave looked up. There was a Barney and his triceratops friend he didn’t know the name of. They sat before colorful letters, lighting up when they were named in the song. At least, that was what was he thought happened for he suddenly realized he no longer could identify them! The regressed teenager looked harder, tried to get this knowledge out of the very depth of his brain, but there was only blankness!

“Now let us do numbers!” One of the children, a girl of maybe five with a ponytail, begged.

“Yeah!” The other children and the triceratops cheered.

“Oh well then friend!” Barney declared. “One, two, three …”

Signs lit up. Numbers. It had to be, but for Dave it were just hieroglyphs, things derived of meaning.

I can’t read anymore!, Dave realized. I … I …

He curled his hands into fists in an effort to control himself to hold back himself from bawling, even as tears began running down his cheeks.

“Oh Dave,” his mother said, noticing her son’s distress and picking him up. “What is it?”

“Me big boy!” Dave managed to say in his mother’s lap.

Lily watched with interest.

“Of course,” Linda comforted him, beginning to gently rub his back. “Do you want to watch a big boy show?”

Surprised Dave nodded. His mother picked up the remote control and switched the channel.

The tv switched from children and dancing dinosaurs, to a cartoon. It showed a beach with a bridge and a town in the background, quickly moving to a bright lookout with a giant slide.

PAW Patrol PAW Patrol

We’ll be there on the double

Whenever there is a problem

‘Round Adventure Bay

…

“See?” His mother noticed. “So many big puppies have so much fun adventures!”

Dave opened his mouth, not really knowing what to say even if he had still been able to speak normally. Linda interpreted this in her own way, grabbed something lying on a nearby table and put it into her son’s mouth. Surprised the latter found his mouth automatically beginning to suck on something soft. Touching his face he realized it was a pacifier.

Dave could have pulled it out, but somehow he had not the strength left. Not after all he had gone through already. Not after all the struggle he had gone through to save himself from this very fate. Sitting in his mommy’s lap, he blankly watched Paw Patrol’s sequence ending and a fun episode starting.

Whoa-oh-oh-oh

PAW Patrol

Whoa-oh-oh-oh

PAW Patrol!

*Bark*

Maybe I should call them to save me, the regressed teenager thought weakly, noticing how Lily enjoyed the scene and spoke the last words of the song. Obviously I can’t save myself.

 

***

 

Feeling in a kind of shock, the rest of the late afternoon rushed by Dave nearly as if it was a dream. They watched cartoons, ate, with him in a high-chair, somehow managing to drop a piece of pasta dipped noodle on his Simba-bib … had his dexterity gone the way of his school knowledge? No one minded though, so he swallowed his embarrassment and continued eating, guessing else his mother would start feeding him.

In no time it was early evening and their mother brought them to the bathroom, where she already had begun to fill the bathtub with foaming water. She undressed Dave, finally opening the tapes of his still dry diaper which just fell on the ground. Weakly he tried to hide his private parts from his sister, but the latter was too eager to undress herself to notice.

Grabbing him under his arms, Linda lifted her son into the bathtub, where he quickly sat down, his lower body hidden this way. Next his mother helped her daughter with her panties, before placing her in the tube in front of Dave, leaving her two children to face each other.

“Isn’t this a great bubble bath?” Linda asked sweetly.

“Yeth mommy!” Lily chirped, grinning wildly as she made waves with her legs.

Linda smiled and let in a bit more water, making sure it had just the right temperature, when the phone rang. She stopped the water and quickly left the room. Lily grabbed a plastic frog and made it swim around, bringing it closer and closer to Dave who definitely didn’t want to be part of this game.

“Froggy jumps!”

With this his now big sister lifted the toy and made it fall in front of him, causing a splash with sprinkled him with water.

“Leave me!” Dave shouted and kicked his legs to make waves of water.

Lilly giggled upon her brother’s reaction and the feeling of warm water on her sensitive skin. This was until she noticed something else he sent into her direction.

“Ihh!” She noticed disgusted. “Do you pee in the shower, too?”

Surprised Dave looked down. Indeed there was a yellow stream in the water, coming from him. He felt his cheeks turn red. Somehow he had kept his bladder under control the whole time, but the warm water had to have … His head snapped back up, when he realized it.

“You talk gwon-up!”

Now it was upon Lily to look embarrassed. In a display of innocence which was just a bit too forced, she grabbed a red plastic ball.

“Nh, nh.”

“You made me speak wittle! Made mommy think I’m wittle …” Dave stopped. “Made youwself little, too!”

Lilly looked at him with a frown, then at the door, where their mother was watching them, but clearly not listening to them, as she still spoke to the phone.

“Yes,” she admitted to her brother. “And no one will ever know it was different.”

“Why?”

“Because it is fun!” Lily answered and giggled upon the expression in little brother’s face. “No chores, no school, no class mates who molest …”

She stopped, revealing a pained look on her face, which went away, when she shook her head as if she had to will it away.

“It is fun!” She explained, just a bit too cheerful. “We can do everything we want.”

“Me want to be wig again!” Her brother objected.

Lily thoughtfully leaned her head to one side. “How old were you?”

Dave opened his mouth and closed it. He tried so very hard to pull this number … any number out of his head, but as before it seemed as if someone had stolen it … just that he now knew who.

“Thought so,” his sister commented, kicking her legs to make the yellow water go away which came dangerously close to her. “Don’t worry baby brother, you will have all time in the world to learn numbers and letters … and to use the potty!”

Furiously Dave opened his mouth to shout at her … there just had to be some word left in his mind to describe her correctly!

“Are you playing nicely?”

Both children looked up to find their mother looking over them.

“Dave made a tinkle!” Lily declared.

Rat!, her brother thought.

“No problem,” Linda declared, beginning to let the water off. “He can’t help it. This is just what babies do.”

Lily nodded with a wide grin which made Dave’s blood boil.

“Yeth!”

 

***

 

Once her children were clean and dry, Linda let Lily race naked into her room, while she herself was carrying Dave in a white, fluffy towel into his own.

It is not my room, Dave thought, as he was carried into it. It is a nursery!

Indeed, gone was his room, so typical for a teenager. Instead this one had blue tapestry with cute elephants, giraffes, lions and other animals. Plush toys, normal toys, picture books and more filled the shelves. His table where his computer had stood was now a changing table with a mirror hanging over it. It had a good supply of diapers and was where his mother was heading.

“Time to get my little biker ready for the night,” she declared, making Dave look at her with a glimmer of hope. “Tomorrow you can drive around with your tricycle again, with no nasty neighbor stopping you!”

He groaned. She had only meant his tricycle! But maybe there was a glimmer of the reality Lily had stolen left in there. If just …

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted, when he was laid naked on the changing table. The feeling of the plastic on his bare back was strange and seeing his mother towering over him this way even more.

“So silent today?” She cooed, as she began to rub his soft skin with baby oil. “Someone is really tired.”

Dave was tired, his day having been longer than his mother could possibly believe right now. As Linda grabbed his ankles and lifted them and his back to sprinkle baby powder on his butt, he even felt an urge to just give in, close his eyes and go off to a place where this reality had no power over him. Yet, with his butt slowly being lowered onto a thick night time diaper, he knew he had to try, if only to prove to himself that he was still fighting.

“Me big …” He said, feeling his mother fix the taps of the diaper tight. “I play football!”

“Right,” Linda agreed, putting him into a night time sleeper with button on the back “One day you will play football like a big kid.”

I was playing it this morning, the regressed teenager wanted to say, we didn’t win, but we played good!

He didn’t say it, he was too tired to even try. Instead he let his mother carry him to his crib, decorated with the male puppies of Paw Patrol. To top it, a plush version of Chase even awaited him in the crib, as his mother gently placed him into it.

“Have a nice journey to dreamland,” she told him, as she closed the curtains. “I bet you will have some fun adventures.”

As his mother left and leaned the door close to shut, Dave hoped she was wrong. He hoped his dreams were blank, cutting him off from any knowledge of what had happened to him, or that they were enlightening, as to how he could get his old life back now. Barely able to hold his eyes open, he looked to the changing table. Even it had been still his game station, it would have been useless for him now, as he no longer could read or write. So wasn’t it better this way? Feeling his thick diaper slightly pressing his legs apart, his last thought before he drifted to sleep was that he most likely would need the changing table a lot in the time to come.

 

***

 

Linda smiled, as she walked into her daughter’s room. While her son was already deep asleep, Lily sat cross legged on her bed in her night time pjs, playing with some of her plush toys.

“See Nick,” she told her Nick Wilde plush. “This is why I’m as clever as a fox!”

“For sure,” Linda commented. “But even clever little foxes need to sleep.”

Lily looked up, for a moment appearing as if she had been discovered by something nasty, but then giving her an innocent smile.

“Sure mommy!”

Her daughter carefully put her plush toys aside, when Linda noticed how the girl’s hair was still slightly wet and quite a mess.

“You hair is still a bit unruly,” she noticed. “Shall I comb it?”

Her daughter nearly jumped on her bed.

“Yes mommy, please!”

Again Linda smiled over this open display of childish enthusiasm. She took the comb from the bathroom and sat down next to her daughter, carefully beginning to comb the hair which looked so much like hers.

“This was quite an exciting day,” she noticed, as began combing it.

“Yes mommy,” Lily admitted.

This came out a bit hesitant and Linda believed to know where the problem was.

“I know you are upset because of the police today,” she noticed. “They just wanted to get sure everything is okay with Dave. It was a misunderstanding and Mrs. Pepper sometimes is …”

“A big meanie!”

Linda stopped combing, looked at her daughter and laughed.

“Just the right word, dear!”

She continued combing.

“No need to speak about it in Kindergarten either,” Linda explained, thinking about what the teachers might think about it. “People don’t have to know everything.”

Lily gave her a strange smile. “I know!”

“Right, because you are a big girl. So very soon you will go into grammar school like the other big kids.

“I like to be little,” her daughter admitted.

“You will always be my little girl!” Linda promised.

“Promised?”

“Promised!”

“I love you,” Lily said.

“I love you, too,” her mother replied and embraced her daughter tightly. “You hair is perfect now. Time to sleep. Tomorrow will be a fun day in Kindergarten.”

Nick Wilde in her arm, her daughter gave her the most perfect smile as Linda tucked her in.

“Good night Lily,” her mother said upon leaving.

“Night mommy!”

As the light was turned out, Lily lay in the darkness and still smiled. She felt a warmth and lightness inside her she had missed so much. Not just home felt much more like home again, but for the first time years, she wasn’t dreading the next day at school.

 

To be continued …

 

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