Maddie raised her hands in surrender and stepped back. "Okay, okay, I'm just saying."
Pauline sat down with a sigh, cradling Nate in her arms. He had stopped nursing and was now playing with her hair. She looked over at Madison. "Why don't you go take a nap or something? I've got this covered."
Madison nodded, feeling a bit drained from the excitement of the last hour. "Okay, I'll just lie down for a bit." She flopped onto the bed and closed her eyes.
Pauline watched her friend for a moment before turning her attention back to her new little bundle of joy and smiled with an idea. "What do you say we make you a little sister, Nate?" she murmured.
Maddie had drift off to sleep, her mind racing with the events of the last hour. She had no idea of what was transpiring while she was unconscious. Meanwhile, Pauline had decided to take matters into her own hands. She had picked up anew AR patch and looked at it thoughtfully. With a smirk, she had placed it on Maddie's forehead without a second thought.
When Maddie awoke, she was no longer in the hotel room. She was in a warm, dark space that was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Panic began to set in as she realized she couldn’t move. She couldn’t feel her limbs or anything around her. Then, she heard it. A rhythmic thumping that grew louder and more intense by the second.
Her mind raced, trying to piece together what was happening. It was then that she felt it. A strange cord attached to her belly, pulling and tugging on it, as if it was keeping her connected to something... or someone. A sudden understanding dawned on her. The AR patch, Pauline must have used it to regress her back to when she was just a thought, a mere fetus growing inside her mother. But this wasn’t her mother’s womb. This was Pauline’s.
“Pauline, what have you done?!” she screamed, but no sound came out. She was trapped in this fleshy prison, unable to communicate or escape.