A Slow Descent

Chapter 1
An Unwanted Cure

Chapter Description: This is my first story on here, I would love any critisims you may have. Trust me, this story is Going to be a good one.

"I’m glad you two could come and see me today." said Mrs. Figg. The three adults sat in the school guidance office, a small and musty room off the side entrance of the High School. Ken and Sally Fredricks were sitting at the receiving end, looking discouraged.

"We just need to know what’s best for Brandon." said Ken, his father. "He has gotten out of control..."

Sally gave a slight sob. "It’s ok honey...." he said to his wife. "She’s going to help him."

"Well." said Mrs. Figg. "We don’t know for sure. His grades have always been low yes?"

"When he was ten or eleven, we fought a lot. He sort of isolated himself from us, and the world. And now...." Brandan’s mother stopped speaking.

"He’s gotten into drugs." said Ken. "We don’t know what to do with him anymore... He used to be such a good kid."

"Tell me more about him growing up." said the Guidence Counselor.

-----------

The three talked for a few hours, about Brandon’s isolation from them, about their near divorce. They knew he was a good person, but had shut himself out from them.

"And where is he now?" said Mrs. Figg.

"He should still be here at the school somewhere..."

"Ok." said Mrs. Figg. She stared at them for a moment, as if considering them.

"You will do anything for him? Anything to improve his life? Even if it means having to shatter it a bit first?

The two nodded their heads. They had tried everything, they would do anything to turn Brandon’s life around.

"Good." said Mrs. Figg. "I have a special treatment for him. It hasn’t been well tested, but I know that in this case, it will work."

====================

"Brandon Fredrick’s to the Guidence office, please."

Not again. I can’t be in trouble again. This always happens to me. Two days before the end of school, too.

People always think I’m a bad kid. That I’m a junkie and I don’t care about life. That’s not right at all. In fact, I’m a bit too nice. Except to my parents. But they shut me out of their lives, so I’ve decided that they can be shut out of mine. I don’t need them, except for driving me places. Only until January, though, and then I can drive wherever I wish.

I’m a normal person though, I have a good amount of friends, crappy grades, and I’m usually pretty happy, except when I’m around my folks. That’s when I have to pretend to be a gangster or whatever.

I’ve been trying to make my parents hate me, almost scared of me, so that I don’t have to spend time with them. I stay in my room, they stay in theirs. They are terrible people. A few weeks ago, somebody put a bag full of weed in my locker, just to get me caught. I don’t do drugs, but my parents immediately thought I did, without hearing my side of the story. They can go to hell for all I care.

These are the things I thought about while I walked to the Guidance office. I was really surprised when I saw them in there with my counselor.

"Sit down." said Mrs. Figg.

"What’s going on?" I said as smoothly as possible.

"Brandon, your parents and I have been chatting. None of us think your going in the right direction."

"Sure I am. Just consult my GPA."

"See" Mrs. Figg replied, "That’s exactly the kind of sarcasm and attitude that we are finally going to rid you of."

"What?" I said. "Your not "ridding" me of anything, lady." If my parents weren’t there, I would have been more polite about that.

"Honey." said Mom. "Please, let her speak. It’s not up to you to decide, anymore."

"Indeed." the consoler continued. "You will be loosing a lot of your privileges soon enough." Brandon didn’t like her tone. She pulled out the last report card.

"D,D,F,F,C,D,F." she said.

"Am I being held back?" I said nervously. The truth was, I could be smart if I wanted to, but I didn’t really see the point, my parents didn’t care.

"Sort of." said Mrs. Figg. "You see, I’m a doctor, as well as a counselor. I would like to help you become a better person, Brandon. However, old dogs cant learn old tricks. Which is why we are going you to rid you of being an ’old dog’."

Brandon was really confused now.

She continued. "You will be sent to a special doctor in the city. There, you will receive a special treatment from a friend of mine. You will be made younger."

"Excuse me?" this lady was obviously nuts.

"Over the next few months, your age will decrease. Every month, you use a year, physically and mentally. You will slowly lose the things you’ve learned, including book smarts, memories, and if you have gained it, sexual activity."

He hadn’t, but that still bothered him. "You can’t make me do this!" he said.

"It’s for the best." said his father. "you will have a second chance!"

"And we aren’t going to make you into a baby." said Figg, as if that made it better. "You’ll stop when you hit 9 years old. By then, you won’t know anything is different, all you’ll know is that your a happy third or fourth grader who loves his parents, and playing with his little friends, and getting dirty and being bathed by your mom, and won’t care if she sees you naked. You’ll love wearing Pajamas and eating peanut butter and jelly, smearing it on your face, and thinking girls are Icky."

She was clearly taking enjoyment in this. "And to make sure you don’t try to get away, we will be escorting you there immediately."

A hefty man started lifting me up, (I didn’t see him standing in the doorway.) and carrying me. I didn’t know how he could be so strong, but he carried me all the way into a small ambulance, which, after my parents and Mrs. Figg, started driving to Boston, a big city near us.

"How could you do this to me!" I yelled at my parents. "Your own son!" it was all starting to digest now. "You can’t! It can’t be legal!"

"It’s legal." said Mrs. Figg, her glasses glaring in the sun. "It’s a testing medicine. Soon, it will be all over the world. But first, we are going to get you in order. No more drugs, no more rough housing, no more staying up late, and you certainly won’t get to drive a car in the near future." she said. His parents nodded.

I realized that his parents must hate me. That’s why they’re doing it. Maybe if I apologized?

But I didn’t want to speak. He was too sleepy.. No, he just wanted to... Sleep. He was tired... Sleep............

===========

I woke up staring into the face of a man with a mask on. The man moved away and took it off.

"Hi there." he said. "I’m doctor Gadder."

I knew what he was here for. "Please" I said. "You can’t do this to me."

"C’mon, kiddo!" he said, smiling. "You’ll love being a little kid."

"No I won’t!" I yelled.

"Sure you will. But no need to worry, it won’t happen all at once. You’ll regress very gradually, only losing one year every month. By February, you won’t know what hit you!"

This guy was too happy. "So how long will this ’procedure’ take?" I said.

"Well, we are implanting this vaccine into five parts of your brain. Then, your brain needs time to adjust to it without thinking about anything else except for reducing itself and your body, so we need to give it six weeks to ’reboot’, so you will be in a sort of drowse daze until the six weeks is up. The regression starts immediately however, so when you wake up in the middle of August, you will already be fourteen, physically. One month equals one year."

I didn’t want to hear any more, I had to be dreaming...

The next thing I knew, my mom was there.

"The doctor says they are about to start the procedure, but I wanted to tell you exactly what will happen first. You can’t talk with that tube in your mouth."

She paused. "When you wake up, you will have two weeks to adjust to how weird it will feel. Your body will be about the same, but it will be weird anyway. Then, you will be a new freshman at your high school. Mrs. Figg said that the only way to get you to adjust mentally would be to make you go to school. So, every month, you will be moving down a grade. We are going to treat you as your age, too, you new age, and we won’t stop."

She looked down. "I know you hate it honey, but trust me, you’ll forget you were ever a teenager soon enough, and you can love us again. Sleep tight." she said. The doctor rolled the surgery table over, and started applying novacane.

This was my life now. I was just going to slowly get younger. And slowly get less mature, till I’m a snot nosed little kid who pees his pants. Do nine year olds pee their pants sometimes? I didn’t really know. I guessed i would find out soon enough. Finally, I went unconscious.