Tale #74: The Here, Then, and Now (Alternative Ending)

Tale #74: The Here, Then, and Now (Alternative Ending) (Commissioned by Beastbear as a 'bad' ending version.) (Content Tags: Messy diapers, humiliation, regression, mental regression, surreal horror) It was do or die time; I'd wrapped the entity in the reel, in the 'flesh' of my past self, and it was time to see if my plan would work. The way I imagined it, the entity would become the target of the rest of its 'hive', and that'd cause a chain reaction that would spread to the entire system. It seemed like a flawless plan! Or at the very least, it felt like the only thing I could think to do. I'd become so desperate to be free of the creature, that I was willing to gamble it all away on a gambit. I wasn't just risking the current me, but the 'untainted' me too; if I didn't succeed here, then everything was over. I watched with trembling knuckles as the bait was sufficient in attracting my prey; Vincent, or rather 'a Vincent', was coming out of the aether. It appeared in the otherworldly fashion that I'd grown to fear all this time, and it had those same hungry eyes. It stopped in front of its disguised brethren and looked to be trying to feast; from inside the safety of the house, I couldn't hear what it was asking, but I could see the lips moving. "I think that did it..." I heard myself murmuring in disbelief. It sounded too good to be true. Months of nonstop terror and misery, and it'd all been brought to a halt by a harebrained scheme that'd I'd hatched on the fly? I looked to the other version of myself and offered a weak smile; I put out my hand for him to hold onto, and we stepped outside the security of the house. With the creature subdued, I needed to figure out the next step, and that meant coming out to examine the two bodies that'd seemingly been put into a loop. I shut the door behind us and approached the pair; it was strange to see yet another version of 'me', even if I knew that it was little more than a skin suit on a beast. "What do we do now?" The younger 'me' asked, staring at the same sight that I was. "I...I don't know. I thought it'd be like a computer, and that this would crash it." I sheepishly admitted with a shrug; I didn't fully expect it to work, so I hadn't thought about what would happen next. I put a finger under my chin. "Stay here and watch them. Maybe if I can take a picture of then, then that'll mess things up. They're never supposed to be visible to anyone else, so a camera might break enough rules for something to happen." The younger yet bigger version of myself looked anxious at the idea of being left alone, but he nodded quietly and allowed me to go back inside. I considered getting my parents instead and making them see what they'd called my 'imaginary friend', but I wasn't sure if that would lead to anything; I still wasn't sure they were anything more than constructs of my own memory. I found my dad's old Polaroid camera and checked to make sure it still had film; satisfied, I took the camera and headed back outside to test my newest theory. Everything looked like it was still in place, so I aimed the lense and snapped a shot of the two entities. The picture slid out from the camera and I grabbed it carefully by the corner; it took a few good shakes to develop and for the black to turn to something real. Once I finally held it up and took a good look, my blood ran cold. Nowhere in the picture was one of the creatures. Instead, the only subject in the picture was a toddler version of me, except with a vacant look more befitting of an infant less than six months old. I lowered the picture and gasped at seeing that the picture was accurate to what was actually now in front of me. I realized the version of me that I'd left to stand watch was gone, and that this devolved version was now in place of him. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened; the creatures had gotten to him and eaten away at him until he was reduced to being mentally a babbling infant. I wanted to apologize to him for getting him into this situation in the first place, but it wouldn't have mattered. He was on his back and putting his toes in his mouth to drool on; his bulky diaper was getting farted and pooped in before my very eyes. Whoever he had once been was gone, and the culprits were-- "When was the last time you pooped the bed?" The entities hadn't been stuck in a loop; they'd been paralyzed by being seen by two people at once, but when I'd gone to get the camera, they'd been able to make short work of that other person. Needless to say that the toe-muncher didn't count as another pair of sapient eyes. "I-I was eight years old. I watched Poltergeist that night and I was really scared. I had a nightmare about it while I was asleep, and I woke up with my pajamas full of poop..." The other entity reappeared to my left, "Why was your nickname 'Captain Stinky'?" "I used to beg my mom not to change my poopy diapers...I really liked to sit in them, especially when they were really full..." I hardly had enough time to recognize what was happening; the two entities had closed in on me and were prepared to ask enough questions to stop me from ever being a problem again. I was the stubborn sailor in the belly of the whale, having refused digestion all this time, but now I was poking at the innards and my presence was no longer something to brush off. Each question would send my brain into frantic recollection; I could vividly remember that morning that I'd woke up, and the shame I'd felt when I realized my underpants were full of squishy logs of shame. The tears I'd cried, the discomfort of having to peel the loaded briefs off, and the further shame of having to admit what had happened to my parents. And then I was jettisoned in the other direction, to a happy memory of being two years old and feeling my onesie tighten as my diaper expanded out. The soothing warmth of a messy diaper that kept getting filled further and further; the playful teasing of being asked if I wanted my diaper changed, and the vehemence I'd had against that. My mind was already getting dizzy, and yet this assault had just begun. The creatures weren't going to give me a chance to fight back, or even a chance to collect myself; from what it appeared, they were prepared to gnaw my bones down with the same speed that they'd used on the other 'me'. "Why didn't you like Halloween as a kid?" It was like I was really there in my own memory. Every Halloween from early childhood, all mashed into one blended nightmare. No matter how brave I tried to be, it always ended the same; with me getting spooked and-- --I felt myself pooping. My diaper had changed to become clean again, though it'd gotten thicker in the process, and now I was pooping. Just as the memory had ended, and while I was verbally reciting what I'd found, a big turd was snaking its way out into my Huggies. "Did you get caught stealing diapers?" "Y-yes...More than once. My parents caught me when a couple of times when I was four and six, and I had a friend catch me when I was eight; I'd been sleeping over, and his little brother still wore them..." I'd all but forgotten about that evening. It was near the end of the years that I'd been honest with myself about my curiosities. I'd gone to spend the night at a friend's house, and I'd acted so flabbergasted when I discovered his preschool age brother was still not pottytrained. I'd made comments about how gross diapers were and made a show of my disdain for them, but in the middle of the night is when I'd made a hypocrite of myself. One had been left out in the living room, and that's where we'd fallen asleep watching movies. I'd surprisingly stayed dry when I woke up, which had been a big win for a bedwetter, but then I'd remembered that diaper... I took it into the bathroom and put it on. It felt so liberating to wear! I'd put my pajamas back on over it and gone back to bed, since I couldn't imagine at the time that anyone could find out. Come early that morning, my friend had shaken me awake to ask why I was wearing it; my pajama pants had lowered due to my restless sleeping, and the juvenile garment was fully visible (and soaked). "...I told him that I was a bedwetter, which was the truth. But I also told him the diaper was mine, which was a lie." "What was your favorite time that you messed yourself?" Six years old. My parents had invited a friend over with a toddler son; at one point, they'd changed him and carelessly put the diaper on the top of the bin inside my bathroom. The diaper was wet, but at that age, I didn't care at all. I'd put it on and pretended to act like a baby in front of the mirror. There had been no thought of consequences or social repercussions; all that had mattered was being able to cling to the idyllic, halcyon days of my youth. I sucked on my thumb and crawled around in the diaper, but that hadn't been enough to sate my needs. I'd felt that familiar rumbling in my belly, and *that* had felt right to me. With my butt wagging at the mirror, I remembered watching myself as I took a dump in the diaper. I watched the creases of the garment smooth out, and the material bulging further out with every big push that I made. It'd felt so completely natural. After being satisfied with the hefty pantload, I'd proceeded to fully rebel against the toilet by putting the lid down and taking a seat. The warm mush being flattened and then smearing in all directions was heavenly; the gross sound it made, and the way it made my skin tingle to feel those gassy little 'pops' as I gyrated my butt around on the flat seat. I don't know if I'd ever felt more contentedly infantile. "...Until my parents caught me, stinking up the place. They didn't get mad though; they just got me cleaned up and reminded me I was supposed to be a big boy. They probably just thought I was jealous of the baby." A gassy outburst erupted in my diaper and I could suddenly feel that another volley of muck was coming to join with the large steamer I'd already released. I didn't mind it though, it actually felt kind of...Good. "How did you prove to your parents that you weren't ready for Pull-Ups?" Had that happened? Yes, of course, it was becoming more clear. They'd been so adamant about pottytraining me, and I'd been so resistant to it. This was before I'd been forced to give up my diapers, before I'd even turned three yet. "They took me to the store, so I could pick out what training pants I wanted to wear. They had been hyping it up all week; they thought they could get me to change my mind about leaving diapers behind if I got to choose the cartoon character I'd be wearing..." They'd really thought that Mickey would be enough to sway me; it was actually the same way with how things had went when it was time to transition from the Pull-Ups to regular underwear. So I was standing there in the diaper aisle. They were directing my attention to the blue packages of Pull-Ups, but all I could look at were all the different packages of diapers that surrounded them. Huggies, Pampers, Luvs... I didn't want to give up that comfort. They asked and I refused. I refused over and over again; I told them I wanted diapers, that I wanted to *stay* in diapers. When they'd reached to pick a package of Pull-Ups themselves, that was when I'd made my bold declaration of how serious I was. I squatted down, right there in the diaper aisle, and I intentionally emptied my bowels. I hadn't had to really go, so I'd had to put a lot of effort into pooing myself. My face had gotten really red, I was loudly grunting, and midway through I even tugged back at my own waistband to give my impending load an easier time. "...It would be a few m-mmph! M-months before they t-tried again..." The whole time I'd just been talking, while in the meadow of my memory, I'd been reenacting the same stunt here in the backyard. My knees were bent, my face felt warm, and I'd been shamelessly and aggressively grunting. The extra weight of the new solids in my diaper was proof I'd been just as successful now as I had been as a tot. ...Was I also smaller? By just a smidge? Would I even be able to tell by this point? "What was the largest accident you ever had in your pants?" First week of Kindergarten. I remember that I'd been constipated all that week, possibly because of my own nerves. Fearing my health, my mom had given me some kind of laxative or stool softener to help things along. In a rare instance, I'd actually gotten put in a diaper before heading to class that day; I remember being happy about it, even if my mother wasn't. Perhaps it was just too risky to send me off in underwear after being blocked for so long. There was no expectation that I was to actually use it, which my mom had reiterated at least three times before dropping me off at class; she'd even taken the time to speak with my Kindergarten teacher about my current problem, and that I might need to suddenly visit the restroom once the laxative kicked in. While I was happy to get to wear a diaper again, I was also socially aware of what that might mean to my peers. The fear of being called a 'baby' put a damper on my diaper desires, and it certainly didn't make me want to actually use the garment to its full potential. So I just enjoyed the bulk of it under my overalls, at least early in the day. But, then that laxative got put to work. The boiling in my gut was one of the most uncomfortable feelings of my young life at that point, and I remember feeling like I wanted to cry. It was supposed to be story time, where I'd sit on the floor with my classmates while our teacher read us a book; I was farting quietly in my diaper and trying to build up the nerve to ask about using the bathroom. Then the dam burst and it was too late to do anything. Wave after wave of mucky filth blasted into my bulky babypants, and the gas involved became a lot less silent in the process; one girl tattled on me and said that I kept farting, but I was doing a whole lot more than that. The diaper felt filled to its maximum capacity, with smoldering mud that oozed across every inch of the garment's interior. While recounting this event out loud, I could feel that my own diaper was being filled with the same explosive diarrhea; the garment was swelling larger and I felt myself getting smaller. "Did you have a blowout?" "Y-yes, the teacher asked if I had an accident, and I lied...But, then my tummy hurt some more and I couldn't hold back and..." The stain in those overalls never came clean; once my diaper had reached its limit, my overalls had been on damage control for the rest of the sloppy unloading. My teacher had to call my mom to come pick me up, and while my classmates didn't know about the diaper, they did see me waddle away with a brown rear. Upon the end of that last memory, the world felt like it was resetting. Everything twisted and reshaped itself; I was still in the backyard, and so was the 'other' me, but there were decorations everywhere, and a banner that said 'Happy 3rd Birthday, Twins!' I looked down at myself, and then at the other me, who still looked to mentally be an infant, and who was currently in the middle of drooling and soiling himself, while playing in a mud puddle. Was this my new prison? An altered history to relive over and over? To forever feed the beast? "Are you a baby now?" It was the last question before reality would change; before I'd lose the last hope of ever escaping this hell. I wanted to scream, to shout, but all I did was start to cry. As my fussy tantrum started, I could feel my thoughts slipping away and my diaper sagging lower between my knees with every gassy plop that my logs made. This was existence for me. For now and forever.