Commission for  toyapup In which his character regresses in age! Who could have guessed?! :P

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Story Text: (FA formatting is crap. Download to read it the way it was meant to be read.)
Get What You Pay For:

The white eared wolf hummed casually to himself as he perused the dusty, heavy atmosphere of the antiques store. Relics dating back to the turn of the century were stacked five high on groaning hardwood shelves overhead, and every manner of old bauble and trinket were offered in silver bowls. Some of the bowls were labeled Five for a Dollar. Others, particularly those with trim or precious metal in the casing, were more expensive. But, in the large back room, which contained by far the most interesting stuff, Toya didn’t find anything that caught his eye. That is, until they passed over the sparkling jewelry case on the other side of the room.
There was a gleam in the wolf’s eye and he crossed the room to take a closer look, and maybe something else if it proved worthwhile, and glanced over both shoulders to make sure the room was empty before inspecting the little silver thing. It was a watch locket, the kind with a short chain that people used to carry around in their pockets some time ago. It didn’t work, judging by the fact that the second hand never moved, but the silver case must have been worth something, judging by the five hundred dollar price tag. Well beyond his, and most people’s, means, Toya inspected the little watch somewhat closer. There was a scrunched up old piece of laminated film in behind the clockwork. It was old, and corroded, but he could still vaguely make out a picture of someone’s infant pup on the picture, but no namesake was mentioned on the price tag, just Antique Rewind watch. 500$, no haggling.
Toya closed the jewlry box it had been stashed in, and slipped the tiny locket into the secret pocket on the inside of his coat’s sleeve. No haggling, indeed.
“Are you going to buy something, or just wander around and look all day?” the proprietor said some time later, Toya having made a few rounds to avoid drawing attention, and the wolf only shrugged at the old black feline who ran the antiques store, an old woman of some renown for being a reclusive hermit .
“Sorry, nothing today,” Toya said, shrugging, but bought a can of cola from the cooler out front on his way out, the ancient hag that owned the place giving him a peculiar look on his way out, though she never approached him or accused him of anything. The wolf knew she probably had her suspicions, but that didn’t amount to much unless she had evidence.
It was a long walk home, the wolf didn’t own a car, so he was used to it, but it almost felt slower than usual. Just to pass the time, about half way home he removed the locket from his secret pocket and examined it further, wondering if he might be able to open it and get that picture out, thinking a local pawn shop might offer more for it were it empty, but wasn’t about to try while walking down the street for fear of breaking the thing, presuming it wasn’t already broken. Even if it wasn’t functional, the little amulet was surprisingly heavy for its size, which Toya attributed, hopeful as usual, to the amount of silver in the case. It probably wouldn’t be worth the five hundred asked, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good find.
“People should think before leaving things like this lying around,” Toya said to himself with a chuckle, tossing the locket up in the air and catching it as he passed through the front door to his apartment building and took the stairs up, the elevator having been broken for some number of years by this point. He lived alone, a humble college graduate with no official job, just like more than half of his fellow graduates in the country, and tossed pocketed the locket on his way to his bedroom, collapsing with a groan onto his lumpy, somewhat uncomfortable bed, inexplicably tired considering it was barely half past eight in the evening and the wolf more often than not was most active after dark.
By quarter to nine Toya, who had resigned to lay back and watch TV to pass the time, could barely keep his eyes open, though he couldn’t figure why, and, by the stroke of the hour, he collapsed backwards onto his bed, curled around one of his older pillows and conscious only of a light ticking from the watch in his pocket, which had started to tic backwards while the oblivious little theif slept.
***
“Toya, you’re going to be late for school! Get your butt down here, now!” The black wolf’s mother hollered, Toya groaning loudly and turning over in his half sleep. His alarm clock was beeping to his left and he bashed it shamelessly, pulling his soft linens over his head and trying to pass back out. “Toya, are you listening to me?” His mother continued, this time much closer, and knocked on the door before opening it and stepping inside. “Wonderful, you’re not even out of bed yet.”
“M-mooom! What are you doing here!?” Toya whined, sitting up in his bed and going immediately silent at the sight of his room, for it was his room, just not the one he had gone to sleep in. Staring blankly, the white eared wolf cast his gaze around his teenage bedroom, complete with band posters on the walls, dirty clothes all over the floor, empty pop cans everywhere, and a trash can that hadn’t been emptied in months.
“I’m here to get you UP, now scoot!” The older wolf, who was clearly frustrated with her son, walked over and shamelessly grabbed him by the nape of the neck and dragged Toya out of bed and to his feet. “This is your second month of high school and you’ve already missed five days. No more, Toya, I’ll drive you myself if you have to. I know how you like to conveniently miss the buss on test days.”
“B-but I… I’m not in high school!” Toya said, staring incredulously into his adamant mother’s face, “Mom, I graduated college eight months ago. I don’t even know how I GOT here.”
“Mhm? Well I’m sure you’ll win the Nobel prize in bullcrap, Toya. Teeth. Brush. Now,” the older she-wolf let go of her son’s scruff and went off, leaving Toya in an ocean of total confusion.
What in the actual hell was going on?! High school? He wasn’t in high school, or ANY school, for that matter. Incredulous, the wolf navigated his parent’s house, which he hadn’t lived in since his sophomore year of college, and walked into the bathroom, dressed only in a pair of old, worn out pajama bottoms that he’d had since he was ten. Once again, the wolf went silent and stared. He was the spitting image of himself from ninth grade, shaggy headfur, chubby cheeks, and a full eight inches narrower at the shoulders than he was at twenty three. Needless to say, Toya had NEVER wanted to see fifteen year old him again, let alone be fifteen year old him again.
“Are you done, yet?” his mother called from the kitchen, and, heart racing in fear and confusion, Toya called back in the breaky, not yet deepened voice of an early teenager.
“Y-yeah, mom! I’ll be right out!” Legitimately quivering, Toya wandered out into the kitchen, where his mother had pancakes laid out for him, and immediately looked at the calendar… It was, indeed, the right date. He’d checked on the news the previous day. Despite his confusion and deliberations, Toya was famished, as young wolves often were, and sat down in his chair to quickly consume his mother’s always excellent cooking.
“Come on, Toya, I’ll drive you. We might still get you there on time,” The older wolf said, taking Toya unnecessarily by the paw as he finished throwing on whatever clothes smelt least like teenage wolf BO, and took him outside to the neighborhood he grew up in. In line with what the calendar had said, the neighborhood and its occupants were also up to date. His mother had bought a new car just that previous year, and it was that one that she drove him to school with, wordlessly. Internally, the wolf was a mess, trying desperately and in vain to piece together whatever the hell was happening. Was this a joke? A trick? A hallucination? Could he be dreaming?
If it was a dream, it was the most vivid one he’d ever had. And weren’t you supposed to be able to control a dream if you realized what it was while still asleep? He tried, but Toya could neither turn his clothes into something respectable, nor age himself up to where he should have been by that point in time.
“Bye honey, have fun in class!” Toya’s mother said after a few minutes of driving left Toya standing outside of his old high-school, which had been heavily remodeled since he graduated four years ago, and blushed as his mother got out and kissed him on the forehead before driving away.
“Alright,” Toya said, shouldering his backpack and looking off at the slow trickle of students into his old high-school as the first bell rang, “what --- the hell --- is going --- on.” Seeing no options other than to simply go along with it, whatever it was, Toya wandered down the halls, briefly searching his bag for a timetable considering he didn’t know what classes he had, and, blushing, made his way to year one English, where they were apparently talking about Midsummer Night’s Dream. He’d been force-fed a different Shakespeare in grade nine English, and thus only sat, staring blankly as a teacher he didn’t know prattled on, and nostalgically went silent and trembled as the teacher, a Mr. Rennalds, asked him a question about the play and he couldn’t answer. The other students, none of whom he even remotely recognized, chuckled as he found himself blushing and couldn’t provide any answer at all. According to the elderly otter that taught the class, he had a history of not doing his homework, and went on about how he’d flunk if he didn’t get his act together. Blah blah blah, Toya had heard that all before, just not recently. College professors didn’t care if you failed or not, they had bigger things to worry about, and Toya hadn’t had a teacher that cared about his success or failure since, well, high school…
The bell rang shortly after, and, relieved, Toya mechanically screwed the dog for the rest of the morning. His other class was gym, and the phys-ed teacher didn’t even notice as Toya took an early lunch. The school had switched its cafeteria to green, healthy overpriced crap, vegetarian wraps, organic baked potato wedges, and other inedible that the administrators thought would help fight obesity in teens. In true high-school student fashion, Toya got so fed up that he just left, still too much in an adult’s mindset to care that he would more than likely be scolded for playing hooky when his parents got called that afternoon, especially since he apparently had a history of it.
The wolf had some cash in his wallet, so he decided to bugger off and get fast food at a nearby strip mall. He was served, and he ate, then, satisfied, told himself there was no way in hell he was going back there. Hard as it might be, he had to find a way to wake up, or snap himself out of it, or whatever. Toya LIKED being an adult, and he was pretty damn used to it. This had to be a dream, right? It had to. As he thought on and on about his newly regressed state, Toya slowly grew tired, just as he had the previous night, and, pushing aside the objections of his twenty three year old mind now stuffed into a fifteen year old body, he started the long walk home. His parents were at work, and wouldn’t be home for hours, so he simply let himself in through the unlocked back door, went into his bedroom, and collapsed.
***
“Sweetie, it’s time to get up now,” the wolf heard, in a sweet sort of hushed voice, but, still burdened with the overwhelming exhaustion of the previous day, Toya only curled his soft, thick blankets around himself that much tighter and tried to go back to sleep. “Toya, I need you to get up. Breakfast is ready, and the bus will be here for you in an hour.”
“Go awaaay, mom. I’m not really in high school! This is just a dream,” The white eared wolf grumbled, pulling a heavy down pillow over his head and grumbling to himself.
“Toya, you stayed up way too late last night,” his mother said, much more dryly this time, and gently shook his shoulder, “And now you’re dreaming about being in high school. Come on, puppy, you know you’re not allowed to eat breakfast in your PJs. Let’s get you dressed.”
“Puppy..? PJs? What are you talking about?” Toya was thrust out of his dazed half sleep as he rolled over, looking up into his mother’s face with frank amazement, “Oh fuck you’ve got to be kidding me…” he said in the voice of a typically squeaky pre-pubescent male, looking up at his mother, who had a hundred pounds on him by this point, and the starry sky prints on his ceiling. “It happened again…”
“Excuse me young pup?! What was that you just said?!” His mother said, hearing him swear under his breath, and gripped him suddenly by the nape of his neck, ignoiring Toya’s squeaks as she pulled the young wolf, not a day past ten. He’d lost sixty pounds, a foot in height, and five years in age… overnight.
Toya was very nearly losing it, trembling in his mother’s grasp and hyperventilating. Despite her frustration, the much older wolf seemed to catch on to her son’s distress, and loosened her grip.
“Toya, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” she asked, but Toya could only whimper in reply, looking around at what had become of his bedroom. Where the previous day band and movie posters adorned the walls, now there were posters from kids shows and Disney movies. The wallpaper which hadn’t been there the previous day now had childish constellations and retro space ships. He was even dressed in one of those silly, matching pairs of pajamas, but at least they didn’t have cartoon characters on them.
“Oh my god this… this is nuts… I’m not a kid, I’m TWENTY THREE!” Toya squealed, feeling tears well up in his eyes from the overwhelming emotion he was trying, and failing, to deal with. A few seconds and three or four sobs later, the wolf pup lost the battle with himself and began uncontrollably whimpering and sobbing, his mother immediately closing her arms around him in a tight, affectionate hug.
“Toya, what’s wrong?” the wolf’s mother said, burying her muzzle into the scruff of his neck, “you’re not twenty, you’re nine. What’s gotten into you this morning? It’s not like you to be such a handful…”
“N-nine!?” Toya squealed, ears going flat back against his head in shame at what he was being reduced to, now less than half of his original age. With this sudden realization his fit escalated, and, for five minutes, he simply sat against his mother’s shoulder, crying and whimpering his eyes out as she did what she could to console this apparently unexpectedly noisy pup.
“It’s okay sweetie, it’s okay… everything’s going to be alright, it’ll be alright, I promise,” His mother cooed, hugging her pup nice and tight as the fit slowly subsided, leaving a red eyed and very uncomfortable Toya sitting on his bed while his mother, much to his embarrassment, carried over the pile of clothes she’d picked out for him. Khackies and a T-shirt, alongside a childish pair of tighty-whities and blue tube socks.
“W-what’s happening to me…?” Toya said, looking down at his shrunken, regressed paws, somewhat reluctantly getting dressed out of necessity after his mother had left, but got too aggressive in frustration with the socks and fell on his butt, barking in discomfort as he landed on something hard, round, and in a very uncomfortable position. “What the hell is that…” the wolf growled, reaching into his back pocket and froze, his fingers brushing over the cold metal shell of the locket he’d stolen two days earlier. “It can’t be…” Toya practically whispered, slowly removing the chain and watch from his pants and gently examining it, very gently. “C-could that be why?” he asked himself, turning the little silver amulet around and around in his ten year old paws before holding it up to eye level and remembering what the thing on the price tag had said, Antique Rewind Watch. 500$. It was only a cruel irony that, when he had stolen it, he had assumed that meant that he could rewind the watch, not that the watch would wind up rewinding him. “I’ve gotta give it back,” Toya said, suddenly certain and looked at his digital cartoon alarm clock, which read 7:09 AM, and pocketed the watch once more before running down the hall towards the door. It was a long, long walk from his parent’s house to the antiques store, even more so in the body of a ten year old, but he could make it there by the time they opened and, with a bit of luck and a tail tucked firmly between his legs, he’d come clean, and pray whatever was being done to him would stop.
“Ah-ah! Where do you think you’re going?” Toya’s mother said, once again closing her grip around the wolf pup’s nape and very nearly picking him up off the ground by it, “first you eat your breakfast, then shower, then homework, then bus. You know the rules, puppy. Sheesh, what’s gotten into you today? You’re never this fussy.”
“B-but mom! I need to go out, to… to…” he trailed off, trying to find the words to explain his situation to her, but none that made sense came. HE wouldn’t have believed it, unless it had been happening to him right before his eyes.
“Buts are for butts, now sit down and eat your cereal, Toya. I won’t tell you again!” His mother wasn’t taking no for an answer, and the wolf briefly considered trying to make a run for it, but he knew his mother would catch him. She had a foot and more of height on him, being tall for a wolf, and he was only a kid! Even if he did get away, knowing her she’d call the police and drive around in her car until she found him… No, he’d have to wait until he got to school… Grade school, fourth grade to be exact, but, at least, to his knowledge, that was within a mile of the store he had ripped off the locket from, so he submitted, and walked, gently rubbing his sore nape, to the table and sat down for breakfast, always anxious about what would happen if he didn’t stop this today.
As he ate, yet more fears returned to the pup. What if he did manage to stop it, but it couldn’t be reversed?! He was nine, less than half what he’d been two days ago, and the idea of going through puberty, middle school, high school, and college ALL OVER AGAIN was about as undesirable an outcome as he could possibly imagine. All the freedom and independence he’d had as an adult, all his responsibility stripped away from him, and left as nothing more than a fussy, dependent nine year old stuck living at his parents.
“This sucks,” Toya growled, finishing his cereal and taking a shower as he’d been commanded, then, with the greatest distaste he’d had for any nine year old activity yet, worked out basic algebra in his fourth grade math textbook under his mother’s studious eye. Somehow, despite a college education, Toya STILL managed to find the idea of one person buying forty watermelons totally ridiculous and idiotic, but he finished it anyway. Once he did, on a surprisingly full loose-leaf notebook with his name on it, and, terrifyingly, filled with notes in his handwriting, and dated back to the previous month, his mother inspected his work and signed off on it, which he remembered was common practice during early school years.
With a sigh and a grumble, Toya shouldered a pokemon themed backpack on his way out the door to the bus stop, but not before receiving a brown-bag lunch that smelt of cheese and bologna from his mother, and walked in mingled fear and embarrassment towards a small crowed of other kids of similar grade school ages that were all standing at the end of his street. The bright yellow school bus stopped in front of him, and, mechanically following the other eight, nine and ten year old children, he got on as well, feeling terribly embarrassed at the whole ordeal. All he had done was lift a pocket watch from a lousy old antiques store… did he really deserve this?
The bus ride could most aptly be described as loud, brutish and short. Most of the other children switched seats constantly, threw things at each other, screamed at the top of their lungs and flung themselves over the seats to entertain themselves during the ride. Despite sitting on the wrong side of the bus, Toya had to endure watching his high-school, which he had attended just the previous day, pass him by on the way to Rosenfield Elementary, where he’d spent more of his schooling than not.
“Good morning Miss Allan,” the class said in unison. Well, all except for Toya, who, after some confusion, had found his fourth grade classroom and, with yet more, his desk by waiting for everyone else to find their seats and checking the ones that were leftover for his name. It was near the back, so luckily Toya didn’t need to listen to the teacher, a field mouse who’s voice he hated, prattle on about elementary science, back when you could make a paper volcano with mentos and diet coke and pretend you’re learning something. With ever increasing anxiety, he watched the time tic by. It was quarter past nine by the time that all the other fourth grade students had settled down and stated working, but nine was also the time that the antiques store open, this being a Thursday. It closed early, he remembered from the sheet on the front window, which was so coated with dust that it couldn’t be seen through, and he couldn’t wait until after school. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t get there in time… and who knows what would happen if he missed it? Would he wind up five? Four? Younger?
His anxiety got to him, and he zoned out, not paying any attention to the teacher or class at all, drawing a map of this section of town, and what was likely the best route to get to the antiques store before it closed. Toya crumpled with a sigh, doing the math in his head and factoring in his stunted nine year old body. He couldn’t make it, not if he had to wait until after school, and that left only one option: he’d wait until lunch recess, ditch the rest of the day, and, hopefully… not wake up as a puppy the next day.
“Toya, I hope you have your homework for me, today. Your grades can’t handle another zero, young man,” the field mouse said to him in that firm, fifties teacher way, and the wolf popped out of his daze before blushing and digging through his cartoon backpack for the crumpled piece of paper with his messy arithmetic on it. The field mouse sighed, but took his homework and added it to the pile, which was made up primarily of equally crumpled sheets of loose leaf.
Luckily for Toya the classes in grade school were happily short, and math was quickly replaced by grade four English, which amounted to nothing more than reading into stories the wolf had had drilled into him years earlier, and idly waited for the lunch bell to ring, which it did, but, unexpectedly, he found himself not allowed free reign to leave the building as he had expected, and was blocked by one of the hall monitors and dragged, literally kicking and screaming, back to his classroom for lunch.
“And don’t let me catch you trying to wander off again,” the apparently volunteering hall monitor, a senior grade eight student had told him, wearing a laminated badge of authority, and went back to casually walking up and down the halls and bullying all the littler students who were trying to go to the bathroom.
Equal parts pouty and anxious, Toya sulked in a corner of the room while eating the sandwich his mother had packed him and fingering the amulet in his pocket, hoping against hope that he could slip away before the end of the school day and get to the antiques store before it closed. It was, in a word, his only hope.
The bell rang shortly after, and Toya tried once again to dash off the grounds during lunchtime recess, but only got as far as the parking lot before a concerned field monitor caught and dragged him back, recognizing the young pup and sending him to stand against the wall for ten minutes as a punishment for his repeated attempts to leave without a parent or guardian present.
At last, the final bell rang and Toya and his classmates, none of whom he even remotely knew, filed out of the school doors and towards either the busses or their homes on foot. Double checking the time, Toya knew he wouldn’t be able to make it to the store if he walked, so he sighed, ready to take drastic measures, and ditched his backpack by the office, since it wouldn’t matter where it was if he missed the store, then put all that pent up child energy to good use and sprinted as fast as he could sustainably run down the back tributaries towards the metropolitan uptown area.
It was twenty after three when the final bell for school rang, and the antiques store closed at four. It was by no means obvious that he’d be able to make it, so Toya exhausted himself running faster than he could sustain, and, despite his wolfish endurance, was nearly collapsing with exhaustion after a mere fifteen minutes, and half the distance covered. Desperate, he wrangled through his pockets for cash, spare change, anything that might get him on a city bus, and even considered trying to hitchhike… but a hitchhiking nine year old? Who was he kidding? That would never work. With a growing sense of dread, Toya continued on foot, his paws aching from the long run on concrete, but managed to keep up a steady pace while walking regardless, trodding on and on until, happily, he saw that he still had time, a big civic clock on a building’s wall only read 3:48. He still had time.
As he got closer, the excitement of being able to return to his normal age started to overcome Toya, and he rushed, even running a bit more after the breather despite his little body not being up to the challenge of prolonged sprinting. But when he got to the storefront, however, all the color drained out of the wolf’s face, jaw hanging open. Store vacancy for rent, call number below for details. The windows had been scrubbed, and inside was nothing. It was empty, cleaned out and bleached clean of any record of the antiques store that had existed here but two days before, and, occasionally, been targeted by a certain shoplifting wolf. And now it was gone, and all Toya’s hope had been ground into the dust.
Broken, the wolf began the long trod home, but not before taking the amulet and gently wrapping it around the handle of the door. As he walked home, drooping in anxiety and growing fear, he pondered. Maybe if he didn’t have the little trinket, he wouldn’t regress anymore? Someone would find it, pick it up, and it would be their problem, not his. Sure, he’d be stuck as a nine year old, but that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Life after college had by no means been easy, not when compared to living at home, under his parent’s roof, with them covering his expenses, a warm, cozy bed to curl up in every night, and his mommy, however overbearing she might be at times, to tuck him in at night. Sure, he’d be a kid again, but there was a strange sort of closure in defeat, the kind that sparked optimism in the strangest ways and places. Regardless, that cartoon printed bed with its soft linen sheets and cozy mattress seemed to be calling to the wolf, beckoning him to hurry, however exhausted he might be, back home, which he reached sometime after six in the evening.
“Where have you been, Toya? I’ve been worried sick!” His mother said, seeing him walk up to the front door while she was anxiously sitting on the porch and waiting. Toya couldn’t muster words, too tremblingly exhausted from the day’s deep seated anxieties. His mother, in her typical forward fashion, sent him to his bedroom, which, lacking in any sort of video games or other means of entertainment, would have made for an effective punishment for most children Toya’s age, but, to the wolf pup at that very moment, he wanted nothing more, and, mere seconds after muzzle impacted mattress, Toya was asleep.
***
Please let me be big again. Please let me be big again. Please let me be big again. Toya said, repeating the phrase over and over in his mind, having woken up moments earlier to no particular stimulus, and was almost afraid to open his eyes for fear of what he might see. More time passed, and, eventually, with a sigh of resignation, the wolf opened his eyes, immediately regretting it. Everything, everything, was huge. The ceiling, which had just the previous night been a normal ten feet high, now seemed closer to twenty. His windows, the doorknob, everything was taller than he remembered, even his nightstand, which had been about belly height on his nine year old body, was taller than his head now.
“I… I’ma little kid?!” Toya said, looking down at his little paws and immediately crawling out from under his sheets, which were printed with cute little toy trucks, the kind you’d put on a toddler bed… which could aptly describe the barred monstrosity that had replaced the common single he’d fallen asleep in the previous night. There were bars, actual BARS about a foot high all the way around. Inwardly the wolf knew they were just to prevent a small child, like the kind he had become, from rolling out of bed in the night, but they still presented a serious psychological barrier to the wolf, as though he hadn’t been through enough already.
Gingerly, the white eared wolf climbed over his bed’s bars, dropping down onto the carpeted floor, which had been hardwood the previous night, and tripped, not used to his newly regressed toddler body.
“W-wha happens t’morrow?” Toya wondered aloud. He’d six or seven years every day for a week, and now he couldn’t be a day older than four… A toddler, dressed in a cute little smiley footed sleeper, and, to his endless shame, he thought he could hear the crinkling plastic of training pants, frigging TRAINING PANTS, under his single garment. Trembling, Toya got to his feet, though with some effort, and reached into his pocket, there to be found was that insidious, tiny silver locket, which he had thought himself rid of the previous night. It hadn’t been good enough, and, judging by the rate of regression, this could very well be his last day on earth.
“Toya? Toya, honey? Are you awake?” Came his mother’s sweet voice, and Toya immediately closed his paw around the watch again, not wanting her to see. He had to take it back, back to that antiques store, or the owner, that old cat woman, but how could he? He was a toddler, and even with the mind of a twenty three year old, what could he possibly do? Getting there would have been hard at nine, but at four? There was no chance. None at all.
Toya’s mother let herself in a moment later, not bothering to wait for a confirmation from Toya, or even permission to enter, which the wolf had gotten used to as an adult. She was… huge, easily three or four times his height, and Toya couldn’t help be stare up in awe at his mother, feeling suddenly tiny, as though the room hadn’t already driven that effect home.
“Sweetie, you know you’re not allowed out of bed until daddy or I comes and gets you,” the older, much larger wolf said, picking Toya up under the arms as though he weighed no more than a loaf of bread, and slinging him over her shoulder. “Poor little antsy pantsy puppy. Do you need to go peepees?” She asked, holding the wolf out in front of her, and, Toya realized only moments later, was dead serious.
“O-of course I’m dry!” Toya squeaked in his small child’s voice, blushing furiously at the implication that he might still be a bedwetter at this age, but his mother looked suspicious, standing him back up on his bed before unzipping his sleeper and pulling it down around his ankles. Just as Toya had feared, nestled between his legs where he would have expected underwear to be, was a crinkly, plastic backed pull-up training pants, and, to his everlasting shame, it wasn’t quite dry.
“Dry, huh?” Toya’s mother said, looking dryly at her blushing, wriggling, humiliated pup, “come on, cutie, let’s get you dressed for kindergarten, hmm? Mommy’s got to go to work, soon.”
“N-nuuh!” The regressed adult squeaked, already blushing furiously from his soggy pull-up and not at all about to submit to a day of daycare, though, as he quickly found, the choice was not his to make. For all his squirming and whining and kicking, Toya was, at present, merely a child, no older than four, and could only fuss in helplessness as his mother tossed his soggy training pants into the garbage, laid him down, pulled another pair of them over him, and began gently, but firmly, coercing the pup into another set of clothes, these about as flattering as the pull-ups beneath him. Toya found himself a few minutes later dressed in silly, baggy kid’s trousers, blue socks, a short T-shirt with yet more childish cartoons on the front, and a very, very pouty attitude. Having his clothes picked out for him was bad enough, but being DRESSED? That was intolerable, though there was nothing he could really do about it.
“There’s my handsome little puppy,” Toya’s mother said, grinning and pinching one of his cheeks, “Why so fussy, Toya? Normally you like getting out of a soggy pull-up.”
“Hmph,” was all the pup could manage before being led away to the bathroom and having his teeth thoroughly brushed, again by his overbearing mother, then to the kitchen to be spoon-fed oats and berries for breakfast. Next, he had to endure the humiliation of being put in a car seat for the drive to his kindergarten, the silver watch tucked neatly into his back pocket.
“Alright, sweetie. Mommy will be back for you later. Be good,” Toya’s mother continued, on and on with the goodbyes and kisses after carrying the puppified wolf all the way to his kindergarten’s front door, which, unfortunately, was built into the same school as he had attended the previous day, the idea of being stuck at nine suddenly seeming quite appealing in comparison to being trapped at four... presuming it stopped there, and he woke up at all the next day.
The black wolf aimlessly wandered towards the front of the kindergarten section of the school, feeling terribly little in comparison to… everything around him. Cars, doors, other people… Things he had been doing for years, and easily for that matter, were now beyond his reach. Not only was he reduced to a four year old, but a small one in that. One too small to pull open the big doors of the school, and had to be let in by an adult as he whimpered and blushed in shame at what he’d been reduced to.
It quickly became apparent that the very idea of kindergarten was something totally other to the idea of school. Sure, it was in the same building as the real classes, but the things being nominally taught were so juvenile that Toya was practically dead with boredom by the time the teacher finished calling everyone’s name and asking what they’d eaten for breakfast, because apparently they did that in kindergarten nowadays.
After that there was a quick lesson, in which the class collectively counted up to four, with many of the younger students unable to perform even that menial task, and then a second lesson revolving around the letter I, with all sorts of silly tangents and little stories to keep the kids, minus Toya, interested. But the educational portion of the kindergarten class ended quickly enough, and the two dozen cubs within it eventually dispersed to play, gathering toys, blocks, and lots of other kindergarten staples from shelves and cubbies on one side of the room, then filling the entire class with the calamity of children playing. Fearing he might be losing his sanity, Toya heedlessly clung to his adulthood.
I’m not a cub. I’m not a cub. I’m not a cub, he repeated, over and over in his head, curling up under one of the tables in the kindergarten room and looking out at the twenty something kids, all playing with train sets and blocks and chasing each other around the room. Some had taken out a simple board game and were playing it chaotically and incorrectly.
“Hey, wuffie!” came a voice that startled Toya out of his daze, and he looked up from his little curled up hiding spot into the face of a little four year old skunk kid, about the same size and age as Toya. He had a big grin on his face and was looking down at the wolf with one hand extended, “Watchya doing down there? Are ya’ stuck?”
“N-no… I can get out,” Toya said, feeling a bit indignant about the skunk’s silly suggestion that he somehow got stuck under the table, and, when the other boy gave him a questioning look, the wolf crawled out anyway to prove that he could, in fact, get out. “See?”
“Hehehe, you’re a silly pup,” The skunk teased, putting a hand out for Toya to shake, “I’m Farix, what’s your name?”
“Err, I’m Toya,” the wolf replied, blushing a bit and reaching out to shake the skunk’s paw, but he replied by pouncing Toya suddenly and the two of them went to the ground with Farix giggling, his paws wrapped around the white eared wolf’s back. “H-hey! What the heck was that for…?”
“Oooh, no swearsies, Toya. You’ll get time out,” Farix said, apparently serious by the look on his face as his giant fluffy tail swished around behind him. “Come on, let’s go play block fort!” Before Toya could react, Farix took Toya by the paw and, with the relentless energy that children stereotypically possess, dragged him across the room to where a massive store of oversized plastic letter blocks were kept. It didn’t take long for Toya to get the rules of the game down: One person built a fort, the other person threw ball-pit balls at it until it fell over. The game got all of .3 rounds in before it devolved into Toya and Farix giggling and throwing the balls at each other rather than at the block fortresses, but they had no real substance to them, so even a hit in the face or head was only a mild irritation.
For a few minutes, even if just such a short time, Toya forgot the better part of his worries. He’d just met this skunk boy, and may very well never meet him again after that day, but it was still… fun, in a juvenile sort of way the wolf hadn’t felt in any time he could remember. He didn’t know any of the other kids at the kindergarten, but still there was a sense of shared comradery between them, a kind that could never exist among adults. They played and ran and laughed and snacked together, Toya quickly becoming embroiled in the various centers of play after that initial wall of reluctance had broken down, though he did intentionally stick close to Farix for some reason he couldn’t quite place. Familiarity, probably. The skunk seemed like a nice kid.
But, despite the will of the children themselves, playtime eventually, and far too soon gave way to lunch time, which, while not totally undesirable, paled in comparison to what came before it. Nevertheless, each of the kindergarten students eventually migrated with their bagged snacks to a series of tables along the left side of the room and began eating together, with Toya and Farix sitting almost alone on one end, facing each other.
“Hey, uh, skunky?” Toya said, using the term he had begun using to refer to Farix, and blushed a bit as the skunk perked up, looking at him.
“Yahuh?” Farix said, chewing noisily on a granola bar.
“W-wanna hear a story?” Toya asked, the earlier excitement being slowly overtaken once more by his present circumstances. Insofar as the wolf knew, he might not exist come the next morning, so how could it hurt if he passed on his story, so, someone, somewhere knew what had happened to him after he was gone.
“Sure thing, puppy,” Farix replied, smiling and looking excited at the mention of a story, “What’s it about?”
“A bad choice…” Toya replied, sagging a bit, then spent the rest of their lunch break recounting his experience of the last few days, how he had been an unemployed college student who propped up his financial aid with petty thievery and raked stolen goods through pawn shops. To his credit, Farix didn’t laugh or call him a liar, only sitting patiently and amusedly for the length of the recollection, even perking up a bit when Toya pulled out the silver locket, which was still in his pocket from that morning, the wolf holding it at a distance, as though it might somehow come to life and bite him.
“So if it’s making you littler,” Farix said, apparently not old enough to question a premise, “why not just throw it away?”
“I can’t, it just comes back,” Toya said, slumping a bit in growing depression. Farix seemed to catch onto those words and hummed a short, catchy tune that Toya vaguely recognized, but couldn’t place. At any rate, lunch time soon came to an end, the wolf and skunk still chatting, when the kindergarten teacher announced the last things in the world that Toya wanted to hear.
“Alright, everyone. Go get your cots and blankets, it’s almost naptime,” Toya froze, some part of him instantly making the connection between naptime and sleep, then sleep with regression. And the last thing he needed was more regression… How much further back could he possibly go?! A baby? Could he regress out of existence? With growing anxiety, Toya followed the long string of children to the other side of the room, dragging out the rolled up cots from a stack in the corner before unrolling them onto designated rectangles painted into the carpet. The wolf really was antsy as the other children started to lay down in their cots and blankets, some drifting off to sleep quickly, others, much more slowly. But they all tried. All but Toya himself, who sat up on his rolled out cot, little hands fiddling with the chain of the watch.
“U-uh, teacher?” Toya squeaked, forgetting the name of the kindergarten teacher in his slight panic, “c-could you read us a story?” He asked, starting to feel uncomfortably sleepy, and ready to do whatever he could to delay or postpone the inevitable regression that would take place if and when he passed out, then added secondarily, “It’ll, uh… help me sleep.”
“I don’t see why not,” the young lynx that managed the class of kindergarteners said, smiling down at him and Farix, who immediately seconded the notion, and a few more of the kids perked up from their cots to crawl over and listen as the teacher got out a popup kid’s book, something about a fox and a dog that became friends or some such childish nonsense, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that it occupied Toya’s mind enough to keep him awake, and awake puppies didn’t wind up regressed into non-existence.
To her credit, the teacher did, indeed, actually read through three whole stories, but, whatever they were about, they weren’t helping the wolf, who had stuck right up front next to her for maximum effect. He was dozing and he knew it, but, for all he fought, it was that same impetuously oncoming exhaustion that he had felt the previous day, and Toya was no match for it. Half unconsciously, and in the middle of the third little story, Toya surrendered, figuring that, if he was going to take his last nap ever as a wolf capable of making his own decisions, however lightly, he might as well be at least somewhat comfortable, and crawled in resignation back over to his neatly laid out cot, collapsing on it with a groan, and falling instantly into slumber, totally oblivious of the other children chuckling at the wet stains along the insides of his legs, where the wolf’s training pants had failed to contain an accident he didn’t know he had had.
***
I… I’m still here, Toya thought, wiggling weakly under whatever sort of covers he had been placed on. To his mind they were made of both silk or led, due to their weight and his inability to wiggle free of them, but nevertheless he opened his eyes, terrified but also resigned to what it would be that he would see. How many years would the watch have taken from him, now? Would he be left as a toddler? A newborn? Well, at least I’m still alive…
The wolf opened his eyes, but his vision was terribly blurry, only able to make out great wafting forms of color and, for a few short moments, Toya was actually convinced that he hadn’t regressed any further, and was just back in his kindergarten class. But, as one might expect, that was too much optimism to possibly hold any water. His vision shortly cleared, and the wolf drooped, looking up at a pair of stubby, useless arms with short, chubby fingers, and, above that, a slowly twirling mobile.
“Waaahhss whasshaffanin taaa mee?” Toya whined, and his pathetic attempt at words made as little sense to his own ears as they would have made to any adult or older child who might have heard them. Summoning what little weak strength he had, the newborn wolf tried to wiggle and roll over onto his hands and knees, maybe crawl around a bit, but it was useless. He wasn’t a toddler, or even necessarily a baby. Toya had been reduced to the very beginning of life. An infant, with the yet mostly intact mind of a twenty three year old.
Worse yet, the wolf shortly felt hot and red in the face as he realized he couldn’t bring his legs together, and figured out just what that inexplicable crinkling in his ears was. It should have been a natural extension of his infantile state, but the presence of the thick, extremely soft diaper between his legs had the same effect on him that the realization that he needed pull-ups had the previous day. Shame, then fear, then loathing. But there was something else starting to creep in on the very edges of his mind. He kicked and wiggled and whined some more, but his diaper just squished and moved with him, almost like it had been pasted to his backside with… Oh no…
The realization that Toya’s diaper was not only wet, but messy, hit the wolf like a freight train. Everything, every little shred of independence and dignity had been stripped from him, now, and, as he buried his head in the soft, billowy blankets that he had been wrapped in, the fluff on the edges of his mind started to slowly sweep inward. Why should he be afraid of a messy diaper? Soon someone would come and change him, and he’d be all nice and cozy again. Maybe one of those fake nipples to suck on. Oh, or some milk!
N-no… Snap out of it, Toya! The wolf said, starting back to consciousness and pulling himself back from the encroaching fluff. The haze retreated, and, trembling from the close call, Toya was nearly crying. But, never one to give up without a fight, the white eared newborn fought tooth and nail as the fluffy, warm, encroaching infantile pre-thought began its steady advance against his conscious, adult mind once again, but, as previously, his struggles merely delayed the inevitable. With mingled horror and sadness, the wolf was forced to wiggle helplessly as his memories, his knowledge, skills and thoughts slowly shriveled away into the encroaching blue void. There were a few things he clung to desperately, trying to keep them simultaneously in his mind, but, starting at the edges, even they were soon stripped from him. First this curse had taken his body, and now it had taken his mind, leaving the soft little newborn black wolf with nothing.
Toya actually seemed to relax significantly as the internal struggle was lost and won, his mind reduced in scope to the immediate, and to the physical. His diaper needed a change, and that wouldn’t do at all, so the newly reborn Toya did the one thing he knew would get the attention of a caretaker: he cried, and he cried, and he cried, and he cried.
“Oh, I see someone woke up early from their nap,” a kind and comforting, but clearly not too happy daycare worker said, slowly entering the room and closing the door behind her to keep Toya from waking any more of the babies up. The daycare worker was a bunny in her early twenties, and gently bent over to scoop up the stinky wolf pup in her arms. “Eh, P-U, Toya! You’re such a stinker,” the rabbit said with a chuckle, holding the wolf close to her chest and gently rocking him and cooing until his crying fit passed to mere whimpers, even leaning down to kiss him on the forehead at one point. “It’s okay, puppy… it’s okay, your mommy will be here to pick you up again in a while, you’re all safe and sound.”
“B-b… baawwaaa!” Toya squealed, wriggling around in the rabbit’s arms and whining, almost looking like he might cry again. With an experienced hand, the daycare worker picked up Toya’s blue pacifier from where it had fallen in his little crib and returned it to its rightful place in the pup’s maw. The wolf went silent immediately, relaxing now that he had something to suckle mindlessly on, and hummed happily to himself as he was taken out into the main room and laid down on the changing table.
“Let’s get you into some clean pampers, cutie butt,” Toya’s supervisor said, gently tickling the pup’s belly as she tore the tapes to his diaper, letting it fall down between his legs, and focused on the daycare music in the background to keep her mind off the horrible stench. “My gosh you’re the stinkiest puppy in this entire place,” she grumbled, knowing Toya by reputation, but at least he had been well prepared before the diaper went on and so cleanup was minimal. She rolled up the diaper into a ball, then dropped it down the chute next to the changing table, the daycare addition to Toya’s elementary school having been a recent one, and built for that very purpose.
Toya, now little more than a mindlessly babbling, two month old newborn, only cooed to himself, gently rocking back and forth on his back as the rabbit got out a clean diaper for him and gently slipped it under his rear, which she had just finished wiping down with a handful of cool wipes while holding Toya up by the toes. A few puffs of powder and a gentle lotioning later she pulled the diaper up between the little wolf’s stubby legs and taped it securely in place.
“There… that should hold you over for another hour, optimistically,” the wolf’s daycare worker said, calmly going back to Toya’s room to search the diaper bag his mother had left her for some clothing for the pup, which she found in the form of a starry blue onesie before returning and gently coercing Toya into it, though he was waking up and getting extra squirmy by this point. Next, the rabbit warmed up a bottle of puppy formula in the daycare’s microwave, then sat down in one of the armchairs in the caretaker lounge and popped it into the wolf’s mouth, letting him suckle away. “There’s a good puppy. Drink up, little cutie.”
“H… hic… hic,” Toya squeaked, his stomach grumbling after the sudden influx of dairy, and he had the hiccups now. The rabbit whose responsibility he apparently was for the moment responded by smiling, hefting the pup over her shoulder, and patting his back until he belched loudly, and the hiccups went away.
“There, now doesn’t that feel better?” The rabbit asked, returning the infant wolf pup to the cradling position against her chest, Toya cooing warmly up at her. She clearly wasn’t momma, but her presence comforted him nonetheless. Soon enough, the sound of crying was audible from the other separated rooms in the daycare and Toya’s rabbit caretaker needed to tend to them, so she stood, gently bundled the puppy in a blanket and sat him down among three or four other babies that had woken early from their naps. Naturally, Toya whined a bit as the attention ceased, but couldn’t quite expel the pacifier from his mouth to cry, which he was suckling on constantly and compulsively, nor could he wriggle free of the wrapping blankets. Once again his diaper had grown warm and soggy, but that paled in comparison to being left alone, with nobody to dote over him, and he continued his wiggling and attempts to whine, but quickly exhausted his energy and went back to sleep, cozy enough in the swaddling to sleep soundly for another hour or so, and this time found himself being carried to the nearby daycare kitchen for a quick, early spoon-feeding of green goop and mashed peas, which the wolf wanted nothing to do with, but his caretaker insisted so he eventually submitted and swallowed the stuff, not really having much of a sense of taste at this point, which was followed by yet another bottle feeding and a burping, then, naturally, another diaper change.
“Come on, Toya, mommy’s here to get you,” another of the daycare supervisors said, this one a skunk whom an older version of the wolf would have recognized as the manager, and gently picked the puppy up from where he had been left to snooze, his typical diaper bag slung over one shoulder, and handed both off to Toya’s mother, who couldn’t help but smile broadly at the sight of her little, newborn tyke.
Playfully bouncing the pup, the older female wolf shouldered Toya’s diaper bag, considerably emptier now than it had been that morning considering the vast majority of the infant wolf’s diapers she had sent along with him were now en-route to a landfill somewhere, and started making her way down the school’s hallways, then outside and down the path that led to the parking lot. As usual, Toya was a fussy, squirmy bundle of little wolf, and eventually his mother had to set him down while she put on her baby carrier, then slipped Toya into it, giving him an affectionate kiss on the forehead while she did. “Come on, cutie pie, let’s get you home and bathed. Even if you’re clean, you still stink something fierce,” she said, playful and affectionate as always, and continued down the side path of the school, passing by the kindergarten wing and feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket, having set it to vibrate considering her normal ringtone would wake Toya, who was currently snoozing against her chest.
The phone call came from a coworker of the older wolf’s, and she quietly stepped off the path to let other women with strollers pass and lent against the tree. Coincidentally, that placed her and her infant son directly in the field of view of a certain kindergarten aged skunk, who had chosen the Eastern windows of the school’s junior classrooms to draw by, and just happened to look up in time to see Toya, his mother instinctively bouncing him as she talked on the phone, careful not to wake him. Normally Farix would have ignored the female and her pup, after all, kids and their parents walked by there all the time. He drew them occasionally, but this one seemed… different. He knew that pup, but he couldn’t recall where, and he made a quick crayon sketch. Black wolf, white ears, short snout, black star on one cheek.
A few moments later the wolf and his mother were gone, Toya’s mom having finished her phonecall and continued on towards their car to make the drive home, but, that afternoon, Farix couldn’t get his mind off the pup. Who was he? Why did he seem so… familiar? But, as home-time came and the little skunk, too, was collected by his mother and taken home, the thought had slipped his young mind. Coincidentally that night, when Farix’s mother cleaned out the small stack of crayon drawings from that day alone from the skunk’s school bag, the quick drawing of the little white eared wolf wound up right on top of a similar drawing from the previous day, that one of a friend who had relayed to him a very interesting story, but had, by the same force pushing the story possible, caused him to forget it. But that same force, an old black feline who had stationed herself some distance away on a bench while Toya and his mother passed by, made an allowance for that brief friendship. One day, a few years from then, when the little black wolf started grade one, the two of them would meet each other again and share an unusual familiarity. The two of them would become friends, and, one day, he might even recognize the two little crayon drawings, or the small silver locket tucked away in one pocket of Toya’s diaper bag.