A Slow Descent

Chapter 4
Early November

Chapter Description: Brandon goes through the pressures of being a Pre-Teen, and his emotions get the best of him.

"Where am I?" This was my first thought when I woke up in a crib. I tried to get up but I couldn’t. I couldn’t control my arms and legs. Then I realized my limbs were tiny and pudgy. I looked at myself in the mirror across from me.

I saw a small infant staring back at me. Immediately, I started peeing uncontrollably. I was completely naked for some reason, so I was just peeing all over the wall and the floor, and then it was shooting up and coming back down onto me.

As I waded around in my soggy crib, I started bawling. I didn’t know what was happening, just that I was a baby and crying and I was hungry and I couldn’t control my body and-

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I woke up for real in my normal bed in a cold sweat. I looked at myself, still me plain old self. Well, at least my 12-year old self.

I’ve had that dream a million times over the last few months. I think it’s because of all the medication they had me on when I was in my ’coma’. I looked at my clock. It was 6:00 AM, just in time to get ready for school.

I wasn’t really looking forward to seventh grade. I really never liked seventh grade when I was actually in it. I figured I still wouldn’t.

"Honey?" Mom peered in.

"I bought you some new clothes." She put a pile of clothes on my bed.

"Thanks." I said flatly. I didn’t really care what she did anymore.

The clothes she left me were a vast array of long-sleeves, striped shirts, and turtle necks. All things to make me look younger.

When I got to the table to eat breakfast, I noticed that my cereal was lucky charms. It was only the marshmallows, as well, which sort of confused me.

"What’s this?" I asked.

"It’s just the marshmallows, the way you like it, sweety." said Mom. She meant the way I used to like it. I figured since I was sort of a little kid, I could eat like one just this once.

Before I left for the bus, I ran upstairs and wrote for tenth time on my wall,

"I AM SIXTEEN YEARS OLD."

I’m really starting to wonder if I would be able to remember who I was without doing that now.

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The bus ride to school was awful. Instead of sitting with the eighth grade at the back of the bus, I had to stay at the front with the new 7th graders. I realized right away that these kids have a much lower maturity level than the grade above. It’s sort of the age where they all learn the worst swear words, but have no idea what they mean. I heard one of them say "What the C-word." After explaining to them that they were using It wrong, they simply kept doing it just to annoy me. Yep, this wouldn’t be my favorite month.

My first class was Gym class. I hadn’t had gym since before the surgery for some reason, and I hadn’t really moved around in a long while. However, I knew these little kids would be easy for me to beat, even if I was smaller than normal.

I was very wrong about my athletic ability. I couldn’t kick a ball, run very fast, nothing. I guess I wasn’t very athletic when I was 12, because I was being laughed at soon enough.

After being humiliated my first class of the month, I decided It was going to be downhill from here. Eighth grade was pretty fun, but soon I wasn’t going to be thought of as an adult, and I was going to start losing control of my emotions. That’s what the doctor had said, anyway. It scared me that I had no way of knowing If I was actually acting like my age, because I was starting to lose track of what high schoolers actually acted like.

After that little occurrence, I began to notice other things. I was forgetting things I learned in school over the years, for example.

The other day, my math teacher asked me to find x in 3x-4=8. I was always great at math, so naturally, I got up very cockily and started doing the problem. However, I couldn’t. My mind went blank, and I no longer knew what to do.

"It’s ok, Brandon." said the teacher. She finished the problem. "You should just try to study a bit more."

And it’s not just math. I started forgetting locations of countries, meanings of words (Only obscure ones, though.) and I even began to get lost sometimes looking for my class. It’s as if I’m really a new student here.

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I got home from school at the end of the first week. I had a hard day, and I was ready to go onto my computer and play some Minecraft or something, but I noticed it wasn’t there anymore.

"Hey, where’s my stuff?" I yelled. Mom came into my room.

"Oh honey, your going to be only 11 soon, you won’t be needing it anymore. If you want to use the Internet, Ill be happy to monitor it while you do."

"What the hell?" I said, "Give me my stuff back."

"No." said mom simply. "If you behave, you can keep your cell phone until next month."

I decided not to keep up with this discussion. I vaguely remember mom being impossible to argue with, back when I was actually speaking with her.

The next few weeks were pretty uneventful. I didn’t make friends with anyone else, and I didn’t get to see my friends in the higher grade anymore. Soon, I wouldn’t even be in the same school. It struck me that this was the last grade that wasn’t in a primary school. The last time I would use lockers, have more than one teacher, be able to walk the halls without being in a line.

I decided to stop thinking about it for now.

One day in my Pre-Algebra class, I saw this girl who was sort of cute. Of coarse, she didn’t have a package or anything like that, but for some reason, I felt attracted to her.

For a second I wondered if that was a bit creepy since I was technically four years her senior, but I just blamed it on raging hormones. Still, I wanted to talk to her.

"Uhh...hi." I said. It was really strange, shuddering like that. I was always great at talking to girls, I never had trouble. Suddenly, I had just gotten really shy.

"What do you want?" she said. She pretended she wasn’t talking with me.

"I... I wanted to know if you wanted to go out some time?" That was stupid, kids don’t date at this age, do they?

"Haha, hear that everyone?" she said loudly so the class could year. "Brandon has a crush on me! Hahaha"

The class proceded to laugh. I was so embarrassed, so sad. Suddenly, I became really distressed. Not just this stupid thing happening, but all of the emotions of losing my old life, sudden mood swings of being an adolescent, and the knowledge that I wouldn’t remember any of this in a few months, I would just think I was a little kid, making a fool of myself, running around, and losing all the work, the progress in life.

As I thought of this, I never realized I was crying, finally letting out my emotions. The bell rang, and I got out of there.

I got home, and immediately my mom saw my tears. "What’s wrong honey?" she said.

"SHUT UP!" I yelled. "This is all your fault! You did this to me. You don’t deserve to be a parent!" I ran and slammed my door.

I didn’t come out for the rest of the night. My parents didn’t even attempt to talk to me. I looked at my phone. It was an iPhone, so I would still have Internet. I decided to pleasure myself while I still could. (I looked up the word "Porn" after I failed to remember what it was.)

I did remember exactly how doing that ’Worked", so I had no problem getting an erection. I hadn’t looked down there since the beginning, and I was not pleased. I only measured three inches. Pitiful. To make matters worse, I couldn’t have an orgasm.

Finally, I gave up and decided to go to sleep.

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I was woken up by my father.

"Heard you had a hard day." he said in a soft voice, rubbing my back. "the doctor called, and said your little outburst might be because you regressing a little bit faster than expected. He says that we should take you out of school for the next week until thanksgiving, and then after that we will move you to the Fifth grade, and by then you’ll only be ten or eleven. He also said that by then.... You most likely will think your ten, and maybe we will just stop you there. We will see."

I had fallen back asleep for that second part, but I got the gist. I was going to be out of school until after thanksgiving, when my mind would turn to mush, probably. How exciting.

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