✅ Younger Than You Think?

"&: Home"

Author's Note: Some historical experts on the English language, such as Noah Webster (the dictionary author) considered '&' to be the 27th letter of the alphabet. Some teachers would include it when teaching kids the alphabet, but others wouldn't. The inclusion of '&' in the alphabet seems to have ended at the end of the 19th Century; but I'm using it here because chapters 'W' and 'Z' ended up growing a lot larger than I planned for, and required extra chapters to accommodate them. I hope you don't mind me being a little bit silly with the numbers here.

This chapter is dedicated to Christian, with many thanks for supporting me on Patreon. Thank you, and I hope you like your extra chapter.

Kelly lay on her bed, a book below her face, eager to absorb the information in front of her. This particular book was on the subject of hypnosis, by doctors Wiseman and Maxime. She was finding it a lot harder to learn than the knowledge she had previously inhaled about international law, fluid dynamics, and pharmacology. Even the things she had learned about medicine and first aid, when she was too little to understand what she was reading, had stuck in her head better than this text. She had to fight against instincts that said this was all woo, that it would never work like that. Even when she had first-hand experience of the effects, she found it strange to think that the human mind could be led down the garden path so easily.

Like calling herself Kelly, she thought. She knew that her name was Iriña; the memory was reinforced every time her parents used her name, which they were taking care to do even when there was nobody else they could have been talking to. They were doing their best to help her find herself again. Occasionally they would have to remind her to remember something; but when Mommy or Daddy told her to remember something, it was a prompt to tug on her thread of memories and see if she could shake something loose. All her old memories were still there, everything was connected up, so she only needed someone to remind her that there was something relevant in her imaginary toy chest.

It had been nearly five weeks since she had been rescued from her kidnappers, and she was getting used to her normal life again, but she still sometimes found herself spacing out, amazed at the size of the room around her like she was a tiny baby in a big world. She was getting her knowledge back, all the things that she had learned before, and she thought she was managing to learn new things just as quickly as she ever had, but some of her emotional responses seemed to be stuck as those of a baby, or a little kid. It was fading now, and she was finding it easier to be herself again, but those feelings were always there, just waiting to trip her up.

She finished reading over the chapter about progressive euphoria; and whether it could be more effective to encourage someone to feel relaxed or excited, as a means to give posthypnotic suggestions. The authors suggested that different methods would actually work better for different kinds of suggestions, and that was something she could imagine being true. It still sounded like some kind of science fiction, a lot of the things that the book described, but Iriña had to remind herself that it was all for real. And she was sure that the more she understood it, the easier it would become to find a way back to acting like herself again. Full time, without slipping back into a childish mindset every time she wasn't actively thinking about resisting it. It was hard to believe that Lyle had managed to so thoroughly vandalise her thought processes, but if anyone could find a way to repair the damage, she was sure that it would be her. Right now, she tried to remember the techniques that had been used on her. Was it relaxation or elation she had felt as her mind spiralled down into obedience? She didn't think it was either, so perhaps Lyle had used another induction entirely. Still, the more possibilities she learned, the greater the chance that the next one would turn out to include the things she needed to know. But the sun was coming up outside her window now, it was nearly time for her to turn the lamp off and go prepare breakfast for Mommy and Daddy.