Chapter 8

I dashed down the hallway that stretched ahead of me for what seemed like forever. There were doors lining each side all along the infinite corridor, bars of light showing at the bottom of every one of them. I knew that behind one of them was a bathroom, but which one? Finding it was important for some reason, but I was having trouble remembering why.

I tore open the first door I came to and found myself looking into a giant nursery. There was a changing table, a crib, and the kind of bed a toddler would sleep in with small sideguards, all oversized and big enough for an adult. There were also two separate dressers, boxes full of toys, a shelf full of children’s storybooks, a small table littered with crayons and construction paper and coloring books, and a stack of children’s board games. The room was familiar, I knew I had been here before, but I couldn’t remember when.

Regardless, it wasn’t the bathroom.

I returned to the hall and sprinted to the next doorway. Behind that door was another nursery, exactly the same as the last. As with the next three doors.

As I stood standing in the doorway of the fifth nursery, I began wondering why I was panicking. Why was it so important that I find the bathroom? The table full of coloring supplies seemed tempting and it would be just as easy to abandon my search.

I started to take a step into the nursery but willed myself to stop. Somehow, I knew that if I stepped in, something would happen…something bad? I…I wasn’t sure. No, no, I couldn’t go in, I needed to find the bathroom first, I was sure I’d remember why once I did.

Forcing myself to turn away from the nursery, I ran to the next door. And the next. And the next. More nurseries. I looked back down the hallway; I could still see all the open doors leading to infinite iterations of the same nursery. I looked down the other way, the way I was heading, but there were only more open doors and more nurseries. But there, all the way at the end, past all the nurseries, there was the bathroom. A sense of despair washed over me, knowing I could never make it in time, knowing…what? What did I know?

I knew I had to try to get there in time. My footsteps echoed through the corridor as I began running as fast as I could. Empty nurseries zipped past me on either side and my hair was whipped about in the wind. Faster, faster, faster than I thought I could run, until the rooms passed by in a blur, but still the bathroom came no nearer. Still there were an infinite number of nurseries to pass until I reached the bathroom and the gleaming white toilet that seemed perfectly framed in the doorway.

That was it! The realization of why I had to make it to the bathroom crashed into me and only then did I realize how incredibly full my bladder was. It made me stop dead in my tracks, doubling over, but I knew it was already too late and there was no point fighting it. I just stood there, trying not to whimper as warm pee filled my pull-up so swiftly that it couldn’t be absorbed fast enough. It pooled inside the pull-up before finding its way out through the leg guards, running in rivulets down the inside of my thighs.

From off to my right I heard a high pitched giggled, followed by a mocking voice proclaiming, “Claire peed herself again!”

“Oh, sweetheart, another accident?” A second voice asked.

I looked over to see Sabrina and Madison standing in the door way of the nursery. “Aww, is the baby gonna cry because she wet herself?” Sabrina taunted.

“Now, now,” Madison said, laying a hand on Sabrina’s shoulder, “be nice, just because Claire isn’t a big girl like you and still has accidents sometimes doesn’t mean you should make fun of her.”

Sabrina huffed and crossed her arms, “but she’s such a baby,” Sabrina almost whispered, “you should put her back in diapers.”

“Sabrina,” Madison said in a tone of voice that made the implicit warning clear, “Why don’t you go back and play?” Sabrina pouted, but obeyed. Madison watched her go back to the plastic table and pick up a crayon before turning back to me and holding out her hand, “come on my sweet little girl,” she said to me, “let’s get you out of the wet pull-up. I’m afraid Sabrina’s right though, it looks like you’re still too little to try potty training.”

“Yes, Madison,” I said weakly, taking her hand with one of mine while I used the other to scrub away a stray tear that had found its way down my cheek. I followed her in to the nursery and allowed her to lift me up on the changing table. Madison produced a pacifier and stuck it in my mouth before gently pushing me back onto my back. A sense of contentment filled me as I sucked on the pacifier and stared up at the floating shapes above me.

It seemed like both a brief instant and an eternity had passed when Madison proclaimed, “All done!” And helped me up into a sitting position before lifting me up and setting me on my feet on the ground. “What don’t you go play with Madison now?”

I smiled at Madison and mumbled a thank you around the pacifier before I ran off to join Madison. The diaper Madison and put on me was so think that I couldn’t touch my knees together and I had to waddle to the little table.