“At what age range are the people of your world toilet trained?”
Her eyes widened a bit when she looked over at the number in the answer box.
Her world was set for people of two or three years to be potty trained?! That couldn’t be right! Last night she’d set that to 18…
hadn’t she? Her head was spinning. She didn’t know what was going on
anymore. Was she dreaming? Was this real? Kaya pinched her hand and yelped a bit. It had hurt.
But then, was the real world the one where she’d potty trained at two and a half? Or the one where she wouldn’t use a toilet for about four years? Had she set the game for people to potty train at the end of the teenage years or their toddler years?
Kaya turned the game off without changing anything. She walked over and sat down on her changing table. She looked down at the drawers that contained her supply of diapers and wipes and such. Were those supposed to be there? Or weren’t they? Tears formed at Kaya’s eyes as her confusion grew. Had she spent the whole day confusing reality with a dream? She simply didn’t know anymore. She laid herself down on the changing table and cried herself to sleep.
Kaya awoke to a jostling on her shoulder. It felt a bit rough. Groggily she swung her arm at the direction she thought it was coming from. When her eyes opened she saw the figure of Luke standing in the room shaking her awake.
“It’s time for dinner.” he told her. Though her ears heard “‘im, ‘ner.”
“Huh?” she asked.
“I said, get up it’s time for dinner, runt.” Luke said.
“Don’t call me runt.” she said, her senses coming back to her.
“Yeah, whatever.” he said as he left the room as Kaya sat up. She noticed that she was no longer on the changing table. She instead was sitting in her bed. She didn’t move for a few moments. The room around her was dark, the sun had gone down. Kaya saw her clock’s light in the darkness and learned she’d been out for a couple hours. It really was almost dinner time. When Kaya didn’t come down right away, her mom came up to check on her. Kaya closed her eyes tight when her mom turned on the bedroom light.
“Kaya, hon, are you awake?” she asked as she walked in.
“Yeah.” Kaya answered as she blinked and got used to the brightness.
“The mall must have left you really tired. You missed your bed completely. You were out cold to boot. You didn’t even wake up when I had Daddy put you in your bed. You wouldn’t wake up no matter what we tried. You didn’t look sick, so we just let you take your nap.”
“I see.” said Kaya. Her mother looked at her with concern. Something seemed off. She sat down next to Kaya and put her arm over her shoulder.
“Is everything all right, sweetheart?” she asked.
“Yeah… no… I don’t know. I… I had this weird dream.”
“Oh?” her mother asked.
“Well, last night, I kinda stayed up later than usual.” Kaya began, she found this a bit difficult to explain but tried her best, “I was playing that World Simulation game. You know, make your own little universe and all that?”
“Yeah, you told us about it before.” Mom said. That was something of an understatement. Upon getting the game Kaya had been very excited, talking about all the different features.
“OK, anyway, last night, I was playing it and setting up my world. I saw one of the questions asked about when people got potty trained and, just for the heck of it, changed the number from the usual one.”
“I think I see.” Kaya’s mom said, “You dreamt that you were living in the world you made up?”
“Kinda…” she answered, “Except for that one thing, everything was completely normal. I even went to the mall with Cindy and Johnny like I do on weekends. But, later, when I went to change the game back to normal, it already WAS!”
“What do you mean?”