(AR Story Excerpt)

Here is an excerpt from chapter 2 of a new commissioned story for an anonymous fan. There’s more AR in this chapter, but it could become just about anything as it goes on. Thank you again, anonymous, for the commission!

***

Stephen woke up smiling the next day. He had just had the most realistic and wonderful dream he had ever experienced. It was like one of the AR stories he loved had come to life. He had transformed into a 12-year-old boy and had a wild and somewhat stressful day living out his fantasy. Then, before it was all done, he had returned safely back to normal.

He had tried out hypnosis and lucid dreaming before with the hope that he could at least trick his brain into believing one of his fantasies had come true, but he had never managed to get either technique to work. Reality was just too damn persistent for him to ignore.

But, the dream from last night had occurred all by itself and had seemed so real that he could almost believe that it had actually happened.

“If only...” he grumbled, and then he yawned.

He sat up and stood up and felt disappointingly large and heavy, as if his mind had been rudely forced into the body of an elephant. He ran his hand over the rough stubble on his face and picked a body hair off of his T-shirt in disgust. Then, he lumbered along on his heavy feet to the restroom to relieve himself and start his day. He avoided looking in the mirror, realizing that nothing good would come from that.

Downstairs he found his mother starting to make breakfast.

“Hi, honey,” she greeted him. “I’m making bacon and eggs. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great,” he said. “I’m starving.”

She started the bacon frying while he took a seat at the kitchen table and let out another yawn.

“You all right?” she asked him.

“I’m fine. I guess didn’t get much rest. I had a weird dream.”

“Nightmare?”

“No,” he said as the mouthwatering smell of bacon filled room. “Actually it was kind of fun, but also a bit weird and embarrassing.”

“Sounds like a pretty standard dream to me. Weird is to be expected.”

“Yeah. I guess. This one just felt so… real. It was a wild night.”

“Oh, speaking of last night, you didn’t happen to wander down into the basement again last night? Did you?”

“The basement?” he asked, surprised that she was asking about something from his dream. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the charge on the machine was drained a bit this morning. I know it was full when I left it last night.”

Could it be true? he wondered. “No,” he said. “But, let me check downstairs really quickly. I just remembered... I might have dropped something down there.”

“Be quick,” she said. “The bacon is almost done, and don’t touch anything.”

He walked over and opened the basement door as calmly as he could, and then he ran down the steps. “There it is,” he said as he stood at the bottom of the stairs. The machine was there just as he remembered it. “It is real. The wishing machine is real. It wasn’t just a dream.” He smiled and felt the impulse to walk over to the touch pad right then to make a new wish.

“The eggs are done,” his mother called down to him.

His stomach growled, and he decided that altering the fabric of the universe could wait until after breakfast. So instead, he headed back upstairs to enjoy his breakfast and plan his next wish.

***

Breakfast was good, but Stephen was too distracted to really enjoy it. His mind was still down in the basement, imagining what he would do next with the machine. There were literally endless possibilities, which made picking one even more difficult, and this time he would be able to be specific about what he wanted, instead of just letting the change happen by accident. However, first he would need to figure out the right time to use it.

“Mom?”

“Yes?” she replied as she began to clean up the dishes.

“What are you up to today?”

“Well,” she said. “We need to do some weeding, and then someone needs to buy groceries. After that, I’ll probably spend some time in the lab testing the power system for the machine.”

“I see.”

“Would you mind going to the store to buy the groceries?” she asked. “I can give you my list. You do need to get out of the house more.”

“I think I would rather do the weeding while you do the shopping.”

“Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

And so, Stephen put on some work clothes and headed for the backyard with a trowel and a pair of work gloves. Then, he settled down in a flowerbed and started digging.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” his mother called to him from the back door of the house. “Make sure to stay hydrated.”

“I will,” he said.

“Also, put on some sunscreen before you get a sunburn.”

“I will.”

She shut the door, and Stephen kept pulling weeds until he heard the car drive out of the garage. Then, he dropped his trowel and made his way back into the house. He had to hurry. At most, his mother would be out for less than an hour, and he still needed to choose a wish and then carefully use the machine to make it real.

Just when he made it to the basement door and was about to open it, he heard his sister say, “What are you up to?”

He froze and turned to face Niki. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas, eating a pop tart. He had been so focused on the basement that he had not even noticed she was there.

“I-” he said. “I’m just going to use the bathroom.”

“Looks like you were about to go into the basement,” she said and took a bite of her breakfast pastry.

“No,” he said, silently cursing the fact that she was being a pest, again. “We’re not supposed to go down there.”

“That’s right,” she said with a smile. “So, why were you sneaking down there?”

“I’m not sneaking anywhere.”

“You waited until Mom left before you headed for the basement, so it must be something you don’t want her to know about.” She took another bite.

He sighed. She had caught him. He had to talk his way out of this somehow, but he would need to be quick. He was running out of time. “Fine,” he said. “I wanted to use her computer. I was down there yesterday helping her out after she dropped something on herself. She has a top-of-the-line machine down there, and I thought I might test it out to see if I could use it for something later.”

“You have a nice computer in your room.”

“Mom’s machine is better,” he said. “Much better.”

“Why do you need a good computer? You plan on playing games on it? She would probably notice if you installed something.”

He tried to think of something he could do with a very fast computer. “I thought I could use it to do some 3D image rendering.”

“Porn?” she asked with a wry smile.

He attempted to look embarrassed, but actually he was relieved that she had found something convincingly shameful enough to accuse him of doing in secret. “So what if it is?”

“Then,” she said. “You’ll want me to keep quiet about it, won’t you?”

“Yes,” he said.

She looked satisfied to have some leverage on him again, and he decided to take this hit in order to get her to shut up and leave him alone.

“So,” he said. “What do you want for your silence?”

She crossed her arms and legs and said, “You are going to do all of my chores.”

“For how long?”

“Forever,” she said. “Or, until one of us moves out, which might just take forever for you anyway.”

“That’s a bit much.”

“Fine, then,” she said. “I’ll just tell her that you were sneaking down to use her computer. I’m sure she won’t have a problem with that.”

“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll do all of your chores, just so long as you never say anything to her about me doing things in the basement. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “We have a deal then. My silence about your sneaking in return for your endless servitude.” She finished her breakfast and then walked up to him. “Make sure you get my laundry done by tonight. I plan on going out later.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Nice doing business with you, brother.” Then, she walked past him and up the stairs, saying, “Have fun down there!”

He grumbled and make a silent vow to get his revenge on her eventually, but for now, he would need to hurry up and use the machine before his mother came back.

***

He entered the basement and raced down the steps, and then he weaved his way through the maze of equipment, being careful not to trip on anything, until he reached the computer and the touch pad.

Finally, he had made it back to the wishing machine, all he had to do now was make his wish.

“What the hell do I want to wish for?” he asked himself.

He had enjoyed the feeling of being young again, but the hormones of a 12 year old had been a bit too much for him to handle.

“What about 11?” he said. “About the same age but without the hormones.”

It was a tempting idea, but he shook his head. Being 11 would be too similar to being 12, and he found himself craving something new. He could go younger, he decided.

“How young?”

Part of him just wanted to go all the way back to diapers, but he was scared of going that far. His eyes drifted back to the photos on his mother’s desk. He noticed the family photo that showed him and Niki as 7 year-old-kids with their parents. His father’s cancer had made it a hard year, but maybe he could give it a second try.

“Might be fun. After all, seven is a good midpoint between being in diapers and being in puberty.”

He focused on the image of himself at 7. He had been such a cute little kid. It would be a lot of fun to be that kid again. He smiled. “That’s it,” he said.

He flipped the switch to power up the machine and the room came alive. The charge was reading at 100% again. Everything looked ready. “Let’s do it!” He walked up to the touch pad, made sure his mind was focused on his 7-year-old self, and placed his hand on the touch pad.

The machine revved up painfully loud and, in a flash of light, it blasted him with energy. His body buzzed with the energy, which radiated out of him as he shrank away, like he was a Popsicle melting away in the hot sun. Once more, the tingling sensation had aroused him, but he felt his erection shrink away as it grew harder, while he rapidly fell backwards through puberty. Soon he was back down to 12 again, but instead of slowing down, the shrinking just kept on going. His pants dropped to his ankles and his shirt hung off of him like a dress. Still, he continued shrinking. Despite the pleasure he was feeling, he became increasingly afraid that the shrinking would not stop, that he might shrink away into nothing. Already, he had lost half of his weight and, with every moment, there was less and less of him remaining. He started to panic and desperately called for Niki in a high childish voice. But, just at that moment, the shrinking slowed to a halt. The tingling sensation lingered just long enough to cause his T-shirt to shrink to fit him. Then, the energy dissipated completely, and he felt himself settle into his new little body.

“Wow,” Stephen said and smiled to hear his squeaky voice. “Wow!” he repeated.

He held up his hands to examine them. They were soft and small, unmistakably the hands of a young boy. He pulled up his pants, which had transformed into a pair of shorts, and noticed that his shoes had been replaced by a pair of sandals. He wiggled his tiny toes on his little feet and smiled again to find them so much closer now. He touched his face, feeling the absence of stubble, and ran his fingers over the shrunken contours of his little nose. His tongue probed a small gap in his lower front teeth and traced the shape of an upper tooth that was still in the process of growing in. Then, he chuckled and was delighted to hear the giddy laughter of a young boy escape his lips.

He looked over at the desk and was given a sense of his new size based on how large it seemed to him now. He guessed that he could not be more than four feet tall now. A third of his height had disappeared along with most of his weight, which might have been a reason to worry, but he realized that he did not miss any of his lost size at all. Being small just felt… right. This was how he was supposed to be, he realized. This was the body he was supposed to have.

He started bouncing on his heels and giggled. Then, he lept and punched his fist into the air and let out a triumphant cheer, “Yeah!”

He wanted to run out of the basement and find someway to play with this body right away, but the more mature part of his mind reminded himself to shut down the machine first. He checked the monitor to find only 9% of a charge remained in the capacitors. He tried not to think about his mother’s reaction to that. Instead, he flipped the switch to shut down the machine.

Then, his eyes were drawn to the family photos on the desk, which he scrutinized, wanting to compare his current body to the one in the photo, but he was surprised to find that he was no longer in the family photo next to his then 7-year-old sister. Instead, it showed only Niki and his parents.

“Of course,” he said when he realized his mistake. “In this reality, I was only born 7 years ago. I wouldn’t be in a picture from 11 years ago. I didn’t even exist.”

He looked at the next photo, which showed a 12-year-old Niki holding a baby in her arms. “Is that… me?” he asked and chuckled again. “I was a cute baby.”

The sound of the garage door opening upstairs made him go silent. “She’s home,” he whispered. Quickly, he made his way to the basement stairs and climbed up them as swiftly as he could, but he had to move carefully as the steps seemed much taller to him on his way up than they had seemed on the way down.

He opened the basement door, entered the kitchen, and shut the door behind him just a moment before his mother entered the house carrying her groceries. He let out a sigh of relief as she approached, feeling glad to have gotten away with using the machine again.

“Hey, Squirt,” she said as she strode past him. “Can you help me bring the groceries into the kitchen, please?”

He was momentarily dumbfounded as he looked up at her. From his new perspective, his mother seemed to be over eight feet tall. “Uh,” he said. “Sure.”

He went to the garage and found the trunk of her car open. He tried to grab a plastic bag in each hand, but struggled to lift both of them at the same time. They were just too heavy. He had to use both hands to lift just one of the bags, and even that required some intense effort. Then, carrying it was awkward, since he had to lift it up as he walked to keep it from dragging on the floor. Finally, when he set the bag down in the kitchen, he felt relieved but also a bit concerned at how weak his body had become. Being small was nice, sure, but being weak was not so nice. It added an edge of fear to the experience. Somehow, he had forgotten how threatening the world could feel to a kid. He watched in awe as his mother returned from her car with more bags of groceries and was impressed by how easy it was for her to lift twice the weight he could manage. He wondered how many years it had been since he had become stronger than his mother. Probably since he became a teenager, he decided. Now that he was once more much younger than that, she was definitely the stronger one again.

“Thank you!” she said, when she noticed he had helped. “So, have you finished filling up the pool?”

“Uh,” he said. “Maybe?” He had no idea what she was talking about. There was no pool in their backyard, or at least, there had been none before he altered reality.

“Don’t tell me you left the water running in it.”

“Let me check,” he said and went out the back door of the house. Sure enough, there was filled kiddie pool out in the yard with a garden hose floating in the middle of it. He turned off the tap to the garden hose and pulled it out of the pool. The water was cool to the touch, but it was refreshing in the growing heat of a summer morning.

“Did you flood the yard?” his mother asked him from the back door.

“No, it’s all good,” he said and smiled as he anticipated a fun day of playing in the water.

“Good,” she said. “Go put on your swim trunks. I’ll grab the pool toys.”

“All right!” he said and ran into the house.

Feeling more confident now, he bounded up the stairs and only stumbled once. Then, he headed for his bedroom, slowing down for a moment as he passed Niki’s room to wonder what his sister was doing behind her closed door.

He opened his bedroom door and was delighted to find that the room had been replaced by the colorful toy-filled room of a young boy. He had to step over toy trucks and around plastic dinosaurs to reach his dresser, which was covered with action figures and transforming robots. He dug through his drawers, past his tight undies and socks, past his colorful shirts and pajamas, until he retrieved a bright green and blue pair of swim trunks.

He stripped off his clothes and stood there naked for a minute taking some time to look at his young body. Naturally, there was no body hair to be found anywhere. As it had been when he was 12, his body seemed simultaneously bony and pudgy with not much muscle to be found anywhere. Probably, what stood out most to him, though, was just how close every part of him was. His feet seemed only as far away as his knees had been before, and his hands would not even reach as far as his wrists had been. He felt stubby, like a midget.

Meanwhile everything around him seemed slightly too large. He picked up a baseball from his dresser and felt how heavy it was in his hand, his little fingers struggling to grip it. He tossed it in the air, and had to catch it with both hands to avoid dropping it.

Feeling satisfied with his self-examination, he returned the ball to the dresser and pulled up his swim trunks. After putting his sandals back on, he left his room. This time, on the way down the tall stairs, he was careful to hold onto the handrail. Then, at last, he stepped out into the backyard.

His mother had laid out his toys next to the pool. As he went to examine them, he noticed that she was kneeling next to her flower garden, wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat, and he saw that she had set up her tools to start weeding. He felt momentarily guilty for going to play while she was starting to work, but he decided that they would both enjoy what they were doing, so it was nothing to worry about.

He picked up a yellow inflatable innertube raft and began blowing air into its valve, which took a lot longer than he expected due to the small air capacity of his lungs. At about the point that he was feeling dizzy and out of breath, the back door of the house opened and Niki stepped out into the sunlight. Stephen stopped blowing to stare at her.

His sister wore only a red bikini covered it white polka-dots and a pair of sky blue flip-flops. Her blonde hair was done up in a messy bun, and she had on a pair of dark sunglasses. Under her arm, she carried a towel and a folding chair. Although Stephen had seen her naked only yesterday, she seemed somehow even more appealing with her private parts hidden behind polka-dot fabric. Maybe it was because she was standing boldly out in the sunlight for everyone to see her.

“Oh,” their mother said, snapping him out of his trance. “Nice of you to join us, Niki. How do you feel about helping with the weeding? I have extra tools.”

Niki looked at her and said, “I don’t think so. I’d rather work on my tan.”

“Suit yourself,” their mother said. “I’ll be here if you change your mind.”

Stephen watched, transfixed as Niki found a sunny spot on the patio not far from him and laid out her folding chair completely flat. She unrolled her towel on the chair, took out a bottle of suntan lotion from within it, and squeezed some out onto her hand. As Niki began to rub it onto her skin, their mother said, “Oh, thank you for reminding me. Could you put some lotion on your brother, please? I don’t want him getting sunburned.”

“But,” she said. “This is my lotion. I paid for it myself.”

“I’ll reimburse you,” their mother said. “Please, help me out with Stephen. Okay?”

She sighed. “Okay,” she groaned.

“Come here, Squirt,” she said beckoning him to her...