A Slow Descent

Chapter 8
Turning The Tables

Chapter Description: Alex has a birthday, but how old he? He forgets.

As the next few weeks passed, Alex and I forgot more and more what it was to be a teenager. We were now in the fourth grade, where we would be staying for the remainder of the year.

I was sort of excited to finally not have to keep getting younger, I would stay where I was, and just fit in for once.

I stayed excited because I remembered the pact I had with Alex, that we would stay as adults in our minds, and do it together. It worked pretty well until I came home one day, the second week in.

By now, I had written almost 70 times on my wall, the sentence

"I AM SIXTEEN YEARS OLD"

But when I got home today, it wasn’t there.

Mom had washed it off.

I immediately began to panic. I didn’t know what age I was supposed to be anymore. 12? 13? Thirteen stuck in my mind, that must be how old I am.

"Mom?" I said. "How old ’m I?"

She hesitated. "Your... Your nine years old, silly." she smiled.

Of coarse I was! How could I think otherwise? But then, if I was only nine, how could I remember my first day of Highschool? I resolved that I was SOME age that was older than nine.

When I asked Alex, he said that we had to be at least 11 or 12. He was a bit confused too.

Either way, I still knew that I didn’t belong here, so the pact was still on.

Fourth grade was... Interesting. It was so strange not being able to do the simplest things. The other day, I had to read aloud to the class.

"The Car got parked in the.... Gare-Rage?" I tried to sound it out.

"Garage." said the teacher. I could barely speak right now, much less read allowed.

I also forgot how to do long division and if you told me Europe was a state in America, I would believe you.

I also started watching Cartoons on television. I actually found them pretty intriguing, especially when there was a moral to the story.

Finally, the day came that I had been dreading. My birthday.

I decided that I needed to figure out how old I was for this. I tried to think back to how many months it had been, and do it out backward that way, but my mind couldn’t handle that sort of ’advanced’ math.

I decided on Thirteen. I was supposed to be thirteen. Maybe twelve? I still couldn’t decide.

I was sort of excited for my birthday at the same time, because it meant the last of the regressing. I would finally be able to start learning new things, about life, and school, and adults. However, Alex had informed me that his mom had said that it was also the day we would get our final injection, Finally taking away the remainder of our memories, and turning us into snot nosed, dirty, and shameless little kids.

My birthday was mostly as expected. There was a clown, balloons, and a cake with a red fire truck on it. However, something I didn’t expect, was that the cake said 8 Yrs, old instead of 9.

"Couldn’t find the right cake?" I asked.

"Well...." said dad. "We have a bit of news. Your not going to be nine anymore..... We’ve decided to keep regressing you until you forget everything completely. You’ll visit the doctor today, and he will give you an injection which will regress you four times as fast, and wipe your memory of all those nasty big boy thoughts."

"What?" I yelled. "No! You can’t do that!"

"We thought you liked being little now." said mom.

"No! I only did that... Because...l." why did I act so happy? Maybe I was more of a Nine-Year-Old then I knew.

"There is no argument." said Mom. She picked me up, and took me outside to the car.

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The large men sat me down in the chair next to Alex.

"Hell of a birthday, huh?" he said.

I didn’t answer. It all ended here, now. I was going to be clueless about any of this in a few minutes.

The doctor came in the room with us and our parents.

"After we do the injection," he said. "We like to keep them the night, to make sure they are truly gone. You should probably go home until tomorrow."

The parents obeyed. They left us with the doctor.

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"I’m sorry about this, boys." The doctor took a syringe, and walked over to Alex.

"No, Me first." I said. "I don’t want to have to see Alex lose it. Do me first."

"Sure, " said the doctor. "I can’t deny a final request." he walked over to me and took the cap of the syringe.

"This might sting a bit." he said.

As he started to lower the needle to my arm, I grabbed it with my other and turned around, pointing the syringe at him.

"Don’t move, and don’t call security." I said.

"Brandon? What are you doing?" said Alex

The doctor held his hands up. "That thing wouldn’t work on me, I haven’t had the procedure."

"True." I said. "But if not, It might turn your brains to mush. You could be a vegetable. Are you really that confident?"

"Fine." he said, beaten. It was weird holding a syringe to him since I was half the size of him. I could just barely reach his neck. "What do you want?"

"I want to know how we can stop Mrs. Figg from doing this to anybody else." I said. This had been my plan since the party.

"I’m not going to tell you." he said. "What she does is going to revolutionize the world."

I brought the needle closer to his neck.

"Fine." he said. "She keeps all of the excess vaccines and her papers about how they are all made In her home. If you got rid of those, then she wouldn’t be able to make more. She would have to start from scratch again. It would be years, decades maybe before she could do it again."

"That works." I said. "Your going to drive us there."

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