Becoming a Sim

Afternoon

At the end of school (Kylie now had complete profiles of all the people in the Imports group), Kylie climbed on the bus and plopped down next to Angela.

"Here," she said, handing her awestruck young friend her red Creator notebook, "and here," flinging her pencil at her, "and here," dropping the highlighter in Angela's lap.

Angela opened the notebook and squealed as she scanned Kylie's hurried notes and pumped her fist at the few highlighted sections in her theories.

"Um...Angela?" Kylie asked. "I noticed a poster at school saying something about 'down with the Creator.' It seemed like everyone was purposefully avoiding it."

"Oh. Yeah," Angela said. "We're a group. Organized. We meet during school--the YD and the TD. The young division and the teen division, not to mention the adult and elder division. We meet every school day and chat about taking down the Creator whenever we are told to talk at home and in town." She puffed up her chest as she spoke, obviously proud of her "division."

Kylie nodded slowly. "I can provide you guys with info. Just to know and have ready."

"Awesome!" Angela squealed.

"But what I really need to focus on," Kylie let the little girl know, "is going home."

"What? But we need you!"

"No, you were doing fine without me. I'll give you the info you need and be on my way."

Angela was subdued for the rest of the ride while Kylie pondered replacements for the parts in her machine. She was thirteen, so they had obviously been somewhat simple to get. But were they in this Sim town?

They arrived at their house and immediately, a plumbob appeared above Kylie. She groaned inwardly as her feet started shuffling toward the house. She did everything to fight it, to tell this Creator that she came from his world. Nothing worked. 

She felt something inside her crack and break. There was no escaping. She could never leave.

She disconsolately got a bowl of cereal from the fridge (no one made homemade meals here? All her Sims did) and sat on a very uncomfortable wooden chair that had come with the house.

How long had this Creator been playing? Maybe they hadn't had enough money to spare on buying new furniture...?

Her eyes flicked to the huge flatscreen TV and she sighed. Her Creator was cruel. He stole Sims and never gave them back. How could she get back to her world?

Suddenly, Julia rushed past her and into the bathroom. Kylie could hear her being sick. 

That can only mean one of two things. She ate some bad food or...

Suddenly, her screen filled with an announcement. All Kylie had to read was the word pregnant before she shut her eyes tightly and willed it to go away. 

She didn't know about this world, but when Mama Sim had gotten pregnant in her world, she had had her family do a lot more work so she could just sit and relax, reading pregnancy books and listening to the kids station on the stereo in the hopes of twins.

And if that had been in her world, where she treated her Sims with respect, then what would this cruel Creator do?

She watched as Julia emerged from the bathroom with a panicked look on her face. Had her Sim looked like that, down in the game where she couldn't get close enough to read facial expressions?

Suddenly, the plumbob appeared above her head. She walked over and crouched down, holding one ear against Julia's stomach. She couldn't hear anything--was she supposed to?

She stood up and launched into a conversation with Julia. It seemed they had control over their words as well. As I speaking Simmish? Kylie wondered before asking hesitantly, "Are--are you okay, Julia?" 

"No!" the woman snapped. "I am now going to be stuck at home for days while all of you escape to work and school! I'm going to just be sitting here with the Creator doing whatever he wants to do with me!"

"Has he treated you badly before while you were pregnant?" asked Kylie, not wanting to believe it.

"Yes. I had an affair, caused a fire, and cleaned whenever I wasn't working on one of the above!" she wailed. 

"All in one pregnancy?" Kylie asked, shocked, remembering that Angela had been adopted before Julia had been incorporated into the Plumbobians.

"No," she growled, gritting her teeth. "Well, yes, but I did more in my next pregnancy. I convinced another guy to leave his wife--and, not being part of the Creator family, he had chosen her and she had chosen him. Now they have to pretend to hate each other and live apart."

Kylie nodded sympathetically. She would have thought nothing of that when she was in her world--not that she would have done anything like that, but still. A crazy thought hit her--then, Christie and Alex...did they feel like the Plumbobians?

For a few seconds, she was glad her PET had backfired. If two people she had trusted to come to life and love her, only to press the button, open the door, and find out they despised her? That would have been too much for her to handle. 

"The Creator put my twins in a room and took out the door," Julia whispered, wringing her hands. "When I woke up, the door was there and the crib was empty. They had been taken by child protection agencies."

"Oh, I'm--" Suddenly, Kylie found herself walking over to a teenage girl that was standing outside and tapping on a phone. What now? she thought wearily, incredibly tired of being a shell, someone for the Creator to worm inside and take over. 

The girls started talking. Kylie would have screamed if she could control her body--they were being romantic to each other!

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said. "I mean it. I'm really, really sorry."

The girl's eyes were filled with hate. "Oh, really? How do you think I feel?"

"I take it you're not gay?" Kylie joked weakly, and the girl's frown deepened. 

"You're so stupid. All the Plumbobians are."

"Hey, I didn't choose to join their family!" Kylie protested, horrified at finding herself sidling closer to the girl. "Anyway, it's not their fault!"

"Who cares? Oh, forget this," the girl growled, and Kylie quickly checked her profile page, the world temporarily freezing around her. So, it's not always glitches making my game slow, she thought. It's the Sim I'm controlling accessing their profile page!

She saw that the girl's name was Sunshine Leary. Their relationship bar had a sliver toward the left, meaning their relationship wasn't the greatest. The mood was awkward. 

"Good thinking," Kylie complimented Sunshine, but she just turned around and walked away. 

Good thing that's over.

Kylie went inside and looked around. The speed of time was beginning to feel normal, and she checked her rest bar to see that she was exhausted. The Creator hadn't seemed like they wanted to physically harm their Sims...all she could do was hope he or she gave her the command to sleep soon. 

Sure enough, she walked into the bedroom she had first been in (it was decorated like it was meant for a toddler, but whatever--it still had a real bed) and tucked herself into the bed.

A few Sim minutes later, she remembered nothing more.