CYOA: Escape Room - Chapter 16 (Story) (Patreon)

Alecia stared down at her diaper, nibbling her lip, trying in vain to scratch herself through it to relieve the itching sensation the woman had given her with the powder she'd used on her, a part of her wanting try giving it a rub instead, to see if she could make herself feel the way Serena had seemed to. Maybe she should also have her thumb in her mouth, instead of her lip, should be practicing sucking on that... This was her fate, right? She couldn't solve this in ten minutes, there was no way! And she definitely wasn't getting her friends free in that time... She might as well give up...

As soon as her fingertips touched her diaper, felt the plastic, her nose began to wrinkle, and she shook her head. It was one thing to have the diaper constantly between her legs, where it was impossible to escape the sensation of it, but using her hands, almost giving herself a check, only reminded her of her little sister, of the countless times she'd done that with her. She didn't have to do that anymore, of course, and by the time she visited home next, Rebecca's potty training would probably be steady enough that she wouldn't even need trainers... She couldn't let herself wind up in diapers permanently if even her baby sister had freed herself from their crinkly clutches!

Besides, she thought back to Rebecca's earlier days with a blush, it wasn't uncommon for her to mess her diaper more than once in a day, something that Serena had also done, giving her more reason to worry it might happen to her, too. She was not going to let that happen! That had to have been the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to her, and she didn't care how... pleased... Serena had looked, there was no way it was worth it. Maybe, with time, she'd get used to it... But wouldn't that, in and of itself, be all the more mortifying? To be so resigned to something that embarrassing that it was now just a part of her life, something that happened every day, possibly multiple times?

She was going to get out of here. She didn't care what it took, she was going to find a way! Doing that, of course, meant making a decision, so she took a quick look around the room to see what caught her attention, and immediately what stood out to her was the slide. The last doll, supposedly, was with other toys... Could the slide be considered a toy? She wasn't sure, though she could see an argument for it... And it ought to be nice and quick to check it out. How long did it take to go down a slide?

She toddled over to it, frustratedly wiggling her itching bottom, doing her best to put it out of her mind, since there didn't appear to be any way to deal with it... Other than earning herself another change, which, unless she somehow managed to poop her pants again - and she wasn't about to do that! - was going to take quite some time in this double diaper. She hadn't really thought about how difficult the extra bulk would make climbing up the ladder until she got to it, squirming in place as she stared upwards. 

Normally, it shouldn't have been that hard, not for an athletic girl like her... As tiny as she was now, however, and given everything this place had done to her, she had her doubts, but if she started second guessing her choices now, she'd just run around the room, backing away from everything when she hit the slightest resistance, and never get anything done. She grabbed a rung with her hand, pulling herself up, her foot searching for a hold. The diaper did make it awkward, obviously, although it felt doable...

Until she got a couple more rungs up, and her foot slipped. She gasped, trying to hold herself up with only her hands as she looked downwards, her giant diaper making it difficult to see exactly what she should be aiming her thrashing leg at... And then she lost her grip. "No!" she squealed, falling back down to the floor with a crinkly thud. It wasn't that far, all in all; it did stun her for a second or two, sitting there blushing and shaking her head, grateful that she hadn't hurt herself and wound up with another handicap for the final stretch of this escape room.

She hadn't, and she had fallen much further during practice for cheerleading. She wasn't going to let this stop her. She scrambled back to her feet, staring up the ladder and taking a deep breath before tackling it once more, focusing all her energy on it, refusing to let it defeat her. She ignored her diaper as much as she could, ignored where she was, and what the stakes were, and just climbed, feeling a sense of exhilaration flowing into her as she got higher and higher, her body feeling stronger for once, rather than weaker, as this room had mostly made her feel. Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe not... She was happy to take advantage of it however she could.

She grinned to herself as she reached the top, standing there for a long moment, soaking in her triumph, before it occurred to her that this was a good vantage point. She could see most of the rest of the room pretty well from up here, so maybe this was a good time to look for clues as to where the doll might be, in case she was wrong. A quick scan didn't show her much at all, unfortunately... It was easier to get a sense of the layout of the room, sure, but she'd be in there long enough that she already knew where everything was, and there didn't seem to be any hint of the doll anywhere.

It had been worth a shot, anyway, she thought to herself, plopping down on the slide. The doll wasn't up there, either, and she didn't see any cryptic messages scribbled on the plastic in crayon or anything, so she was starting to think it might be just a decoy, or for decoration more than anything. Even glancing down the slide to see if there might be a clue there that she'd have to try to read as she slid past it, there was nothing...

Until her eyes came to the end, and saw what the slide ended in. There, at the bottom, in the middle of the playroom, was a sandbox, complete with plastic buckets and shovels, and a couple half-built sandcastles. "What?" she blinked, hardly able to believe her eyes - though, after everything else that had happened here, she shouldn't have been surprised, she supposed.

That definitely hadn't been there before... She looked around herself again to confirm that she was still inside, that the slide itself hadn't somehow transported her outside to a playground, but everything was the same, except for the area right in front of the slide. She wasn't sure why, but that sent a shiver of fear down her spine... It just seemed so wrong there, and she couldn't help worrying what it meant, what would happen if she went down the slide and wound up in that sandbox...

She shook her head, trying to shake away the memories of the first time she'd taken Rebecca to a playground, and how scared she'd been of the slide, of how hard it had been to coax her to go down it... And how happy she'd been once she finally gave it a chance. Alecia very much doubted it would end quite the same way for her...

She turned towards the ladder, ready to climb down and try something else, only to let out a squeak as she found a giant teddy bear, like the ones she'd seen inside the playpen, both when she'd explored it, and when she'd gotten a look inside to see Serena enjoying herself on one, behind her, seemingly waiting its turn. Her face burned bright red, flashing back to Serena once more, straddling the leg of one of these, humping away... It was so big, she was surprised she hadn't heard it climbing up the ladder, but, on the other hand, it seemed so soft and fluffy that she supposed it made sense.

"S-Sorry," she said, feeling ridiculous talking to a toy, even one that was bigger than her. "C-Could I get past you? I changed my mind, I... Hey!"

The bear, apparently impatient for its own turn, shoved at her, Alecia barely managing to dodge its furry paws. "You can go!" she told it. "If we could just squeeze past each other... Stop it!" It lunged forward again, Alecia gasping as she felt herself start to slip, feet scrambling for a purchase on the slick slide as she turned around the rest of the way to face it, hoping that would give her the best chance. "Leave me alone!" She fought back, reaching out to give it a shove...

Even with her newfound strength, she wasn't fast enough, the bear using that opportunity to push her one more time, harder than ever. Alecia's stomach lurched as she went over the edge of the slide's seat, her weight pulling her down the rest of the slide, despite her best efforts to stop it. She zoomed backwards helplessly, tumbling out the bottom right into the middle of the sandbox...

And, before she could even feel any relief at having survived, immediately starting to sink. "No!" she groaned, looking down at herself in horror, confirming that her padded bottom was, indeed, quickly descending into the sand... "I knew it!" she hadn't, of course - why would she have known that it was, in fact, a quicksand box? - but it did justify the bad feeling she'd had, looking down at it. She whimpered, feeling the liquid sand begin to pour into her diaper, rushing past the leakguards, her pants starting to fill once more.

She hopped up, yanking her diaper free of the whirlpool of sand beneath it, her feet starting to be yanked downwards instead, though that was a fair trade, in her mind... She was much more willing to sacrifice her socks than her diaper, since she could take those off far easier. She forced herself to start moving, to head for the edge of the sandbox, expecting the whole thing to be quicksand. Fortunately, after a few steps, it began to feel more solid, giving her a little breathing room.

Still, she didn't want to stay there too long if she didn't have to... But she was here, and there were some things that could be considered toys. It was definitely tempting to rush out of the sandbox and get away from it; it also seemed like a waste. She began to waddle towards one of the buckets, pausing for a moment to yank off her frilly ankle socks, tossing them aside. They were already filled with sand and filthy, and she might get a bit better purchase in her bare feet. It hit her only afterwards that she was now left in just her diapers, nothing more, that she'd lost the entirety of the rest of her outfit now, and was stuck running around in nothing more than a diaper, like a real baby...

She knelt down in front of the bucket, seeing that it was filled with sand. She picked it up and turned it over, brushing through the sand, searching for anything that might be a clue, and finding nothing... She was so concerned with her search that she almost missed the fact that she was sinking once more, until she tried to get up to move to the next bucket and her knees, and diaper were already submerged in sand again.

"Leave me alone!" she demanded, hands flailing for solid ground, and finding the shovel that went with the bucket. She planted it into the sand, grateful that it didn't appear to be quicksand, and pulled herself free, brushing her legs off as she toddled away, her diaper feeling a little more full and droopy now. She had expected the sand to make her even more itchy, considering the way it felt against her skin as she sank into it, and she should probably have been grateful that didn't happen. Instead, however, whether it was the consistency of the quicksand, or just another trick of the room to humiliate her further, it felt like she'd pooped her pants again already.

She hadn't, though, she reminded herself. She wasn't that big of a baby, and she wasn't going to let herself become one! She waddled forward, quicksand shifting and squelching between her legs, blushing deeply. She got down on her knees in front of the next bucket, but was smart enough to keep her bottom high, out of the quicksand's reach, and was glad for it when she started to sink again... And the bucket was also, again, empty of anything except more sand. She climbed up just in time to keep her diaper safe, and, even though it was beginning to feel pointless, she plowed forward towards the next bucket, determined to make this whole thing worthwhile.

She stayed standing this time, grabbing the shovel that went with the bucket and using it to scoop the sand filling it up out, tossing it aside. She could feel the sand bubbling up between her toes as she started to be pulled down once more, but, by now, she was used to it, and her legs would give her some buffer room. Getting the sand out that way also took some time, however, especially as she got towards the bottom of the bucket... More time than she'd realized, and, in the end, there was still nothing there.

"Oh, wow," she blinked, looking down to see that she was now up to her knees in the quicksand. That was all right, though... As scary as it had seemed at the beginning, it wasn't that hard to get away from, so she tried to pull her leg free...

It refused to budge. She was too deep in it now. Her heart began to beat a little faster, despite trying to calm herself down. She still had the shovel in her hands, so she could use it like she had before, planting it in more solid sand...

This patch of quicksand, apparently, was larger than the others, the shovel plunging down too far when she stabbed it into the ground, and, before she could yank it free, vanishing beneath the surface. "Oh, crap," she pouted, panic really setting in. "Get off of me, you stupid sand!" It refused to listen, continuing to suck her her, quickly reaching the crotch of her diaper and eagerly rushing inside to add insult to injury. 

"Ugh!" she groaned, taking a slow step forward, feeling like she was walking through molasses. Was she going to be able to reach the edge of this pit in time?! She had to try, as unlikely as that was starting to seem, her body getting lower and lower, more and more quicksand gushing into her diaper as more of it fell under its surface, until it was completely submerged. 

"Wait, what am I doing?" she shook her head, realizing she'd blindly started to walk in the same direction she'd lost her shovel, where she knew there was more quicksand. She was so stupid! Maybe she deserved to be a baby, if she couldn't think straight enough to get her out of this mess! She turned, heading back the other direction, watching in horror as the sand crawled up her bare chest, getting higher and higher, the pit she was in never seeming to end...

And then, finally, she ran into a wall. Not an actual wall, of course, but a patch of sand that didn't seem to be sinking, that was a bit more solid. Her legs kicked beneath her, churning up more sand, doing her no good, leaving all the work to her arms, which were free for now, if only barely. Grunting and groaning, she reached as far away as she could, getting as good a grip as she could manage on the sand - which wasn't much - and dragging herself up, slowly, painfully. If it hadn't been for that rush of adrenaline before, she doubted she would have been able to do it.

But, somehow, she did it, pulling her body loose, collapsing onto the semi-solid ground to catch her breath for a moment before rolling over and examining the damage. She knew that it was just sand, that she hadn't done it; to anyone on the outside looking in, it seemed as if she'd completely filled her diaper again, mere minutes after doing it the first time... And it felt that way, too. All that mushy sand did appear to be minimizing the effects of the itching powder, at least, so that was a plus... That was the only one, however.

"I-I'm getting out of here," she mumbled to herself, not willing to risk that happening again, nose wrinkling as she felt her diaper drooping and swaying beneath her while she moved. She really wanted a clean diaper, but she wasn't sure if the woman would give her one... And, even if she would, Alecia doubted she'd like what the woman chose as her price for doing so. Besides, diaper changes took time, and she'd already wasted a lot of it getting stuck here, with nothing to show for it.

She didn't aim specifically for the sandcastle, not consciously, anyway. She also didn't hesitate to level an angry kick at it as she passed by, though, frustrated at herself for winding up here, for letting herself get caught in the quicksand, over and over, letting so much of it into her diaper...

She almost didn't see the slip of paper, she was so busy storming towards the side of the sandbox. Something attracted her attention, however, from the corner of her eye, enough to make her turn back, then pause. She went back to it, squatting down and picking the paper up, then hightailing it to the edge of the sandbox and hopping out before even attempting to unfold it. As soon as she was outside of it, the sandbox vanished, leaving behind no trace, not even the sand on her body... The sand in her diaper, unfortunately, stayed right where it was.

Alecia did her best to ignore it, looking down at her hands to confirm the paper was still there, too, unfolding it to see if it had been worth the trouble. There, scrawled in neat, beautiful script, were instructions telling her to, 'Be sure to put your dollies away when you're done playing, young lady!'

"Dollies!" she squealed. Those were exactly what she was looking for! Where would someone put away dolls? That had to be the toy box, didn't it? Or was it a clue meant to lead her towards putting them into their right rooms in the dollhouse, which she'd already figured out? It was hard to tell for certain, but she needed to make a decision quickly, as she was about to be reminded.

"Uh-oh!" the woman's voice rang out mockingly. "Did you have another accident in your diapers, Alecia? Don't worry, I'll take a look and see if you're ready for a change... Once you lose in another five minutes."

What should Alecia do?

Look at the ring toys?

Investigate the toy box?

Check out the coloring books?

Investigate the jack in the box?

Climb into the tunnels?

The Roll Report:

To start things off, since two different choices got the exact same amount of votes, I flipped a coin rather than rolling to decide which of the two really won, and the slide won. It's also what I would have chosen, should I have decided to just give myself tie-breaking power, but I figured that, with the theme of this CYOA, adding a bit of randomness to it would be more fair, and it won anyway.

And then, almost immediately, Alecia rolled what was almost a critical failure, though luckily it was determining which of three 'versions' of the ride down the slide she got, so she wound up with what is arguably the worst one - though maybe the most fun given her state of mind at the moment - but otherwise didn't suffer any consequences of a failed save against a booby trap. Her next roll wasn't much better, and delayed her getting up the ladder a bit, but then she got a critical success. It felt like a little bit of a waste of that for something so simple, really, so I decided it meant she could also reverse the loss of some of her strength from one of the traps.

She got another bad roll when trying to look for clues from the top of the ladder, however, and an even worse one for determining if she was brave enough to go down. She rolled better for trying to keep from being pushed down, but it wasn't quite enough. She got a very good roll for getting away from the initial quicksand, however. Another good roll prompted her to stay and investigate the sand toys.

She went back to a pretty bad roll for finding the correct thing to investigate, however, and wound up in another quicksand trap, then bounced back to a good roll to escape without too much damage. The second bucket followed the same pattern, but then the third one went much worse, with several failed rolls to get away from the quicksand before she finally managed to succeed.

After three failures, I gave her another roll to see if she would keep going, and she got a very bad roll, so I let her start to leave, but I let her roll one more time as she left, just to see if luck was on her side... And it was, getting her what was almost a critical success, allowing her to stumble across the clue at last. Unfortunately, with all of those failures, it did mean that she lost a little more time that might have been ideal for one stop, but with some luck, she might still be able to make it out.