Crossing Worlds

Hannah and Emily stood there, desperately trying to keep from mushing the mess around any more than was necessary. Hannah had felt as if it had gone on forever, her diaper heavy and swollen beyond anything she had managed herself. She wasn’t sure what was more mortifying, the fact the daycare felt it necessary to administer such actions or that she had stood before Evan, pooping herself while he rattled on about his day. Mommy was speaking with one of the daycare workers, the worker likely talking about Emily and Hannah. Mommy’s lips kept pursing as she glanced at the two girls, and Hannah was worried about what they were talking about. 

Finally, they stepped within earshot range, “After cartoon time, neither had gone potty, so we gave them a little something to help them along; possible they had a bit of constipation.”

“Wonderful, thank you.” Mommy responded to the worker, “Girls, why don’t you go grab your bags, and we can leave.”

Hannah and Emily glanced at each other, not moving and clearly in distress from their squishy bums. Mommy grinned softly, “They mentioned what they gave you, and I’m sure you’d both enjoy fresh diapers, but that medicine will likely have you both going again. I can change you now, but it’d waste a perfect diaper; those can hold more. We’ll change you when we get home.”

Hannah suppressed a groan; the woman was probably right; she could feel her tummy was still upset. The girls begrudgingly went and collected their backpacks, waddling as best as they could. Getting back to Mommy, who had been handed some papers, including their artwork, she smiled at them, nodding, “Ready to go?” she asked, but she was already turning to leave, “Hold each other’s hands.”

Mommy had taken Evan’s hand, and Hannah felt Emily take hers. At least this way, they could pace behind them, not be forced to move too quickly. The small group left the daycare, Miss Lilly waving goodbye as they passed, and began their way back towards the front of the school. Emily and Hannah lagged behind Mommy and Evan, forcing Mommy and Evan to slow down; if she was going to make them walk in these filthy diapers, the least she could do was wait. The journey back to the front was uneventful, and Evan continued about his day.

Reaching the front, they passed back outside to the drop-off area, where their car was already waiting for them, the doors swinging open as they approached. Mommy effortlessly strapped all three into their car seats, Hannah wincing as she was placed directly on her bum. True to Mommy’s words, her tummy hadn’t been done, and she found herself filling her diaper further as they began the drive home. Seemingly, Mommy wasn’t in the mood to show them cartoons, and the screens stayed mercifully off for their trip.

Finally, on their way home, Hannah was able to reflect on their day. She remembered that Mommy had been handed a stack of papers right at the end, and she wondered what was contained within those documents. “Mommy?” she asked, interrupting Evan’s monolog, “What were those papers you got?”

“I got your artwork!” Mommy responded, “And your homework.”

Hannah glanced at Emily, and the girls shared a look. “Homework?” Emily asked.

“That’s right! Homework shouldn’t take but a few hours.” Mommy said.

Hannah and Emily continued to stare at one another, perplexed. What on Earth was this homework about? Typically, homework involved practicing what was taught in class, and Hannah had a sinking feeling that this homework was going to be just that. She shuttered, remembering the songs and their story time. Would she have to reenact any of that for Mommy and Daddy? She certainly didn’t want to, but Hannah hadn’t been the one given the sheets. Mommy could tell Hannah whatever she wanted to, she realized, and Hannah would have to listen unless she got to see them herself.

Thankfully, the school wasn’t far from home, and they soon found themselves pulling into the garage, the door closing behind them as Mommy retrieved the three of them, setting them down to walk inside, her hand playfully cupping both girl’s rears, making Hannah grimace. 

Entering the living room, Mommy had gone straight to Daddy, who was lounging on the couch, speaking in a hushed tone and glancing at the girls. Daddy frowned, standing and walking towards them. As he got closer, his frown disappeared, and he smiled warmly, “There are my two angels! How are you two doing?” he asked, stooping and planting a kiss on either girl’s forehead.

“Good,” Emily responded meekly. 

“Yeah? How was school? I want to hear all about it while I get you both changed.” he said, offering a hand to either girl.

Hannah took it, all too glad for a fresh diaper as he guided them to the nursery. Hannah was lucky enough to be first, being laid on the changing table, strapped down, and her outfit removed as Daddy worked to change her. “It was okay; it was a lot to take in,” Hannah admitted, safely out of earshot of Mommy, that she hadn’t missed Daddy closing the door to the nursery.

“I bet it was! It seems you both had busy days. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” Daddy asked.

It almost seemed as if he were digging for something, digging for information; what had the daycare workers mentioned to Mommy? There was no way they knew about the resistance or Hannah’s new stake in the group. “I mean, we had story time and arts and crafts, and there were songs, and we played on the playground,” Hannah said with a shrug, feeling Daddy’s careful fingers cleaning her of her mess.

“Oh, yeah?” Daddy asked, “Did you two make any new friends?”

Hannah could feel Emily’s eyes burning into her, not that she could see, but she knew. “We met a lot of new people; I wouldn’t say we made any new friends,” she admitted honestly. 

“The school seems to think you have.” Daddy said, glancing at the door and pitching his following sentence low, “They think you are hanging out with the wrong sort of people, girls. They track individuals who they deem as high risk; what do you think you were doing hanging out with them?!” he asked in a tense tone.

Hannah’s throat clenched, “High risk? I… I don’t know, I don’t even know what that means; we didn’t go out of our way to interact with that type of people.” she squeaked, feeling the fresh diaper being pulled into place.

“The school wanted to… well, Mommy talked them down to giving you both more ‘structured’ schooling,” Daddy said as he swapped girls, placing Emily in Hannah’s place, Hannah still only wearing a diaper. 

“More structured? What does that mean?” Emily asked, fear clouding her face.

Daddy shook his head, “I can’t say; you both almost landed… Just keep your heads down.” he said, raising his voice again, “You did that all by yourself? That’s incredible! Mommy mentioned you two were the stars of storytime! What was the story about?”

Hannah saw the game he was playing and was thankful for the man and his ability to see through the facade they had to put up for the rest of the world. In order for it to work, though, Hannah had to play along, and so she did, explaining their journey through the forest to find the magic flower. Daddy didn’t waste any time getting Emily cleaned up, setting her next to Hannah. He gathered short t-shirts for both girls, dressed them, and led them back out to the living room. 

Hannah was undoubtedly embarrassed not to have anything covering her diaper but didn’t think it wise to argue, especially if they were going to be at home; it wasn’t like everyone in the house wasn’t already painfully aware of their situation anyway. Out in the living room, Hannah immediately noticed the small table that had been set up for them. It would involve the girls sitting on the floor, but it was otherwise a perfect height for them. On the table’s top two stacks of paper, a box of crayons, and two bottles of juice. 

“Homework time!” Mommy said as she stepped into the living room, “Daddy and Mommy are going to work on making dinner; you two work on homework, okay?” she asked, not waiting for a response as they left the girls alone. 

Evan was lounging on the couch, doodling on an art pad, it seemed, with colored pencils, a look of concentration on his face. He, too, had been changed and wore diapers and a T-shirt. Not sure what else to do, Emily and Hannah sat at the table, thumbing through the papers. From what Hannah could tell, it was a test of sorts, a cognitive abilities test. The problems ranged from identifying numbers and letters all the way to advanced physics, mathematics, biology, and literature.

“What on Earth is this?” Hannah asked.

Emily could only shrug, “They are testing us for something; the question is, do we do our best, or do we only do what we are supposed to be able to do?”

Hannah sat back on her haunches; she hadn’t even thought of that, “I don’t know, what is it they are trying to gauge is my question. The school is supposed to help us acclimate to being Little, right? A baby certainly doesn’t know linear algebra or how to calculate the periapsis of a celestial body’s orbit. Does that mean they want us to fail? Or, perhaps, they are trying to determine a baseline of cognitive reasoning and understanding to compare us to other students our biological age and compare our educations.”

Emily nodded, “Perhaps, or they are trying to measure cognitive degeneration; they need a baseline for how smart we are presently, so they know how much they can take away.”

Hannah’s face whitened at the idea, based upon her trivial knowledge of the world, Emily’s philosophy may be true. “Or, perhaps, they are determining placement of some kind; if we fail to meet certain criteria, they can deny us certain rights. Or, still, maybe this is an effort to recruit highly skilled individuals.” Hannah sighed, glancing at the door to the kitchen; she wished she could have Daddy’s insight to know what the best course of action was.

“I’m scared no matter what we do,” Emily whispered. 

Hannah nodded, “I am, too. Are we overthinking this? I think we should do our best and see what happens.”

Emily sighed but nodded in response, taking up a crayon, “Well, let’s get to it, I suppose.”

Hannah found it far more challenging to solve the problems with a crayon, partially due to the humiliation of having to do homework with them and also partially due to the clumsiness of the crayons; they weren’t designed for precise work. The further Hannah went in the packet, the more difficult she found the problems. She quickly crushed the first half, working her way through preschool, grade school, middle school, and most of high school without issue. It was towards the end of high school and the beginning of college that the real challenge set in.

Through the test, Hannah found that, ironically, most of the literature was similar. Apparently, both planets had famous writers, and although their names were different, the works they produced were eerily similar. They were different enough that Hannah had to reread sections several times to ensure she got the proper meaning before answering questions. Pretty soon, however, Hannah’s steam was running out; the problems simply kept getting more advanced, well beyond her schooling, and while she was able to work out a few issues here or there, she soon had to give up. She sat back with a sigh, finishing off the last drops of her bottle. Hannah had soaked herself twice during the test, and her hand ached. She had no idea how long they had been at it, and she was eager to be done. The smells of dinner had long since permeated the living room, Evan having disappeared into his room while the girls worked. 

Emily had given up several minutes before Hannah and the girls sat back, clearly exhausted. Mommy entered the living room, smiling, “How did my two little pumpkins do?” she asked, scooping up both girl’s packets and thumbing through them. “Hmm, not bad, not bad at all; it’s good to see neither of you is deteriorating too quickly. Come on, time for dinner,” she said, placing the papers out of reach.

Hannah felt a stab of annoyance at Mommy’s dismissal as if their hard work had meant nothing to her. Moreover, Mommy mentioned deterioration, as Hannah had feared, but Mommy had no baseline for what she was measuring Hannah against, at least for herself. Hannah hadn’t performed such a test before coming to this world, so what was Mommy basing her judgments off of? She feared that her mind really was slipping from her, and Hannah had no clue. The more likely answer was, though, that Mommy was comparing their scores against other people their age, which would explain the mid-college level questions. Was Hannah indeed that far behind her peers, or were college students expected to know more here for her age? Hannah wasn’t sure.

Hannah and Emily were strapped into their separate highchairs, Mommy commenting on the state of both of their diapers and praising them. Hannah felt joy at the praise, nowhere near as strong as it had been in school, thankfully, but it was still there. She briefly wondered if she had watched the second episode of Naomi and Oliver and if she would have had a stronger reaction to the praise. 

At the table, Hannah had been served more finger food and yet another bottle; she groaned; no matter how much she tried, this world seemed bent on ensuring her bladder was always full. Mommy had the girls reiterate their day, explaining storytime. It didn’t seem to Hannah that Mommy genuinely cared, barely paying attention until neither girl was talking and then asking follow-up questions that required additional responses from both of them. She seemed only to be asking about what they did for their activities in school, storytime, art time, and recess and neglected to ask about any friends as Daddy had. 

Hannah wondered how much information the two shared about their day; Mommy seemed utterly content to allow both girls to wallow in ignorance, unaware of what was going on tomorrow or what the school thought of them. If Daddy was worried, he no longer showed it, keeping a stoic face for dinner. With dinner done, Mommy scooped both girls up and carried them to the nursery after cleaning both of their faces, not even bothering to check whether their bottles had or had not been drained. 

Mommy plopped both girls in the playpen, “Alright, you two, Mommy and Daddy are going to have some alone time; it isn’t bathtime just yet. You two have some fun, and we’ll be back, okay?” she asked, standing and going to leave the room.

“Okay, Mommy.” both girls responded, earning them a smile as the door to the nursery clicked shut behind her. 

“Great, now what,” Hannah grumbled, glancing around at their meager surroundings, the toy chest sitting unopened. 

“I mean, what do you expect? We are supposed to play with our toys like good little kids while Mommy and Daddy have fun adult time.” Emily grumbled, “We are lucky, though; at least she isn’t making us listen while we fill our diapers.”

Hannah glanced at Emily, blushing; she hadn’t realized exactly what Mommy had meant until Emily spelled it out for her, “She makes you do that?” she asked incredulously.

Emily nodded, opening their chest, “Sometimes, especially if I was naughty or something, she said it’s to help reinforce what I am, just a baby; in Mommy’s own words, ‘The only use your holes will get is filling your diapers.’” Emily shuttered.

In another life, Hannah may have been excited at the prospect of being a cuck, but she was long detached from such feelings. She opened her mouth to speak just as she heard a ringing coming from the chest. Hannah was so startled she yelped, flinching back. “What the heck?!” she asked.

Emily seemed just as startled, both girls staring at the chest, something ringing from within. Was it a telephone? Both girls reacted at the same time, frantically flinging back the chest lid and digging through, looking for the source of the sound. It didn’t take long for them to come across a multicolored plastic play telephone, and each button was a smiling character. The phone was ringing.

The girls gingerly sat it between them, staring at it, “Should we answer it?” Emily asked hesitantly.

“I’m guessing this never happened before?” Hannah asked, earning her a shake of Emily’s head.

Hannah gingerly took the phone off the receiver, lifting it to her ear, “Hello?” she asked.

“Hannah, is it?” A voice asked, “This is Venli; I’m with the resistance; we need to talk.”

End of Chapter 24