Ivy had cried until her throat was raw and her chest ached with the hollow, hiccupping sobs of someone who had no idea if they would ever feel whole again. The tears had come without resistance—first in a trickle, then in a torrent—as if some dam had broken within her, long held back by pride, by anger, by sheer necessity. And now that it had cracked, there was no stopping it. Not until the weight inside her had run dry. Not until there was nothing left but the dull echo of silence and the distant hum of fluorescent lights overhead.

Eventually, Ivy’s fingers curled against the tray of her walker, her breathing slowing. Her eyes, still puffy, no longer stung. She blinked once. Twice. Then, she straightened, the walker creaking beneath her weight as she adjusted her footing, its straps keeping her steady. She turned to leave the room. What else was there to do?

The corridor stretched ahead like an artery of false warmth and pastel cheer. She moved with care, the walker clicking softly against the tiles, echoing louder than it should have. Every inch of motion reminded her of what she’d lost, what she’d become, and how little control she still had. 

At last, she reached the observation window. Beyond it, the others lay in their incubator-like beds—those high-walled cribs.. The room was quiet, and most of the babies seemed to be asleep or trying to. She watched them for a long moment, not even realizing she had pressed a mittened hand against the glass.

And there they were: Naomi and Oliver, performing their dance before the contestants. Naomi cooed and praised, and her voice was a saccharine lullaby. Oliver chimed in now and again with his high-pitched babble. 

She didn’t know how long she had stood there, hoping, absurdly, for someone to wake up and see her. But none did. One of the only people she had trusted, one of the few who understood even a fraction of what this place had done to them, was gone. 

Ivy turned away from the looking window, her reflection fading into the darkened glass as she pivoted the walker around with effort. The silence followed her like a shadow, cold and clinging, thick with the kind of emptiness that could only come from being forgotten. Or worse—ignored. She told herself there was nothing left to see, nothing left to feel. But that wasn’t true. There was plenty to feel. Too much, really. Loneliness had a taste in this place, coppery and thick like old blood on the tongue. 

The hallway stretched before her in soft, pastel mockery. The kind of corridor that might’ve belonged in a daycare brochure. Ivy moved slowly, the walker squeaking just slightly with each push, her legs aching from the limited use they were allowed. The sounds of the nursery faded behind her, swallowed by the empty quiet. 

When she reached the cafeteria, the door slid open without a sound, and the room beyond was lit only by a single overhead fixture. It was empty, just her, the walker, and the single gleaming vending machine that stood like a sentinel at the far end of the room.

Ivy’s stomach growled as if on cue. Hunger gnawed at her from within, twisting under the padding strapped around her waist. The vending machine hummed softly, its screen lit with the familiar grid of numbers and selections—but only one button glowed.

Her number.

24.

The digits pulsed in quiet invitation, or perhaps command. Ivy stopped a few feet away from it, her knuckles white against the walker’s tray, her heart thudding in her chest like a fist pounding on a locked door. The sight of that button twisted something deep in her gut—not quite fear, but close—something more like dread laced with betrayal. 

She stared at it for too long. Wishing for something else to blink. For some alternate choice to appear. But nothing changed.

She exhaled, long and slow, as her stomach clenched again. The part of her that still had pride hissed in protest. But pride didn’t fill the hollow in her belly. Pride didn’t give her the strength to stand tomorrow. Pride didn’t get you through another day in this hell.

She leaned forward, slowly, carefully, and pressed the button.

It clicked with a mechanical finality that sounded louder than it should’ve. A whirr followed. Then a groan from deep within the vending machine as gears turned and clanked like ancient bones grinding against one another. Ivy winced, bracing for the worst.

But what emerged was deceptively simple: a single warm, plastic, pink bottle that dropped softly into the tray.

Ivy didn’t move at first. She just stared at it, heart still hammering, her breath shallow. The bottle looked harmless. Innocent, even, and she hated that it still had the power to scare her.

But the hunger gnawed again.

Slowly, she leaned down and picked it up, fingers curling around the bottle’s side. Her name was written on it. Not her number—her name, scrawled in bright crayon-like font. Ivy. 

Ivy stood in the sterile stillness of the cafeteria, the soft whir of the vending machine fading into the background as she stared at the bottle in her hands. Its surface was warm against her palms, its contents gently sloshing inside like a heartbeat beneath plastic skin. It should have come with ceremony. With arms descending from hidden compartments, cradling her as though she were something breakable, easing the nipple between her lips as if this humiliation were kindness. That was the rhythm of things. Last time, they hadn’t given her the choice—they had made her a baby. Fed her. 

But tonight… nothing.

No arms. 

Just her.

Her, and this damnable bottle.

A small but sharp frown creased her face as she tilted the bottle in the dim light. The name written across it—Ivy—in oversized, childish lettering practically mocked her. At first glance, it had seemed written directly on the plastic, but now she noticed the faint lift of the edge. It was a sticker. 

Her brows knit tighter as she shifted the bottle in her padded grip, trying uselessly to peel the label with her mittened fingers. The foam-lined mittens made fine control impossible; they weren’t designed for independence. She made a frustrated noise, her breath hot in her nose as she leaned forward and used her teeth to snag the edge of the sticker. It pulled away with surprising ease.

Underneath it, there was writing. Not machine-written. Handwritten. In blue ink, faintly smudged in the middle. Someone had scribbled it quickly—hurriedly, even—as if afraid of being caught. The handwriting was shaky but legible, and the moment her eyes made sense of it, Ivy felt the world tilt beneath her feet.

The Trials aren’t what you think.
Please come back to us.
We love you – Mommy & Daddy.

Time stopped.

Ivy’s breath caught in her throat as if the words had lodged there, stuck in her chest like a jagged splinter of glass. Her knees wobbled. She nearly dropped the bottle. Every part of her froze—no part of her knew how to process what she was reading.

Mommy and Daddy.

This wasn’t part of the show; it was personal, a message, a plea written just for her. But why?

Her first instinct was to deny it. A trick, it had to be. Another mind game from the endless labyrinth that was the Nursery Trials. Yet another level of manipulation. But it seemed more than that.

And then—hope. That stupid, poisonous thing.

It coiled in her like a whisper, pulling her upright as if on puppet strings. She gripped the bottle tightly. Her pulse was racing now, blood pounding in her ears like thunder. Could it be real? 

The thought terrified her more than anything else she’d endured in this place.

If it was real… then there was still someone out there who wanted her. Not Ivy the Contestant. Not Baby Ivy. Not the diapered girl curled in a crib for points and spectacle, but her.

Tears pricked at her eyes, unbidden and hot. She blinked them away, jaw clenched tight as she looked around the room, expecting—hoping—for something, anything to happen. But the cafeteria remained still. 

Ivy slowly sat back, her padded bottom rustling against the walker's seat. She cradled the bottle to her chest, the plastic cool now. Maybe it was her hands that had gone numb.

The Trials aren’t what you think.

Then what are they?

The question echoed in Ivy’s skull like the aftermath of a struck bell, vibrating with a frequency that refused to settle. Her breath caught as she looked up from the bottle, eyes scanning the ceiling, the walls, the recessed corners where she knew cameras waited. There were no red blinking lights, no shifting lenses, but she had long since abandoned the illusion of privacy. 

She tilted her head, her voice cracking as she raised it toward the blank ceiling.

“What do you want from me?!” she screamed. The words tore out of her like glass, sharp-edged and aching. “What do you want from me?!”

Her cry bounced off the cafeteria walls, echoing through the space with cruel mockery. She felt absurd—alone, screaming at ghosts that refused to speak. Her voice shrank as the silence swallowed it, and with it, the last shreds of her pride. No answer came—not a whisper, not a flicker of light, not a single artificial arm descending to cradle or scold.

She waited.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Still nothing.

Her stomach growled again—louder this time, like some beast inside her demanding surrender. She looked down at the bottle again, still warm in her hands, its name sticker peeled off and fluttering to the floor.

The message still burned behind her eyes. We love you. Come back to us.

With a heavy sigh, Ivy leaned forward, her mouth brushing the rubber nipple. She paused for a breath, closing her eyes as if in prayer. Then she bit down, lips sealing around the tip. The formula surged forward—sweet, warm, thick—and slid over her tongue with a familiarity she hated. It coated her mouth, filling the hollows of her cheeks and the pit of her stomach, not just with nourishment, but with shame.

She sucked slowly, rhythmically, her hands curling around the bottle’s curve as if to make herself smaller. The act was so infantile, so wrong, and yet it was what her body needed. Her gut slowly ceased its protests. Her limbs began to relax. And through it all, her mind whirled. Not even the haze of warmth could slow the frantic turning of her thoughts.

What do they mean by “come back”?

She could feel it building again—the weight of something just beyond understanding. The Trials weren’t random; they weren’t just a game. They weren’t entertainment for the masses or even punishment for the broken. They were something else, a machine with a purpose. And if someone out there had managed to breach the system—leave her a message, plant that bottle—then the machine wasn’t perfect.

That thought gave her more strength than the formula ever could.

She finished the last of the bottle with one last pull, the nipple slurping air as it emptied. She wiped her mouth with the back of her mitten, a pitiful gesture of dignity. 

That thought gave her more strength than the formula ever could.

With the back of her mitten, she wiped at her mouth, the gesture clumsy and instinctual—a child’s pantomime of adulthood, stripped of precision and dignity. She sat back in her walker, the frame creaking softly beneath her, and stared blankly at the space in front of her, thoughts racing. Hope had been seeded. Fear still pulsed in the background, but she felt like she might not be alone anymore. 

That was when the arm came.

It descended from the ceiling with the quiet hiss of hydraulics, thin and silver, its joints gleaming like bone beneath flesh. There was no fanfare, no voice, no lullaby to distract her this time—just the cold efficiency of the Nursery’s unseen systems. The arm plucked the bottle from her walker with gentle precision, its pincers closing around the plastic and lifting it away, high into the air and out of sight. Ivy flinched instinctively but didn’t resist. What was there to resist? It had taken what she’d already given up.

And then… it began.

A low, roiling churn deep in her stomach—subtle at first, like the distant echo of a wave. Ivy’s brows drew together in confusion, then concern. Her hands dropped to her belly, mittened palms pressing gently against the soft curve just beneath her ribs. Another twist came, more insistent now, as if something inside her had been uncoiled and set into motion. She gasped, her back stiffening.

“No, no, no—” she whispered, breath catching.

But it was already too late.

Her body betrayed her with mechanical inevitability. Her bladder let go first—sudden, sharp, a rush of warmth that spread between her legs with humiliating speed. The thick padding of her diaper swelled, pressing outward in damp, suffocating bulk. She whimpered, her legs twitching inside the walker straps, but the release brought no relief.

Because the formula hadn’t finished with her yet.

Her gut cramped violently, doubling her forward with a groan. Sweat broke out along her brow, and her arms wrapped around her middle, as if that could somehow contain what was coming. She panted, cheeks pale, eyes wide with the realization that she had no choice in this. The Nursery had decided, and her body was no longer hers.

Then, with a final, unbearable twist, she lost control.

Her bowels emptied in a slow, shameful wave, the sensation horrifically intimate. The mess pressed against the inside of her diaper, soft and squelching, spreading as her body gave way. The warmth radiated outward, cradling her in the one thing she could never scrub away: her helplessness.

She sobbed once, short, sharp, more anger than sorrow—but it died in her throat. The cafeteria remained quiet, the vending machine humming behind her, uncaring. Ivy slumped forward in the walker, her breath shaking as her stomach slowly began to calm, and the worst of it passed. Her diaper sagged heavily between her legs, squishing slightly beneath her weight. The scent crept up around her like a shroud, thick and real.

Ivy left the cafeteria with her head down and her limbs trembling, each creaking step of the walker echoing hollowly in the sterile corridor. Her swollen diaper squished beneath her, sticky and heavy between her legs, each shift a mortifying reminder of what had just happened—what she had been made to do. The warmth clung to her, suffocating and foul, a physical brand of her helplessness. She moved slowly, driven by instinct more than thought, her arms heavy on the padded tray, her eyes stinging from more than just exhaustion. The formula’s effects lingered in her gut, dull cramps twisting through her, and she could feel the soreness beginning to bloom along the small of her back and her thighs.

She made her way down the softly lit corridor, turning left at the corner marked by a cheerful mural of cartoon forest animals—one she could no longer look at without tasting bile—and approached the door to the changing room. The glowing sign above it pulsed gently, beckoning, promising the relief she so desperately needed. Ivy pushed forward and waited for the door to swing open.

It didn’t.

The lock remained firm, the scanner above the handle blinked a calm red.

She frowned, blinked hard, and pushed the walker closer. “Please,” she muttered, voice hoarse and cracking. “Please, I need a change. I—please.”

The door didn’t respond.

Ivy swallowed back the burning lump in her throat and raised her voice. “I’m messy!” she cried, louder now, half-choking on the words. “I need to be changed, please!” She pounded her mittened fists against the tray. “You made me drink it! You did this!”

Nothing.

The silence was absolute, the door remained sealed, untouched by her pleas.

Her hands curled into fists against the foam mittens. Fresh, hot, furious tears welled up in her eyes again. She turned away with a shuddering breath and began to shuffle back down the hallway, the motion of her walker slow and uneven. Her legs ached from the tension, and the sagging diaper squelched under her, spreading further with every step. She didn’t know where else to go. 

She passed back under the soft overhead lights, the crayon murals blurring past her like scenes from a dream she wanted to forget. Her eyes stayed fixed on the floor until she neared the crib room, and then the lights changed.

Soft mechanical arms descended from the ceiling with a sudden hiss of hydraulics and motion. Ivy flinched, instinct screaming as she backed up—but the walker caught on the floor lip, and she was too slow, too weak, too worn down to resist.

“No—wait!” she shouted, thrashing as the arms gripped her beneath her arms and knees. “No! Don’t!”

Her protests were drowned by the smooth, cooing mechanical tones of the Nursery’s caregiving systems. The arms lifted her gently, firmly, pulling her free of the walker. Her legs kicked once, twice, before the swaddle began—a plush blanket folding up around her limbs, tucking her in with practiced, inescapable precision. It cradled her like a mother’s embrace, warm and unyielding, rendering her movement impossible.

She was lowered into one of the cribs, the mattress soft beneath her bulked diaper, the smell of powder and formula lingering in the air like memory. The blanket tightened around her shoulders, pulling close as if to hush her cries. A pacifier dropped down next, dangling on a ribbon, hovering near her lips as the last stage of her humiliation approached.

Ivy didn’t take it, but the arms didn’t care as it forced it into Ivy’s mouth, the bulb inflating, cutting off her cries. 

The overhead lights dimmed with a soft click, leaving only the low hum of monitors and the faint glow of the ceiling nightlight above.

She stared upward, her cheeks wet, her eyes burning, her body still aching from the fullness of her shame.

And in the dark, wrapped and bound in silence, she thought to herself:

I will escape this.