Escape From Baby Island - Finale, Part One 

The four contestants stood in a row, anxiously awaiting news of their fates.
Sam, Katie, Benji, and Miranda. And soon there would be only three.
“The results are in,” Liam said, listening to his earpiece. “Our viewers have cast their votes, and we know who’ll be going home! Miranda, please step forward.”
Miranda swallowed and obeyed, her diaper crinkling. She had on a generic T-shirt in her color, yellow, and a diaper that–she was glad to say–didn’t match. Her hands shook in trepidation, fearing Liam’s next words.
“You scored eighteen points in the last round,” Liam said. “Just missing out on finding your pacifier to get the maximum, which is a shame.”
Sam’s expression turned a touch guilty, a detail that the cameras noticed, while Miranda didn’t.
“With eleven votes cast for you, that puts you at a total of twenty nine. That’s the number to beat. Sam, step forward please.”
Sam nodded and obeyed, taking a confident breath.
…
Sam: “I got twenty four points in the round, so I’m feeling good here. It won’t be hard to beat Miranda’s twenty nine–I only need six votes to pull ahead.”
…
“You got four votes,” Liam said. “Putting you at twenty eight. That’s a dangerous number to be at, but Miranda is safe.”
Sam’s eyes widened in alarm, her confidence melting away as she recognized the danger. She might be going home after all.
“Benji,” Liam continued.
…
Katie: “Oh no. I see the pattern here, he’s counting down. Come on, what, you don’t like me any more? I don’t get votes because that stuck-up ***** Miranda is too popular?”
…
“With eighteen points on the board and four votes, you’re sitting at twenty two. While that’s good news for Sam, you are looking to be in a dangerous spot.” Liam smiled.
“Understood,” Benji said. “I did the best I could.”
“Katie.” Liam eyed her.
…
Katie: “This can’t all be for nothing, can it? I crapped my pants on camera, I deserve to win!”
…
“You only got twelve points in the round,” Liam continued. “The lowest starting score of any competitor. In order to stay in, you’d need at least eleven votes to pull ahead of Benji. Let’s take a look…”
…
Katie: “I swear to god if you didn’t vote for me–”
…
“Twelve votes!” Liam announced. “Putting your score at a safe, if slightly low, twenty four. Congratulations, Katie, you’re moving on to the final round of competition.”
Katie pumped her fist in the air, while Benji only shrugged, disappointed but unsurprised.
…
Benji: “What can I say? It’s a girl’s club in here. I don’t think there’s anything I could have done differently, and I played as well as I could.”
…
Benji shook their competitors hands, waved to Liam, and left the set.
Only the three girls were left.
“Congratulations on making it to the final round,” Liam said. “Now that there’s only three of you left, you’ll all be given your own room–enjoy the personal space, and try to relax. Tomorrow you’re in for a heck of a time, where only the biggest baby will survive.”
The three of them dispersed. Sam tapped Benji’s shoulder, and the two of them walked off in the same direction, Katie looking on in concern.
…
Katie: “I’m not stupid. I know they’re planning something. But what can I do? They know I’m better and they’re gunning for the top.”
…
Sam: “I can do the math. Katie’s gotten the most votes every round, except when Miranda takes it. The only way I can win is pitting them against each other, and Miranda’s the more gullible of the two.”
…
Reaching somewhere private, the two of them shared a quiet conversation, out of Katie’s earshot. They had their plot, and knew how to execute it.
Soon, it’d be morning, and a new round would begin.
…
BWAAAAP!
The air horn to wake the contestants blared. All three had had a good night’s rest, and all three jumped to attention, scrambling out of bed.
To their collective surprise, though, the shared living space had undergone a significant transformation overnight. The furniture had been cleared and, in its place, three high chairs sat waiting, painted yellow, pink, and purple respectively.
Liam waited, too, arms folded over his chest.
“Contestants–” he started. “This morning, we’ll find out which of you is truly the biggest baby on the island. The next contest will begin shortly. As soon as it begins, you’ll be seated, and have to eat your breakfast–which, believe me, any adult would find rather unpalatable. Once that’s done, you’ll rush outside and begin to complete challenges. Simple, baby challenges, in fact, the kind that any child should be able to complete without trouble.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Katie said. “And whoever does the most in the time limit wins an advantage?”
“Not exactly.” Liam held up a finger, shaking his head. “This isn’t a points round, it’s a cash builder. Every challenge you complete, you’ll get a thousand dollars in your piggy bank, which will be multiplied based on the results of the final contest. All three of you will be going home with a prize as long as you don’t back out–now the question is only, how much?”
The three of them blinked.
“And, one more thing–” Liam continued. “You will be able to complete challenges until you fill up your diapers. As soon as you’ve got a messy bottom, you’re out.”
Miranda glanced at the high chairs.
…
Miranda: “I’m worried this isn’t going to just be regular baby food.”
…
“Are there any questions?” Liam asked.
Miranda and Sam shared a look, nodded, and then faced Liam.
“In that case…” Liam raised his hand. “On your mark, get set, baby!”
Bwaaap!
The three of them ran to their respective high chairs, hopping in and clicking the trays in place. Members of the crew stepped forward to set out a spread of food–mostly mush in various colors–but there was a distinct lack of cutlery to eat it with.
Katie started on her bottle, Sam picked up a jar of something greenish, and Miranda dug in with her fingers to scoop up something orangish and slimy.
She gagged.
…
Miranda: “Ugh, this tastes like someone tried to make pudding out of broccoli.”
…
Liam stepped up while they ate. “While you’re busy, let’s look at some audience reactions to yesterday’s competition. One viewer writes, ‘Damn that's some bullshit. Judges doing nothing for a clear red card in any sport. My vote to Miranda for sure. #TakeKatieDown’ - looks like you’ve got some enemies, Katie!”
In the middle of choking down something chalky in her bottle, Katie’s eyes bugged.
…
Katie: “I didn’t even do anything! Sam’s the one who grabbed Benji’s ankle!”
…
“And a message for Sam, after you used your egg for the free change–’Okay, that’s a smart play!’”
Sam would have grinned, but she was halfway through a mouthful of strained peas and could only grimace.
“And one last message, also directed at Sam–’And lost it just as quick’.”
Sam raised an eyebrow up at him. Miranda glanced at her, swallowing a mouthful of the wretched baby food. “What’s that about?”
“I…don’t know,” Sam said. Under other circumstances, maybe her lie might have worked, but Miranda was staring right at her and picked up on her wince. “It’s vague, could be about anything.”
“No, you know,” Miranda said. “I can tell. What were they talking about?”
Sam glanced away, shrugged, and said, “I really don’t know. I gotta eat this crap so I can’t talk.”
Miranda’s suspicious glance remained as they both continued to choke down the baby food, be it veggie-based slime or ‘grandma’s turkey dinner’ in jar form.
Miranda finished eating first, but was only moments ahead of Katie, who in turn had only a seconds lead over Sam. Together they burst out the door, stumbling out to survey the competition zone.
Dozens of challenges were set up across the playground area, each marked with a sign that explained what to do. Miranda beelined to a box with several holes in the top and colored shapes next to it, quickly crouching and examining what to do while Sam ran next to a pole with variously sized rings, and Katie jumped on the baby blocks.
“Okay, easy,” Miranda said, skimming the instructions.
…
Miranda: “It’s a shape box. I can probably just cram everything in the square hole and be done.”
…
Sam didn’t even read the instructions beyond a cursory glance, and instead bent to pick up the largest ring, which was the size of a pool floatie inner tube. Grabbing it with both hands, she started to stand and grunted, caught off guard by it’s weight.
…
Sam: “Jesus, this thing weighs a solid ton!”
…
Katie’s lips moved as she read down the instructions. “Okay, I just have to use these blocks to spell out a single word.”
She looked down, counting out the blocks. Seven of them, each with several letters scrawled on the side. She swallowed, sat, and got to work.
Miranda, meanwhile, frowned over her blocks. All the shaped holes were extremely specific in angle and size, and no matter what she tried, there was no cheat to bypass the puzzle. Each block had to go in at exactly the right angle, in exactly the right hole–and many of the shapes were gears with dozens of teeth or parallelograms with unusual odd ends.
Turning all the gears over, she finally found the appropriate hole for one, getting it down. “Alright, it’s all downhill from there,” she muttered.
A few paces away, Sam picked up another ring, dragging it to the pole. She was, slowly, making a pyramid of smaller and smaller rings, though they seemed to get heavier as they got smaller.
Katie grinned, cheering. “Hah! Diapers!” She stood up, looking at her seven-letter word to confirm it’d been spelled right, scattered the blocks so her solution couldn’t be copied, then ran off to find another challenge.
She found an enormous wire, with several balls on one end. The instructions were again simple, she only had to move the balls to the other end of the wire, but the large corkscrew wire went high up out of reach and couldn’t be easily reached.
Lifting the first ball, which was about as large as a beach ball, she started pushing it along the wire. As she pushed it above her head, she winced, belly gurgling loudly.
…
Katie: “Oh no. No, no, no–it’s barely been a few minutes!”
…
Miranda finished the shape puzzle and ran to the blocks. Sam got the rings up, grunting with discomfort as she got the last one up. The whole pile tipped over as she got it done, spilling out the rings, but she’d solved the puzzle.
Her belly grumbled as well, while she looked for another challenge. A box with plastic alphabet letters caught her attention and she ran forward, crouching.
“Put the alphabet in… alphabetical order?” she said. “What’s that… oh. It’s got a phonetic list.”
…
Sam: “So this is dumb. “H” is spelled “A-I-C-H”, so it comes first, and so on. The whole alphabet is arranged like that. Who came up with this crap?”
…
She began throwing up letters on a magnetic board, pausing occasionally to rearrange them correctly.
Hanging from the wire, Katie moved like she was on monkey bars, pushing herself forward hand-by-hand so she could shepherd the ball forward. Eventually it reached a tipping point, falling down and spiraling to the end. One down, three more to go.
…
It went on like that. Color sorting, letter sorting, all just a little too inconvenient and difficult to solve. None of it followed a logical order, of it if did, it was just hard, requiring acrobatics and climbing on the part of the contestants.
And, one by one, they succumbed to the chemicals mixed into their baby breakfast. Miranda went down first, dropping to her knees in the middle of the ring-stacking puzzle, whispering, “Nooo…” as the back of her diaper swelled, a close-up shot making it clear just how much she’d packed her diaper.
Sam lasted a minute longer, but she too succumbed. Finishing up the letter block puzzle, she sat back and gave up holding it, grunting in discomfort as the cramps overwhelmed her and her diaper drooped.
Katie was last, and most stubborn about it. She gave up trying to solve puzzles, gave up trying to hide, and just balled her fists and screwed up her face in an effort to keep from filling her diaper, on camera, again.
She failed, and with a loud Blrrrch her diaper began to swell, sagging more heavily than any of the other contestants as the laxatives won out against her in dramatic fashion.
While this played out, Liam faced the camera.
“We’ve got one more surprise for the contestants–this round, you aren’t going to be voting on who you want to win. Instead, you’ll be voting for something very different. Our contestants are going to have to survive a spanking–and for each vote cast, they’ll get an extra swat to their mushy behinds. So, get your votes in on which of these smelly diaper girls you want to see over a knee, and we’ll see you in the conclusion to Escape From Baby Island!”