This story was prompted by a patreon request from an earlier poll, a side story set in the Orphaned universe featuring some male AR. Enjoy!
Just as Johnny was about to come, his phone rang.
“Shit,” he said between panting breaths. He leaned over and picked up his phone. “Damn.”
“What?” Kristen asked, looking up at him. “Who is it?”
“It’s my girlfriend. Just stay quiet.”
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
The next day, Ms. Peach parked her car in front of a house that looked very much like every other house on the street.
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
Charlie, Eddie, and Davion ran out of the office into the main room of the lab. Across the room by the door, Roger Kingsley was behind Ms. Peach, tying a zip tie around her wrists to secure her as she struggled against him, helplessly. The big bearded man was over a foot taller than her and at least a hundred pounds heavier. She stood no chance against him. With her wrists secure, he sat her on a chair and attached another zip tie to the chair itself to secure her to it.
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
Dr. Wolff gasped when she felt the needle in her leg. Then, her eyes went wide, and she squealed, fully aware of what had just been pumped into her body. “Nooooo!”
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
They all watched as Jack’s video began playing:
It started with a date stamp from a few years ago, the image showed a view of the lab they were standing in.
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
“You live here?” Eddie asked, as Ms. Peach pulled into Charlie’s apartment complex.
“I do,” Charlie said. “Or, I did when I was an adult.”
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
The rest of the day went by quietly as Charlie waited to escape. Charlie gave Eddie a slight nod during class when he was sure that Ms. Peach was not watching, and Eddie nodded back. The plan was still on. They would leave that night. However, Charlie kept glancing at the clock and back to the classroom door, half-expecting Dr. Wolff to come bursting through it at any moment to grab him and drag him away.
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
Charlie found a folded sheet of notebook paper on the chair of his desk the next day. He nearly threw it out, thinking it was a piece of trash, but he opened it first to find that it was a note. There were only three words on it: “WINDOW TONITE MIDNITE.” He glanced over at Eddie, Davion, and Jack, but none of them paid any attention to him.
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
Charlie tried to sleep. He lay in his new bed in the quiet of his private room, but sleep would not come. His mind would not calm down, not after the events of that day. He could not stop thinking about Ben. One word kept repeating in his mind, so he spoke it out loud.
“Poison.”
What if Eddie was right? What if he had given Ben poison? Ben had drunk something that had caused a seriously bad reaction. That is what poison does. The milk was poisoned. If that were true, though, then Charlie would have a big problem. It would mean that Dr. Wolff had betrayed him and tried to poison him.
“No,” he said. “I mean… She wouldn’t… Would she?”
Mentally, he went over everything he knew about Dr. Wolff and Tabula Rasa. They take the condemned and make them into children. There are two steps to the procedure. First, the inmates are regressed physically. Then, they are regressed mentally. He had only been given the first step.
By: lostandwhateverSeries commissioned by Areat, originally published on my Patreon.
Charlie drifted through the next few days with no aim or direction. He had no great mission to occupy his thoughts, and so he was left with simply living the life of a young boy. It was surprisingly easy to let go of adulthood for a little while. That grown-up identity existed only in his memories, invisible to anyone else, while all of his senses repeatedly informed him that he was, in fact, physically just a little boy. Taking the next step to acting like a little boy was a very short step indeed. When kids wanted to play, he played with them. When adults ordered him to do something, he respected their orders and did it. He fell into a simple routine: sleep, wake up, eat, clean, learn, eat more, learn more, serve detention, eat again, have fun, and then sleep again. Repeat.
By: lostandwhatever