G.J. Zimmer was working hard against deadline to put the finishing touches on what he wanted to be the best Age Regression story ever written. "The story has to be so realistic that I and the reader can feel it in our bones," Zimmer thought to himself. "I'd sacrifice my very being to produce an AR story like that."

"Is that all? Then I think we can deal," said a strange man with a pointed beard who appeared next to Zimmer's computer. "Who are you?" Zimmer asked. "You can call me Scorch. But if you meant what you thought, I can make it so," the man said. Zimmer nodded "yes," and Scorch snapped his fingers, "Done!"

Zimmer began rereading his story, about a trio of explorers who uncovered a strange urn that grants youth to those who recite the proper words. Scorch had subtly edited the tale. It was now totally enthralling. And when Zimmer got to the section where Lady Andrea began to chant the magic words, he began to feel the story in his bones. He tingled strangely. And his head appeared to drop away from his computer screen.

Looking down, Zimmer saw that he was shrinking into his clothes. The rewritten magic words were causing him to grow younger. Zimmer then realized that if the words affected him like this, they were dangerous. He attempted to delete the story, but only succeeded in ejecting the floppy disk that housed the story from his hard drive. As Zimmer reached for the disk, Scorch stopped him.

Scorch deposited Zimmer on a sofa facing a window. "You are now just 2-weeks old, and so will everyone else who reads your tale. You have written the last Age Regression story anyone will ever read," Scorch sneered. Zimmer tried to fight back, but his body was now too young to do anything.

As Scorch disappeared, Zimmer heard a noise at his apartment door. It was two fellows from Strange Stories Magazine, which contracted for the story. They called for Zimmer, but he couldn't answer. Hidden by the back of the sofa, Zimmer listened unseen by the intruders. "He's not here. But he left the story on this disk," one said. "Should we take it to editing?" the other asked. "Don't have time. Zimmer writes the most typo-free copy of all our contributors, so we can safely download it directly onto the page and begin printing the issue."

"Oh no!" Zimmer thought. "Strange Stories Magazine prints 2.5 million copies, and is a fixture in waiting rooms of doctors, dentists, lawyers and tax preparers. They can't distribute an issue containing those magic words that will cause readers to regress into newborns." But beyond a few quiet "Ah-ah-ahs" and some rocking in position, Zimmer couldn't get their attention.

"Zimmer's stories are so popular, the boss wants to run the first 1,000 words on our Internet site as a teaser to buy the whole issue," the first man added. "Yipes! That will include those magic words. I got to stop them so they can't subject millions more to involuntary regression," Zimmer thought. But even flailing his infant arms he wasn't able to attract attention. The two men left.

"What have I done? In my quest to write the ultimate AR story, I will now subject millions of people to being regressed into infants. Families, the economy, even civilization will be blasted to smithereens as the best and brightest ­ the very people who read fantasy fiction ­ are reduced to babbling babies like myself," Zimmer thought. "And all under my byline!" His remorse total, Zimmer finally let out with a very audible "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" But nobody was left in his building to hear it.


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