The moment Russell finally dozed off, his father got to work. He slipped a pair of isolating headphones onto his son’s head, knowing that the pill’s he’d given his son would keep him knocked out for a long, long time. By his estimates, Russell’s father knew that his son would stay out for the entire day, giving the hypnosis regimen he’d been developing more than enough time to permanently alter his son’s psyche.
You see, Russell’s father might have been a football coach, but he was definitely not an idiot. He was a savant in the fields of sports medicine, kinesiology, and psychology; everything he needed to know to keep his team motivated and at their peak physical conditions. And if there was one thing that he knew, it was that if his son had already reached eighteen years old and still wasn’t interested in playing sports, there was nothing he could do to change his mind.
So, what if his son wasn’t eighteen years old? That was the breakthrough Russell’s father needed, and he quickly put together a plan to fix things. Through hypnosis, he’d be able to regress Russell mentally to the precise age when he’d be interested in playing sports, as well as implant triggers to make him more suggestible and malleable. Hormone treatment and other medicine would help to complete the regression, leaving Russell at the perfect physical and mental age to be re-raised as the sports loving boy his father felt he deserved.
Ensuring that the hypnosis program was running and that his son was totally unconscious, Russell’s father slipped out of his son’s bedroom and began to make his final preparations. This Saturday everything would finally fall into place.
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Sunlight began to trickle into Russell’s bedroom window, slowly rousing him from his long sleep. He let out a loud yawn, but was unable to shake the sluggish, sleepy feeling that was clouding his mind. He stumbled out of bed and grabbed the nearest clothes he could find, not realizing that he’d pulled on a sports jersey and baggy gym shorts his father had left for him to find. Barely registering his surroundings, he went downstairs and found his father waiting for him.
“Hurry up, Russ. We don’t want to be late!” His father chuckled and tapped his watch.
“Huh? But, school doesn’t start for another hour at least…” Russell mumbled.
“School? Russ, it’s Saturday? You never were too bright, were you, sport?” The suggestion that Russell wasn’t smart seeped into his mind, locking off bits of what he had learned. “No, it’s time for that special thing you wanted to do. Remember? You asked me to bring you there today.”
Russell had no idea what the ‘special thing’ could be, but he believed his father wholeheartedly when he said that he’d asked for it. His father wouldn’t lie to him. At least, thanks to the suggestive hypnosis he's been subjected to for the last thirty hours, he believed everything his father told him, whether or not it was actually true.
“R-right… the special thing. Of course. Umm… let’s go, then!” He feigned understanding and enthusiastically followed his dad outside, where they both got into the car and drove off.
Soon, the car pulled into the parking lot for the local park, where boys of all ages were signing up for their sports teams. Russell hopped out of the car and looked around, confused.
“Dad? W-why are we-“
“You told me you wanted to sign up for your first sports team, remember Russ? It’s an important day for a boy your age, and I’m so proud of you.” He reminded his son, and suddenly Russell did remember. “Now, go pick a team that looks like it would be fun, okay?”
This was the final test of the hypnosis. If everything went according to plan, Russell would gravitate toward the age group that corresponded to his earliest interest in sports; the milestone that he had missed the first time he was growing up, that led him down the path of a scrawny nerd instead of the jock he was meant to be.
Slowly and somewhat unsurely, Russell nodded to his father and wandered off toward…