Adi sat up in bed, carefully sitting her giant plushie at one side. Then she looked at the obstacles between her and the bathroom. The first was the bars on the side of her bed, imprisoning her like a small child in a crib. But she knew that most of the hypnosis wasn't affecting her now, so she might be able to think like a big girl, and to use all her cunning in releasing herself.
She rose to her knees, and found that she didn't feel anything like as unsteady on her feet as she had the day before. But as soon as she tried to stand, she found that the shifting of the mattress didn't make for steady ground. She might be able to climb over the bars though, and that would be enough. Just so long as she didn't slip and land on her head on the floor, or something equally dumb.
But she didn't actually need to climb over, so any lack of coordination didn't really matter. On her knees she could peer between the wooden bars, and see the shiny metal clip that made sure her cage would stay closed. If she could just squeeze her hand out between the bars, she would be able to release the catch and release herself.
It was harder than it looked. There was space between the bars for her hand to get out, but her elbow wouldn't quite fit through. And the bar at the end was a piece of wood with a carved design on it, like a picture frame to make the crib look better, which also happened to be wider than she could easily reach past with her fingertips. And if she put more of her arm through the gap, her hand was too far away from the crib. She couldn't reach back to the catch.
A minute's thought gave her another option. She pulled the giant tiger over, silently apologising and then laughing at herself a little as she did so. Kneeling on the back of the big plush gave her a few more inches, and just enough height to reach over the top of the bars, letting her search for the catch with her fingers.
She squeezed the little piece of metal, and heard a satisfying click. And then... nothing. No movement. She could imaging that the bars of the crib were moving a little more than they had before, but she still couldn't figure out how to make it open. Then she turned her head, and saw the second catch. Of course, there was one on each side, and she'd have to release both to let the bars slide down to the ground. She was feeling more confident now, and held onto the top rail so she could stand without a tiger to support her. There was a faint click, but still the side of the crib wouldn't open.
Adi growled a little, but she was determined that she wasn't going to shout for help. She wasn't going to admit she couldn't cope, even to herself. Now she'd been in this routine for a couple of days, she could see that first thing in the morning was going to be her opportunity to act like a big girl; her only chance to release herself. But more than that, it was a little time when she could think properly.
If she couldn't convince Toni to stop triggering her, would this be the only hour each day when she could be herself? The thought was terrifying; but somehow the thought of leaving her girlfriend to escape a life of enforced infancy was almost as bad. She couldn't stand losing her grown-up thoughts for good, but she wouldn't face a life without Toni either. If it came to that decision, she couldn't even guess how she'd react.
"It won't come to that," she muttered under her breath, and hearing her voice with only the faintest trace of a lisp gave her a new burst of determination. She could do this. She could set herself free, and she could find a way to hold on to everything that mattered to her. She was the smart girl, after all. She'd spent the whole of her high-school life telling herself that she was smarter than all of her friends; that she was the only one who could think clearly and logically without hormones getting in the way. She was starting to realise that she'd underestimated all of the people closest to her, but she was still just as analytical as she'd always thought, capable of solving any problem if she put her full mind on it.
She reached up and tried the catch again, swaying slightly on her uneven footing. It clicked open. But the bars wouldn't move; same as before. A second later, she spotted what she'd missed, and felt proud of herself again. It had clicked. She reached up again, pressed the catch, and it clicked. If it opened with a click every time she pressed the lever, that must mean it was springing closed again when she let go. She'd have to press both at the same time if she wanted to escape from her crib.
Adi took a deep breath and knelt in the middle of her prison. Reaching up, she could just about get her hands on the top of the bars. But she knew that was wrong; it must be the hypnosis. If she could get out of bed normally when the bars were lowered, that meant they were barely any higher than the bed itself. Not even waist high, as an absolute maximum. It was the hypnotic suggestions in her mind that were making her feel small, even if she hadn't realised it. She could do this. She pulled herself up by holding the top bar, and then walked her fingers along the piece of wood. Closing her eyes somehow made it easier, maybe stopping her brain trying to rationalise what she was seeing, what she was feeling, and what she imagined the scene would look like for a real baby.
Her arms were short, she knew that. She couldn't reach both catches. She'd only managed to inch her fingers a short distance along the bars when she felt metal with her left hand. And then her right, two catches that she was sure she couldn't stretch to were right under her hands. She clumsily squeezed both, and almost lost her footing as the wooden bars slammed down to the ground under their own weight.
She'd done it. She was free, and even if she couldn't say she was acting like an adult yet, she could at least use the bathroom like a big girl.
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✅1️⃣ | Hypnosis Doesn't Work Like That!
HumorAdelaide is a very smart girl; certainly smarter than anyone at her school. And she knows she's both too intelligent and too strong-willed to ever be hypnotised, especially by some lame "baby name trigger" file off the Internet. Maybe she peed her p...