Academy B (Complete)

[Cya]

12 hours ago, Mia Moore said:

Bala learned that she needed the routine.

 

Sounds like Baby Bela will do very well once they put her on a schedule like every other 6 month old. XD

 

Great chapter! It was well worth the wait!

[Sarah Penguin]

[Mia Moore]

On 1/2/2022 at 4:40 AM, Cya said:

Great chapter! It was well worth the wait!

Thank you so much.   I'm trying to post more.  Holiday stuff, ya know?

~Mia~

[aldl4811]

This is soo much fun!

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Six

A drawer opened unprompted near the mirror and Bala approached it without hesitation. In such a short amount of time, she was used to the rules. She knew that it would give her something she needed. In this case, it was something she also wanted: a fresh diaper and a new onesie. 

There was no instructional card this time.

Bala didn't get told what to do, but she knew what was expected of her. She took the diaper and the onesie out of the drawer and laid back on the tile beneath her, fumbling with the snaps of her current onesie. Notably, she kept her blanket close by, resting her head on it like a pillow.

This outfit came with two spare wipes and Bala made good use of them. Her talent for diapering herself was quickly growing - even by her second one - and she was soon dressed in her new outfit. It was only after discarding the used diaper and old onesie in the bin that she caught sight of herself in the mirror, still sucking the pacifier. 

The new onesie had words on the front: "Baby Girl".

It started to dawn on Bala exactly how compliant she was becoming, and a lot of it she didn't even think about anymore. Where was the line between Obey and Progress and Escape vs. Give In? How much ground could she give? She was wearing diapers, she was sucking on her pacifier. She was losing herself to this place.

"Good girl." 

The voice spoke and - just like ripples in water - the clarity of her thoughts broke apart. All she could do for a moment was smile warmly. This time, she spoke loudly.

"Thank you!"

A drawer slid open on the far wall. It surprised Bala; it didn't fit the routine. She was in a dry diaper, and she had a fresh bottle and food in the other box. Curiously, she crawled across the floor and peeked inside.

"Obedience is rewarded," the voice spoke. 

Bala pulled a toy out from the box: one of those ring-stacking things for babies. Each of the rings was a hard, dull plastic. There were no sharp edges, and after a moment of thought, Bala realized she wouldn't be able to make any good use of this in an escape plan. Even if she could get the plastic to shatter, what good would it be? She had no one to threaten but herself. Iif she wanted to die, she could just let the cold kill her. 

At first, Bala didn't see the ring toy as a reward. She actually thought it felt like a punishment. But after another hour of boredom, another bottle of milk, and another wetting of the diaper between her legs, she realized how valuable it could be. 

Each of the rings could be rolled or tossed or organized. She could make up games. She could play to pass the time. She could do anything, as long as that anything was within this room. The toy opened up a whole new world.

A quiet voice in the back of Bala's mind told her that she could write a paper on this when she escaped, on the transformative properties of perceptions of entertainment in a restricted stimulus environment. The active part of her couldn't think about that though. She was focused on her toy. 

At first, her games were abstract and strange. As time wore on, she began to think about the characteristics of the rings, and she let her imagination wander. The Mama Ring and the Papa Ring and the three Baby Rings. Or maybe they were boats, and the blue one was a submarine. 

This room, that felt like an area outside of the world, had become her world. Diapers. Bottles. Her Pacifier. Her toys. Her blanket. The voice. 

Obedience.

But there was one problem: Bala couldn't sleep. The heated tiles never seemed to last more than an hour as far as she could tell, and she would find herself dreaming of cold places and cold things. 

She would wake up, wet herself, and drift off again. Her sleepiness became exhaustion, and her exhaustion became delirium. She couldn't keep her eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time and she was struggling to drink the bottles to keep her diapers wet. 

The worst part was: her stomach ached with a need to use the toilet. Even worse than that: she knew they wouldn't let her go. 

"Please," she begged around the pacifier, talking to herself in the mirror. Were they on the other side? Could they see her? They had to know how much she was struggling. "Please, lemme just get some rest..." 

The girl in the mirror looked so tired, with bags under her eyes. Bala didn't have a clock in here, but judging by her exhaustion it must have been days.

Wetting her diaper got the tile warm. Obedience got the tile warm. But she needed more. She needed a few hours, she needed to recover. She was so tired that she had begun talking to herself. She was aching, and her stomach was groaning. 

"Please..." What did they want? What would a good girl do? She curled up tightly into a fetal position to try and ease her stomach cramps, and for a moment she closed her eyes and had every scene from a dream in one second. She knew then what a good girl would do.

Sleep nipped at the corners of her eyes and her insides twisted in discomfort. She had already wet her diapers so many times, so what was the point of fighting? 

It was just one more thing... one more thing couldn't hurt. And if she was a good girl, she would be rewarded. With a nod at herself in the mirror - a show of solidarity between her and her reflection, she bent forward on her knees.

It would have been hard if she'd realized it earlier, but with biology being what it was and how long she'd held out, it felt like the easiest thing in the world. The most disgusting, awful, horrible, and humiliating thing, but an easy thing nonetheless. She clenched down on the pacifier, and she pushed. She felt the mess inside of her body slide effortlessly into her diaper. 

Thick mush that expanded the seat of the diaper. Then it weighed it down; in her reflection, Bala could see the diaper sagging further between her legs. And with how much she had eaten, how long she'd waited, this wasn't going to be one push and done. By the second push she could smell it: the smell of shame and surrender, a smell that hung around her like a blanket.

And as Bala pooped her diaper, the tile began to glow.

The onesie held the diaper firmly against Bala's skin. She couldn't escape the mushy feelings around her bottom, even as she sat upright on her knees. It was so humiliating that a blush was obvious on her brown-skinned cheeks.

But humiliation and pride and shame were second to the true goal: sleep. Bala's exhaustion dragged her to the tile and she curled up to her blanket, resting on her side. Within moments, she was asleep, and the tile didn't lose its heat until many hours later.

[diaper24/7]

This really one of my favorite stories.

[Cya]

I'm loving the pace and progression of this story! Great job!

[Sarah Penguin]

 

[Mia Moore]

Thank you everyone   I will try to update a little more regularly, I swear.

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Seven

Sometime later - perhaps the next morning -  Bala woke up to a very full diaper and a heavy load of shame. But a drawer was waiting for her with a fresh diaper, a handful of wipes, and a new onesie. She thanked the incorporeal voice. 

Wetting grew easier and easier, but she couldn't sleep longer than an hour until her diaper was messy. After a while, it too joined the routine. Wake up. Change. Eat. Play. Wet. Nap. Wet. Eat. Play. Wet. Eat. Play. Mess. Sleep. 

Her days could have lasted six hours or sixty, Bala couldn't be sure. The only differences were cleaning days, where a small bucket of water was provided for her. She would wash her hair in the bucket before wiping down her body with a sponge. 

Bala thought about tipping the bucket, and maybe causing the floors to short-circuit, but it seemed silly to assume they hadn't thought of that. Bala resigned to the routine once again. It was just one more thing... one more thing couldn't hurt. 

Bala tried to count the days in her head, but her naps kept messing it up. She tried to scribble on the walls in applesauce or yogurt, but the boxes wouldn't give her new food until she cleaned it up. She tried drawing lines on her arms with her fingernails, but they always seemed to fade away. 

Eventually, she lost count and never started up again. Her collection of toys grew larger. At first, just the rings. Then blocks. Then a teething ring, a sensory cube, and a crinkling noise maker. She had two stuffed animals and a baby rattle too. 

One day, she realized the tiles stayed warm no matter what she did. She didn't have to think about wetting herself: it just happened on its own. When she went down for her naps in a clean diaper, the floors never got cold. But she would always wake up wetter than she remembered. Bala started leaving her toys in the cold spots just to make sure the cold was still there.

One day, a panel on the wall opened up. Bala couldn't be sure what she was seeing, because it didn’t look like a drawer. It looked like a hole, like someone had forgotten to put a tile there. She grabbed her blankie close and crawled over to the space where a tile should be.

It looked like a thin corridor, just big enough for her to crawl through. Crawling was the only way Bala got around nowadays; standing on her own two feet seemed daunting in retrospect. What if she couldn’t?  It was better not to try.  The corridor seemed to bend further in, and Bala couldn’t see after that.

She could have left at any moment, but she didn’t. She waited at the threshold, waiting for the mysterious voice to reprimand her. Clearly there was a mistake. Someone misplaced the tile. Or maybe it was a test. If she tried to escape, she would get in trouble. She would be cold again.

"Good girl," the voice congratulated. "You completed the Second Protocol. Continue on through the opening for your reward."

Reward? Bala tilted her head in confusion. Then she had done it? Was freedom truly on the other side of this tunnel? For some reason, Bala found herself filled with more anxiety than excitement. What if she couldn’t do it anymore? All those work hours at the hospital? All those bills she had to pay? All those friends she hadn’t spoken to? What explanation could she offer them?

"Continue on through the opening for your reward," the voice repeated.  

Bala knew she didn’t have a choice. When the voice told her to do something, she had to do it. That she already caused it to repeat itself nearly brought her to tears. And so, Bala crawled into the little tunnel with her blankie at her side. Her thick, padded bottom barely fit through the opening, and Bala had to work hard to crawl past the bend. When she finally reached the end, tumbling out into a totally new room, it took Bala a moment for her eyes to adjust to what she was seeing.

Colors. Textures. People. Babies like her, in diapers and onesies, and toys everywhere. Was she... was this a nursery? Her ears were so used to the silence that the ambient noise made them ache.

The Cold Room had been so quiet. Sometimes, Bala would use the sound of her own heart beating to fall asleep. The only noise that seemed to fill the space was either caused by her or by the echo of an invisible voice. The nursery wasn't like that at all. 

She could hear the crinkling of diapers, the jingling of plastic keys, the rumbling of a far-away air conditioner, the pattering feet of ballet slippers on the plush carpet, and the soft cries of a girl on the other end of the room. The cacophony made Bala's head hurt, and she immediately pressed her face between her legs. She could smell that she needed a change. 

"Oh, and you must be Bala." A blonde woman stepped forward, wearing pink scrubs and white slippers. She wasn't that tall, but she had the strength to lift Bala into her arms all the same. Bala had the presence of mind to hold onto her blanket, pulling it up with her.

"Don't worry," the woman went on. "We're going to take good care of you. As long as you're good for us, of course." Even the woman’s voice was out of place amidst the new sounds. 

Bala nodded her head immediately, automatically, a reflexive response to being given a direction that felt as normal and natural and breathing. 

Breathe in. Be good. Breathe out. Obey. 

Bala sucked anxiously on her pacifier like she'd had it her whole life. Up here, carried, lifted, she could get a better look at the space. At the people. And while the sounds and colors overwhelmed her, she felt something immeasurable welling up in her chest: 

Gratitude. 

She knew it was wrong to feel something like that for her captors, but she felt it all the same.

The room was more than toys and carpet. From her new vantage point, she could see the rest of it: a huge changing table on the wall, stocked with diapers, four large cribs of unbelievable size, a wooden rocking chair in one corner, and a tub in the far corner.

There were also three others like her: a woman on the changing table with tears in her eyes, a man lying on the floor with a coloring book in front of him, and another woman sleeping soundly in the closest crib. They all had childish shirts or dresses that did nothing to hide the thick diapers between their legs. 

They also each had a wristband on their left wrist. Bala watched anxiously as she was deposited in one of the cribs and the bars were pulled up. Even if she could find the will to stand, her head would only barely crest the top of the bars. Then the woman - the caregiver - left her to attend to the teary-eyed girl on the changing table.

Bala tried desperately to analyze, to make connections, to put two and two together without the aid of blocks. But her mind was so addled, so foggy, so utterly and thoroughly conditioned that she couldn't catch the tail of any thoughts. And besides, the foggy softness of her thoughts was nothing compared to the softness of the crib mattress. She wriggled her behind, her diaper crinkling, and then laid out on her stomach on the soft mattress. She almost felt human.

There were sounds all around Bala, but they were growing easy to ignore. She had been sleeping on hard tile for who-knows-how-long, and the mattress was intoxicating. There was no pillow, but she had brought her baby blanket with her. Between that and the mattress, it was easy for her to nod off for a nap. 

It could have been an hour or a minute, but Bala felt herself lifted into the air. She opened her eyes to the blurry room and whimpered behind her pacifier. The woman - the same one as before - carried her to the changing table.

The changing table should have been humiliating to her, it should have made Bala feel resistant, embarrassed, vulnerable. Her diapers had become so routine by now though, so automatic, that it barely registered when the woman laid her down on her back. 

"Let's get you changed, little one, you made a biiiig stinky this time, huh sweetie?" That brought warmth and color to Bala’s cheeks. The worst part was, Bala couldn't tell if it was shame or pride.

In a strange way, Bala was happy to have someone else change her diapers. For days or weeks or months, she had been cleaning up after herself. Every day she felt herself losing more and more of her capabilities, and the only one she was left with was the one she didn't like. Now, that one thing she could do was being taken away too, and Bala was happy to see it gone. 

The blonde caregiver pulled a diaper out from under the changing table and set it aside. Then she reached into her pocket and grabbed a plastic bracelet. She slid it over Bala's hand and pulled it tight on her wrist. As her caregiver went about cleaning up her messy diaper, Bala inspected the bracelet. 

It was made of hard plastic, like hospital bands, but soft around the edges. Comfortable, easy to forget about. There was a barcode on the strap, along with her name - Khatri, Bala - and a number: 1199.

Bala hadn't thought about numbers bigger than three in so long, and the numbers were pleasing to her eye. 1199. Two little soldiers, and some gusts of wind. Two big tall flower stems, and a butterfly. A snail sandwiched between another snail. 

So many pretty shapes and potential stories to tell. She found herself giggling, struck with the kind of childish imagination that no adult had - a result of her isolation.

Before Bala knew it, she was taped in a fresh diaper. Her shirt was pulled off over her head and replaced with a short purple one. Bala was picked up and set gingerly on the floor of the room while she was still reading over her bracelet. When she looked up, the caregiver had gone. 

After a moment, she took in the room. So many toys, so many options. And interestingly: other people. The teary-eyed girl wasn't crying anymore; she was stacking blocks in the corner. The boy was still coloring and that other girl was still asleep.

Just like a baby, Bala didn't make any attempt to talk to the people around her, but she did crawl toward the girl with the blocks. The idea of sitting with someone. Being with someone. Playing with someone. She'd been alone for what might have been a lifetime, and the idea of... of a friend! Of someone else who'd been taught the same things she'd been taught... 

Bala crawled over to the girl, fell back on her crinkling butt, and then began to stack blocks adjacent to the girl. The girl looked over at Bala, at her shirt, at her diaper, and at the smile behind her pacifier. A curious look filled her eyes. As Bala continued to play with the blocks, the girl moved closer and took Bala's left hand, reading her bracelet. Then, maybe as an act of companionship, she showed Bala her own. Sinclair, Ai #1091

1091. A knife and fork around a plate and coffee mug! Bala giggled, and then looked the girl in the eye. Eye to eye. Both of them viewed each other from behind binkies, but that moment of connection, of kindred soul; Bala felt like she knew the other girl like a sister. 

Ai. That was a cute name. Perhaps in pursuit of sisterhood, Bala raised a block for Ai and pointed at her little uneven pile, inviting her to play together. Having a friend would be... delightful.

[Hawkx1]

A knife and fork around a plate and coffee mug for 1091? I don't see it

[Cya]

Would it be wrong for me to assume that this is a happy ending?

[Sarah Penguin]

 

[WBDaddy]

12 hours ago, Hawkx1 said:

A knife and fork around a plate and coffee mug for 1091? I don't see it

0 = plate.

9 = coffee mug with the handle turned toward you. 

Fork with one tine, but... 

[Mia Moore]

15 hours ago, Hawkx1 said:

A knife and fork around a plate and coffee mug for 1091? I don't see it

3 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

0 = plate.

9 = coffee mug with the handle turned toward you. 

Fork with one tine, but... 

[WBDaddy]

2 hours ago, Mia Moore said:

Yep.  The author is doing a nice job of demonstrating to us the extremely childlike imagination the MC has gained since being isolated all that time. 

[Mia Moore]

Honestly, I think "a snail sandwiched between another snail" is much weirder imagery. ?

[~Brian~]

@Mia Moore

1 hour ago, Mia Moore said:

Honestly, I think "a snail sandwiched between another snail" is much weirder imagery. ?

I would agree: when I looked at that number, it took me a few minutes to understand what you meant when someone said that it looks like somebody’s table setting. I thought it was kind of cute, and I laughed because it reminded me of exactly what somebody wanted me to think it did. It just took me a while to understand what they were talking about.

I think it is a nice time in between Ai Sinclair and Bala.  Also like the way that we are imagining how Bella gets from her “area“ that has all of the floor tiles that heat up and cool off as a voice direct her, to a place where she is in a nursery, with a bunch of cribs, a bunch of people, a bunch of young ones, and very cute and understanding caregivers. I love the story so far, because basically what we are dealing with is a voice that is telling her that she hast to do something:  it’s like Pavlovs dogs: you conditioned them to expect that something should happen when you do something else: basically Bala Has to follow what the voice tells her to do, or the voice turns off her warm areas, leaving her to be cold. Apparently, we are now seeing the link between Ai and Bala, end it looks like Miss Bala has earned the next level, which means that she will be taken care of for the for seeable future by a bunch of really nice sweet individuals who have her best interest at heart.

as I said: I love this story: and it does remind me of the “baby Hotel“ series: because when you do something that they want you to do, you get a reward: when you do something that you’re not supposed to do, you get punished, so after a while you’re conditioned that you want to do the right thing otherwise you get punished. It’s just like a dog in the example of Pavlov pavlov: if every time you ring a bell, and you put a bowl of food out for a dog, every time you ring the bell, the dog actually will eventually associate the bell ringing with getting fed, and may salivate just as the scientific experiments showed. When my dad had a couple of pugs, one of them was quite young, and one of them was a senior citizen. When DAD. Went into the kitchen, the dog would say exactly where he was left. If DAD opened a can with a can opener, look out! That dog would fly off of the couch and fly around the corner and wait until my father emptied whatever he had in the can in there feeding bowls. DAD actually did this in front of me, and said “watch this Brian” and then, he took two cans out, open them with a can opener and within 3 seconds, The dogs are ready to eat, waiting for my dad to fill their bowls.

@Mia Moore  keep going, because I think you’re doing awesome! While I read stories like this, or any stories at all online, I try to imagine what is going on with the individual as you were describing in written form what is happening. Sometimes I close my eyes and wonder and try to visualize exactly what you are trying to convey and written word. Some people think that written word is not powerful, but it is! When I started reading books when I was 17, and even before that, each time I would read a novel, I would try to envision The area, the scenery, the characters, and every action that they would do. For example: in a Star Trek novel, they were talk about Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock for example, and they said “Spock crosses the bridge and goes to The turbo lift, and goes to his quarters to meditate“. I would visualize this particular action and it felt like I was actually on the enterprise doing what the author is saying in written form.

I love the story keep it up! Look forward to more chapters and more content from you!
 

Brian

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Eight

For a long time, Bala and Ai played adjacently in silence. The boy on the other side of the room continued to color, but soon he was nodding off with his cheek on the book and the crayon in his hand. Sleep came so easily to them; it was so ordinary to nap. 

Just as Bala realized she was getting hungry, a door opened on the far side of the room. If it had been there before, Bala hadn't noticed it. The same blonde caregiver came in with a cart of baby bottles and snacks.

There was a certain niceness to having her every need anticipated and addressed. Food when she was hungry. Toys when she needed the stimulation. Naps when she was sleepy. Diaper changes when she was stinky. 

Maybe this wasn't a curse, or a punishment, maybe this was a reward and she hadn't seen it before. Or maybe she was just trying to rationalize. 

Either way, the caregiver brought her over a plate of cut up fruits and a small pudding cup, two chicken nuggets, and some wobbly jello cubes, all laid out on a colorful tray. Her tray was mint green. Ai's were lilac. Each seemed to have different colored foods too, different fruit choices. Bala let her binkie drop from her lips and smiled happily at the food. 

"Thank you!" She meant to say, but the binkie was still leaving her lips when she did, so it was more of a "Fanku."

The boy crawled over and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He let the pacifier fall from his mouth and mimicked Bala: "Fanku." Ai took the pacifier out with her hand and let it dangle from the clip on her shirt, but she didn't say anything at all. 

The blonde caregiver left bottles beside each of the trays and went to the crib. She lowered the bars and picked up the other girl, who looked like she had been awake for a while. The caregiver took her to the rocking chair and placed a bottle’s nipple between her lips, holding the girl close to her chest and humming a soft song. 

Bala watched as the baby woman seemed to melt into her caregiver’s lap and Bala felt a pang of jealousy. Being held that way, being embraced and nurtured... that girl, could she hear the caregiver’s heartbeat? Could she feel the heat of her breath? Bala missed with a piece of fruit as she distractedly pushed it to her lips, and sticky strawberry juice ran down her chin.

Ai sipped at her bottle without much thought. The boy had rolled onto his back as he drank his own. Bala put the nipple between her mouth and started to suck, her eyes fixated on the caregiver. Then she felt a tap on her thigh. She turned to find Ai shaking her head. She pointed to the coloring books in the corner, where the boy had been napping earlier that day. 

Then, with her bottle between her teeth, Ai started to crawl across the carpet. Bala, with hesitance, left the comforting sight of the caregiver and the baby in her lap to follow Ai. She'd gotten good at crawling, and Bala held the baba between her teeth as she crawled in pursuit. 

What was over here? Why was Ai taking her this way? What if it was her turn to be held and cuddled next? That was logical, right? They'd all get turns? Bala’s heart ached for that kind of physical contact.

Ai pulled out some coloring books and flipped through the pages until she found one she was looking for: a sheet with outer space and planets. She fumbled around until she found a black crayon and started writing in the empty space. 

Don't fall for it. It's a trick. 

Then, after she was sure Bala had read the words, she colored over them with the black crayon.

It was surreal to Bala, because everything here had been running so smoothly. Once she'd stopped resisting and fighting things, she'd become complacent, then content, and then happy. These words that Ai was writing - what did they mean? They were going to take all this away, to destabilize things, to make her cold in a way she could never forget. 

With panic rising in her chest, Bala shook her head and fought back tears. With her black crayon, Ai tried again. 

Don't cry. I'm sorry. Drink your bottle. 

As Ai colored over her words in black crayon, Bala tilted her bottle so she could get some of the milk in her mouth. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to calm her down.

Bala didn't want to cause ripples with her new friend. Bala didn't want to cause ripples with her new life. She was happy! She just wanted a friend, she wanted a hug, she wanted attention. 

Her brain was all muddled up, but she sucked on the bottle and Ai looked at her with a sense of sadness. Ai would try again, after a moment of thought.

I know it's easy to be happy here 

Once more, Ai colored over her words. 

But there's more going on, you know it 

Ai finished coloring the space background and picked a new crayon: orange, for one of the planets. She had to write smaller. 

Just think about it, please

Bala looked torn and twisted, pulled between the two things she longed for more than anything. Her two sources of happiness. If she did what Ai said, then Ai would be her friend, right? But if Ai got her in trouble, she'd get punished. 

Bala rubbed her hands up her arms and shivered, but Ai seemed prepared. She got up on her knees to wrap her arms around the shivering girl in a cuddle. Bala melted into her hug, her dark skin against Ai's, with the warmth of affection and body heat permeating her anxiety. But as she did, she also caught a glimpse of the caregiver, watching curiously with the grown diapered woman in her lap. For some reason, the blonde woman made Bala nervous. 

When the hug was over, Ai passed Bala a crayon and the two of them continued to color and drink their bottles. The fears about what Ai had said swiftly left Bala's mind and she was once again happy in her obliviousness. 

Bala was only pulled away from coloring when the caregiver lifted Ai up under her arms and took her away. But that wasn't any of her concern.

Bala continued to play, doing every single thing she could think of in order to block out the words that Ai had put into her mind. Bala was happy now. She was happy! She was never happy before, never happy running from patient to patient, never time to change her diaper, and never happy with the stern hospital administrator. Her dreams reminded her of everything; how could she forget? 

Thankfully, she was taken away from the torture of her thoughts by the boy she'd seen earlier. He crawled up next to her to investigate the newest arrival. Bala smiled and held up her bracelet for him to see. Khatri, Bala 1199. He looked at it, puzzling for a second over the letters, and then smiled and held up his own. 

Dixon, Phillip #588

Phil held out a wooden train and babbled around his pacifier. Most of the words didn't seem to make sense, but Bala caught a few. 

"Wan play?" 

Bala nodded her head and took the train from Phil. He got back to his hands and knees and started crawling back to the train set. As Bala followed, she could see the seat of his diaper. It was discolored and sagging between his thighs. If he cared, he sure didn't show it.

[snowwhite]

Hello Mia Moore I have been following your story´s from the beginning.
I'm not sure if I should love your story´s or hate it!

Untile to day, I only follow your story, because your writingstyle is fantastic and I still hope something will happen.

With chapter 8, my perseverance of things was finally rewarded.
You did more for the content in this one chapter, than in all 7 chapters before.

If I were to summarize these 7 chapters they would become 2 and I would write them as sterile as this cold sterile room was.
It would have also become only a protocol of the events as Bala was changed in her thought psyche.
 

In chapter 8 you have now managed again that I even wanted to answer you and had to!

I will not speculate, because your story is impossible to predict.
That's the best compliment an author can get, when he manages to keep his readers interested without giving away his content!

Realy good job!

Your pacifier as a profile picture, has already deceived me perfectly once.
In you as an author is both a dark and a gentle side.
And that is the reason, why I am not able to predict your story.
That makes your story especially worthwhile.

Let's take the coloring book... Aliens was clear to me right after chapter 1 but at the latest after chapter 2!

But now after chapter 8 ??? Wrong track or right track?

I am not shure that it be aliens!
Not so, how you write ...

(damed)
I don´t know! ... big smile

But I belive AI has problems now ... if I think on your dark side ...

Therefore I can only repeat myself ... very good work

I'll be honest, I always hope that more the dark side wins, simply because I'm not an AB.

I am excited what happend next

Thanks for sharing this
best regards, from bad mad snowwhite

[Bonsai]

Will Ai corrupt/redeem Bala or will Bala corrupt/redeem Ai?

This (and much more) in... Academy C!

Soon on the screen of your favourite device!

[DLJeff52]

Thank you for this story!  Truly enjoyable!  Keep it up!

[Mia Moore]

Chapter Nine

"I’m Livi!" The girl who had been breastfeeding toddled up to Bala. She spoke with unusual exuberance you don’t usually see on an adult. Bala caught a glance at her bracelet: "Antwood, Olivia #98". 

"Bala," Bala answered with her own name, never speaking above a whisper. Pangs of anxiety welled up in her chest; she had been doing her best not to talk out of turn.

"Hi Bawa it's bewwy nice to meet you! Do you wanna play wif' me? I'ma playin' tendies." 

Bala blinked in confusion. Tendies? Pretend, maybe? 

Bala nodded her head tentatively. This whole situation was pretty far out of her comfort zone. The cold room had given her a lot of fear of misbehaving, but Livi didn't seem to be afraid at all. For a moment, Bala was... jealous.

"Okies! I'ma be the Mama and yous the baby and and and," Livi picked up a dolly off the floor that had been bundled in a blanket for safekeeping. "Dolly issa be your big sister! Otay? Otay!" 

Bala didn't want to be the baby. She didn't want a doll to be her older sister. But she wanted to play and stop thinking so much, so she followed all of Livi's rules.

Livi talked a lot, but it didn't take Bala long to notice that she always seemed to talk the same way. She used the same stupid words for things, almost infantile caricatures of real words. It was artificial, but it wasn't an act. 

As far as Bala could tell, Livi was speaking that way because she wanted to. In a way, Bala understood. Livi wasn't afraid. She was exactly what this place wanted her to be. In that way, she was free. 

The two grown women played baby games for the better part of the day. Bala started to get sleepy, and the lights dimmed only a few minutes later. The timing of her schedule was so consistent, it was impossible to fight. Two caregivers came in at the same time - the blonde one that Bala had already met and a brunette with glasses.

The brunette took Livi to the changing table. The other squeezed Bala's padded butt, causing a moment of instinctual panic. Bala had dealt with that a lot at the hospital in her early days. 

"You're a bit soggy," the caregiver said openly. "But you can last until morning."

If her caregiver said so, it had to be true. Bala didn't remember wetting, but she also couldn't remember the last time she did remember wetting. A part of her brain wondered if that made her incontienent, but a bigger part told her that it made her a good girl.

"Fankoo," Bala mumbled around her binkie. She knew that gratitude was allowed, and it was one of the few ways she knew she was allowed to speak.

The caregiver set Bala softly in her crib, soft and plush and easy to melt into. Bala sucked her pacifier and curled up with her blanket, watching the room through the bars of her cage. But the cage was not to protect the world from her; it was to protect her from the world. She watched the scenes unfold around her.

Livi stood on two feet as the blonde caregiver stripped her of her dress. Her large breasts were so incongruent to the diaper around her hips, but she was rubbing her eyes like a toddler. 

Phil sucked a pacifier and stared out from his own crib. He looked so sleepy, like it was the most exhausting day of his life. 

Ai was laying naked on the changing table as the brunette ran a wipe between her legs. She wore a strange expression on her face, something Bala couldn't quite place... 

But before she could piece the whole thing together, she had fallen asleep.

Bala sat nervously in the director's office. She had been waiting for nearly an hour and her tummy hurt. She wanted to stand up and bend over, but she was told to remain seated. Bala always obeyed. 

After a few more minutes of discomfort, she decided it was best to push. Seated like that, messing herself was a lot harder. It took effort and concentration. It was a conscious choice, instead of a happy accident. 

And just as she finished, her diaper stinky and full, the hospital director walked in, followed by a woman in scrubs. Bala didn't recognize her right away, and then - suddenly, like a flash - she remembered the head nurse. 

"Bala you've been such a good girl," the director said, "but you are focusing too much on yourself. You aren't getting enough work done." 

"I... I'm sorry," Bala muttered under her breath. She felt tears in her eyes. One ounce of disappointment and she felt like she would break down at any moment. 

"From now on, to keep you on task, the head nurse will attend to your personal needs. Feeding. Diaper changes. Putting you to bed. Her and I will make all your decisions from now on." Bala nodded her head and wiped her eyes. She understood. 

"Could I, um..." Bala hesitated at her words. For some reason, she felt like asking permission was wrong. Almost supernaturally, the head nurse answered her question. 

"I'll change your stinky diaper when I have time. Until then, get back to work." 

Bala got to her feet and left the room. She wanted a change, but her wants didn't matter. Bala always obeyed.

As Bala closed the door behind her, she turned to see someone new. Standing in front of her, with a ruler in her hand, was a small Asian girl. Bala couldn't remember her name. Then the girl slapped Bala's hand sharply with the ruler. She let out a cry of pain. 

"Ow!" The girl hit her again on the shoulder, harder this time. "Ow! Stop that!" 

Just before the girl swung the ruler a third time, Bala opened her eyes. She was sucking her pacifier, even as she woke up. The lights were off and the nursery was lit only by the glow of a nightlight in the distance. But as her eyes adjusted, she noticed some pieces of wooden train tracks beside her in the crib. 

How did those get there? The question was quickly answered as another wooden toy landed squarely on Bala's head. 

"Ow!" Bala whined, muffled by the pacifier. 

"Shh!" A nearby voice drew Bala's gaze. Ai was sitting in her crib, staring through the bars, only five feet away.

"I'm sorry if I scared you earlier," Ai whispered quietly. She didn't have a pacifier between her lips, though there was one clipped to her shirt. Bala didn't have a clip, but she never took hers out anyway. "I know it's scary at first... everything is scary at first. I promise, it gets easier."

Bala nodded her head in understanding, although she was petrified over the idea that Ai was talking. Did Ai have those privileges the way that Olivia did? Had they both been better girls than she had? In response to Ai's reassurance, Bala touched her pacifier guard and then shook her head, just so she could be clear that she wasn't allowed to talk. Ai took a moment to understand, then nodded her head. 

"You can talk. There aren't a lot of rules here, like in the cold place. They already expect us to obey everything they say. This is our... reward." Ai said it with a touch of uncertainty, like she didn't believe it.

Reward. The word made Bala warm to the touch. She liked being rewarded; that meant she'd done the right thing. Nonetheless, Bala erred on the side of caution and chose to talk with her binkie still in place. 

"Weward..." The word was pretty mangled by her paci filled mouth. "I unnerstan." Ai sighed and crossed her arms. Clearly that wasn't the response she had wanted. 

"Listen," Ai whispered. "Tomorrow, they're going to Melt you; they always do it with the newcomers. You can't let them win, okay? If they do, you'll wind up like Olivia. And... and I can't do this alone. Please?"

"Melt?" It wasn't a word that Bala was familiar with, but the urgency in Ai's voice filled hers with a little bit of dread all the same. "Do what alone? What happened to Livi?"

"When you come out of the cold place, you're so afraid. You just want things to be warm and easy and... and it's easy to give up." Ai spoke quietly, but with a sense of anguish. She had seen it happen so many times. "I call it Melting... they overwhelm you with so much affection and praise and love... but it's not real. It's not..."

"It's not...?" There was a bit of longing in Bala's muffled tone, because she knew full well that any sense of love, compassion, affection, or praise would come as something more essential to her than air or water. She craved it. She needed it. She'd been alone for so long... 

"Why issit bad?" Bala asked. "I wanna be loved. I was a good girl..."

"Listen. Just. Listen." Ai clenched her fists tight at her sides and shook her head. "Why are you even here? Why are they doing this to us? Aren't you curious?" Bala stared blankly. Ai wasn't getting through to her. "What did you do before this place? Do you remember?"

"I was a nurse. It was hard, and I was tired all the time..." Bala felt a little sick talking about it. Her dream she'd woken up from reminded her that things were so difficult without the help of adults.

"A nurse, okay... so you probably cared a lot about other people?" Ai bit her lip in concentration. "There are over a thousand people here. Kidnapped, like us. Put in cold rooms and turned into babies. Why would they do that?"

That number seemed mind-boggling to Bala, but it made sense if the numbers on their bracelets were sequential. She sucked anxiously on her binkie, but the question kept running through her head. 

Kidnapped. Turned into babies. Why? 

"I was..." Bala frowned deeper, trying to put the pieces together, "I was tired… everything was too hard. When I started wearing diapers, it got easier. When I let the head nurse take care of me, it got easier. I want it to be easy..."

"No, Bala," Ai said. "That wasn't real. They have a way of... of getting in your head or something. I can't explain it. But they make you have these dreams. Weird dreams. And you think they're real, but they aren't."

"Um..." Bala was shaking her head before she entirely processed what Ai was saying, because the parts of her that kept her safe and happy in her new life demanded that she deny that allegation. "You don' know... you didn' know me… it was real..."

Ai knew better than to try to change the past. The dreams felt so real, and they were so easy to accept; she knew first hand. She had tried this angle with Livi too, and it didn't work. But there was something unique about Bala. Even when she was scared, she was always looking around. Not curious, but... thoughtful? That didn't go unnoticed. 

"Just think about it, okay? Does any of this really make sense?" Ai was desperate. She had to cling to something, and she was hoping that Bala's rationality could conquer her conditioning.

"Um..." This could have been a test, and a screaming like white noise in her head kept telling her it was: Ai was trying to trip her up. It was so easy to believe, and yet... "How long um... what comes next? And how long have you been here... an' Livi?"

"I... I don't know," Ai admitted, looking at her crib mattress. "Livi is new. A week or so, I think. Before her, there was a boy with Phil and me. I don't know where he went..." Every word Ai said was dripping with anxiety. She wasn't at all sure of herself, and Bala could tell.

"Maybe um... um... maybe you could ask the people for help? With your worries?" Despite her words, it was clear even with the binkie that Bala was uncertain. Maybe Ai was making her think. Maybe something didn't smell right, and it wasn't just her diaper.

"Listen," Ai whispered. "I... I can't keep talking like this. I'm already in enough trouble. But I had to warn you. If you let them Melt you, if you let them take the fear away... you won't ever get it back. And if you aren't afraid, you'll never get out of here. You'll never figure out what's going on..."

It was one heck of an ultimatum to give a person: deny the love and affection and adoration and praise coming for you, abandon it in search of the fear you could be holding onto? 

There was a voice deep inside of Bala that would have made that decision so easily, that would have burned down her own house to keep her independence. And now, so much closer to the surface, so much more familiar, so much more dripping with love, Bala could so strongly rationalize how easy it would be to give in. She'd done her time. She'd had her punishments. She'd suffered. And she'd grown. 

Why was she doubting her happy ending? Ai was bad for her. And yet when she inhaled and held her breath, she could hear that part of her from deep inside. Screaming.

"Do whatever you think is right," Ai muttered, sighed, and sunk into her mattress. Whatever choices Bala would make, it seemed like the conversation was over.

Bala didn't sleep for a long while, but eventually her routine got the better of her. She finally drifted off to sleep to finish the dream she was having. When she woke up, she could hardly remember it.

[Sarah Penguin]

:)

[snowwhite]

It's just great how you've been slowly turning the tension screw since chapter 8.

The instrument strings are slowly getting tighter and the sound is getting higher and better.

I'm really curious where you're sending your readers and what the real goal of this organization is.

I wrote a similar story, only I have to honestly admit, your beginning is much more mature and insidious.
My focus was more on, what became of the diaper slaves after they were sold by the organization.

With you, it's not even clear why it's being done to them and what will become of them!
And the best part is, that you still manage to be unpredictable!

Great cinema, even if you should now go a different way than I hope, I will not forget your story as soon as.

Of course you get a trophy more from me, for your good work.