David stared at the floor, trying to process her thoughts. The prospect of getting back to normal - that was tantalizing. She'd been terrified that she might be stuck this way for good, especially when she'd learned that she'd already changed in this same way when she was too little to remember it. After all, if being changed just once could get you stuck for life, what would happen to someone who'd somehow changed twice? But to have a chance at getting back to normal despite that...it was a no-brainer, really!
Except that it was clear that neither her mother nor the doctor thought so, even though they were apparently willing to allow her to go through with this. David didn't really care what the doctor thought, but the fact that her mother didn't like the idea got to her a little more. Didn't her mom want her to get back to normal? Weren't parents supposed to want what's best for their children? But her mom was visibly upset by the idea...and as much as David was certain that she had to get back to normal, she couldn't help but wonder if it really was that serious.
"M-mom," she said quietly, still weirded out by the sound of her new voice, "what...what exactly are the risks?"
Her mom sighed heavily. "The doctor said that half of the patients changed back to within 90% of normal, but four out of ten didn't change back at all."
David felt a little unsettled by that - those weren't the odds she was hoping to hear. But surely, even if nothing happened, it was better to at least have tried!
"And...and one became...became a baby again," her mother added. "They think it's only because they hadn't figured out some of the side effects, but...David, it's untested! They don't know what might happen to you!"
And suddenly it felt like the bottom dropped out of her stomach. It was one thing to try this if the worst that could happen was nothing, but...to become a baby? It was bad enough having gone back this far! The thought of having to grow back up all over again, not just from a few years short of her real age, but from infancy...and what if it was like this, where her mind remained the same, but trapped in the body of a baby? Even just the possibility of this...and sure, they thought it was only because they did it wrong, but how could they be sure? What if they were mistaken? That would mean a whole one in ten chance of that happening! Could...could she really risk that? Even if...even if it meant staying like this for the rest of her life?
The rest of my life...the rest of my friggin' life*...my* God*, I'm going to be this way for the rest of my life!*
Jon stared blankly at the teacher, her mind a million miles away from the actual class. The rest of the school day had passed mostly without incident yesterday, and she had ridden home on the bus with Karyn, grateful that it would all be over shortly. In fact, she'd even been feeling a little cheery, despite the fact that, to her enhanced senses, the bus smelled of countless years' worth of other students' feet and handfuls of people throwing up on band trips. Then she'd gotten home.
At first it had seemed like she couldn't get upstairs soon enough. Her mother and father had kept her pinned down with conversation over afternoon coffee for what seemed like an eternity, but finally they let her go up to her room. Only they hadn't told her that they'd cleaned it. Things were rearranged, broken things were gone...and so was the stone.
The box was still there, sure. But the stone wasn't in it. She knew that meant that her mother must've thrown it away, thinking it was just a bit of junk. But she couldn't say anything about it, because that would lead to questions. Her mother would apologize, and then ask why the stone was so imporant to her - and if she said it was because it was magic, then they'd think she was crazy, and they'd think it was because she was shaken up over turning into this, and they'd want her to go see a psychiatrist...
And there was no point to it, anyway. She'd already rooted through the bags of trash her mother had carried out from her room, under the pretense of making sure there wasn't anything she wanted to keep, and it wasn't in there. There was a little hole in one of the bags; it must've fallen out while her mother was carrying the bags out, and rolled down into the gutter, and fallen into the sewer, and now she'd never see it again...
The rest of my life...
