The Roommate

Chapter 3
Ending 2: Fresh Start

Chapter Description: Second of three endings.

Finally, the door opened and a middle-aged doctor entered, accompanied by a nurse who shoved in a little covered table.

“I’m Dr. Helm,” he said, giving her his hand. “Excuse me that we had to let you wait Celine.”

“It is okay.”

“I know it has been quite stressful for two days for you,” he admitted. “Mind that I measure you first?”

Celine nodded, seeing the scale in the corner. She wanted to jump down the table and walk to it, but hesitated a moment due to the height. Seeing it, Dr. Helm grabbed her and carried her over. At first the regressed college-girl wanted to protest, but then reasoned, that anything making this go by faster was okay. Such she didn’t say a word, when he placed her on the scale and remained still, especially when he put out a tape measure and took her height. As the doctor scribed down the data on his clipboard, she felt relieved that she didn’t need to stand there naked.

Without asking, Dr. Helm put her back on the examination table and took the syringe and ampule from her tablet.

“Ready?” He asked.

Celine nodded, as she watched him pull the liquid in the syringe. She was more than a bit afraid of the needle, but wouldn’t tell him of course, especially with the nurse already cleaning a part of her arm with an alcohol-filled cotton pad. Thus, she bit her lip and grabbed the table firmly as she put the needle in her and injected the drug.

“I hope you like the design,” Dr. Helm said and showed her a plaster with a teddy bear hugging a heart.

Celine had enough of childish stuff, but she nodded just to get it behind her. She wanted to be big again soon. As the doctor put the plaster on her arm, she suddenly realized something.

“I have no big clothes.”

“Don’t you worry. We will find you something fitting everyone will love.” The doctor smiled and grabbed a notepad of the table. Now I have some questions for you. If you like.”

Celine nodded and the doctor began asking her questions about her name, birthdate, her parents, where she had grown up, went to school … The regressed college girl tried to concentrate, but was more and more distracted, as she suddenly felt slightly lighter, ticklish, and reasoned the drug was already working. Her shirt caught her attention, especially the white kitten on it. She found it to be so cute and couldn’t imagine why she had disliked it at first. Maybe she and Kathy could adopt one. Next, she inspected her diaper, especially the top with Elmo being now over her navel. She liked Elmo! Maybe she could buy an Elmo when she got out? She looked at Mr. Bling and wondered if he would be envious. In thoughts, she swang her legs again and saw how the sandals flew off. She giggled by this sight.

“Celine?”

The girl looked up, realizing she had completely lost track of what the doctor was telling her.

“Sowwy,” she mumbled.

“It is okay. A hard topic.” He smiled at her. “Let us make a little test, shall we?”

Celine nodded and saw how the nurse pushed the table closer. As it was in front of her, the doctor pulled the blanket away and what was revealed made her smile. It was a box with colorful plastic balls.

“I want to test your coordination,” the doctor explained. “Show me the ball which color I tell you. Do you understand?”

Celine nodded. This was easy.

“Red.”

Celine grabbed and presented the red ball.

“Blue.”

She did so again. Easy enough.

“Green.”

A moment of hesitation, as she scowled, thinking, but then she found it and presented it with a proud smile.

“Well done,” the doctor praised. “Next violet.”

Celine looked in the box, but as much as she tried, she couldn’t identify the ball. In her mind she couldn’t even recall the color. Confused she looked at the doctor, who smiled.

“It is okay.” He made a note on his clipboard.

“Is not!” Celine protested. “I should know … I must … adu … a … big giwls know. Me big giwl again.”

The doctor chuckled.

“The drug is working just fine,” he explained. “Only that it doesn’t make you big again but regresses your body and mind to that of a newborn.”

Celine looked up at him in shock and then at her arms. They had become shorter, chubbier, her hands especially.

“Why … how …” She uttered. “Kathy said …”

The doctor smiled.

“Kathy suggested you as a test subject,” he revealed. “We are always searching for new ones and you are perfect. No family, loose friends and no one in college who would remember you visiting any lectures. Just another college drop-out just vanishing.”

Celine felt her teeth receding into her gums one by one and touching her hair, she realized it was getting lighter. All this was too much for her, still she had to say something, something grow-up in protest.

“MEANIE!” She shouted.

The doctor just laughed.

“Don’t worry little one. This time you might grow up to become someone who values learning. Beginning with how to walk,” he said. “Speaking of, times to get you someplace more fitting. Ms. Amar?”

The nurse nodded and picked Celine up. Doing so she took great care that the baby kept her now totally oversized diaper and the equally oversized shirt on. She made soothing noises as she began to walk, but the regressed girl flailed her arms and cried in protest. Her face was round and cubbish, as she opened her toothless mouth to wail. The last thing Celine saw over the nurse’s shoulder of the room, before being carried away, was Mr. Bling sitting alone on the examination table.

***

Later Martin and Kathy walked down the hospital floor, until they reached the large window in the wall. They starred in wonder through it, as behind it was a room filled with cribs, each occupied by a tiny infant, none older than a week.

Kathy grabbed her boyfriend’s hand and pressed it. “They all look so precious!”

“They do,” Martin admitted. “But which one is Celine?”

Kathy looked over the little cribs, their occupants either sleeping or looking around in infantile confusion. A few even moved their limbs, kicking legs still winkled by their stay in the narrow confines of their mommies’ womb and waving their arms without a hint of conscious coordination.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kathy finally decided with a smile. “They are all beautiful little angels and Celine is just one of them now. I only wish her the best and a happy new life.”

“Me, too,” Martin decided and kissed his girlfriend.

***

As the couple turned to leave, the eyes of one newborn turned to them. Recognition dawned deep in the blue eyes, but as it wanted to lift its little, nearly bald head to watch them a while longer it found it had no strength to do so. Automatically her legs kicked in frustration – the plastic tag on one of them moving with it – only for them to return to the bowed position like that of the other newborns. On her round, milk-filled belly an enlarged stump of an umbilical cord rose. Both indicating a time in the womb she didn’t had, but which made her on the outside indistinguishable from the occupants of the other little cribs nearby. On the inside, all what still could be identified as adult concentration left, was directed at thinking about the two adults who were out of sight now.

She had known them, but when she tried to remember only something like static appeared in front of her inner eyes. There had been sounds associated with them, sounds to identify them and linked feeling and concepts tagged to these sounds. The newborn found it couldn’t recall them, but remembered it had an own, special sound describing herself. This one was lost, too. Still she tried to recall it, tried to say it, but the muscles of her tongue and throat were as uncoordinated as that of the rest of her body.

“Wa!”

There had been another sound, though. One the woman in the room she had been in before had called her. Emma. And the woman had called herself Mama. The newborn didn’t understand any of these sounds, but suddenly very much wanted to be held by the woman again, though at that time she had protested for reason no longer known to her. Not caring for faint memories anymore or the confusion the world outside or the confines of her crib brought her, everything inside the infant was suddenly very clear. All she wanted was Mama.

The newborn began to cry.

The end