"B... but..." said Sarah.
"Don't worry, it's just another three weeks," said her mother.
Not only was Sarah confused by the impossible changes that everyone else seemed to think weren't changes, she wondered just how in a couple of seconds it could go from a month to three weeks. "How long did you say?" she asked, as her stomach continued to grow.
"Two weeks."
"Excuse me?"
"I said a week and five days."
Sarah groaned. It was like a countdown. She stared at a clock as her mother watched over her, worried, and she seemed to get more pregnant without end. When she could bear it no longer, she said "It's time, now, right?" How could she possibly have twelve babies?
"Of course it was time a few days ago but you know what the doctor said."
"Well, what did the doctor say?" she whispered, now hardly able to talk because of the pressure on her lungs from her distended belly.
"You weren't listening to him, Sarah! You had to go at least two weeks past the due date. The experiment didn't completely work."
"I thought there was a countdown. Isn't it over?"
"Isn't what over? Your due date? It was three weeks ago, but who cares about that? You'll give birth when you give birth."
"I give up. I'm going to sleep, Mom?"
"In the bathroom?"
"No, in my room." Sarah tried to walk. It didn't work, of course. Then she realized she was in her bed, after all. Somehow she had changed locations without moving. What had happened? She didn't know, but she could guess. As she got more and more pregnant with everyone acting as though she had always been that way, there would be some point where she had to stay in bed. If it had always been that way, she'd already be in the bed. She stared at the ceiling and waited for who knows what.
Eventually things changed again. She wasn't in a bed, she was in a brightly lit room. Maybe a hospital, maybe not... the two men watching didn't quite look like doctors and the room didn't look like a hospital room. And she felt terrible cramps.
"There we go," said one of the men. "That was a bad labor but with all our inventions it won't matter. Sorry about the experiment, but it didn't quite work."
"Experiment? What's going on? Who are you?"
"What? I'm Eric and this is Keith. We're scientists. We're glad you could test the stretching serum along with the artificially induced pregnancy serum." Now I think we'd better knock you out unless you want to feel all of this.
She barely nodded and they injected her with something. She woke up some indefinite time later. Her belly, and its skin, were stretched out, but not to the sofa sized they were at before, and slowly shrinking. Stretching serum indeed... but how else could she have survived this? And there was a whole section of the laboratory cordoned off. Twelve baby girls (at least she guessed they were girls) were there, each looking a lot like a one year old Sarah. All blondes. "They're... strange?"
"That's what I mean by 'it didn't quite work'," replied Keith. You were the equivalent of 24 months pregnant with them. So they're each a year and three months old..."
