You can say I am another one of those very average people. I grew up in the suburbs of a big city, I still hang out with my childhood friends, and I had average grades in school which let me continue to college where I am studdying with moderate passion my favorite subject, a field in which I will never be able to get a job anyway. You can say I have a pretty normal life ahead of me, being opposed to cracked-up scientists, politicians, or even lawyers all struggling to get outstanding grades so they can apply for the top jobs on the market.

I live with one of those previously mentioned childhood friends, Julie. She managed to escape the grasp of normality by pure chance, being born imbued with the powers of a wizard. This means that the day after her graduation from high school she was recruited by several prestigious schools around the globe. She decided to join the one closest from home so she could stay in touch with most of her friends. Before moving on with this story, it is worth mentioning that just because I know of the existence of magic it doesn't mean everyone does. This isn't Harry Potter (a book that, according to Julie: «Ridicules the very essence of being a wizard and spreads non-sense across the world». When non-wizards are exposed to magic, see magic, or hear something about magic, their mind immediately forgets about it and their thoughts rebound like a pinball on a bumper. It works flawlessly, but the bouncing effect gets stronger as magic drifts away from normality. Some buildings downtown are entirely devoted to magic (like the wizarding school) but still manage to be completely undercover, protected by the fabric of magic itself, without harming any citizens. I can know about it because Julie bonded with me and thus freed me from these effects.

This means that she can drag me in all sorts of magical events such as wizard parties, or even experiments, either made on herself or on me. Once, after her first transformation class, she failed to change into an eagle and ended up with wings sprouting from her back. It was impressive to watch her move around with a wingspan of four meters, but I am not sure it was worth all these holes at the back of her shirts (add to that all the mental rebounds she caused while riding the subway to school the next morning). After that failure, we still managed to have some fun with it, having feline parties and others with some of her friends. My favorite tricks are definitely body alterations, but I prefer the ones that stick to normality as regular people can adapt to it, since they're not impossible to conceive. We usually change hair or eye colors this way or make ourselves twins before going out, but Julie even changed her complexion several times, as well as going on «full asian» a couple days in a row. Last year, I spent all Christmas vacations as a boy and nobody ever noticed. My dad had had a boy instead of a girl, my room changed appearance, everything adapted. People simply called me Nicolas. I had become a boy to the entire non-magical world.

We're on spring break now, which means we both have homeworks to do. While I'm studying oncogenes and cellular replication, I can hear Julie going around the kitchen mixing things in the pot. She's been struggling with her potions and elixirs class for a while now. Seems like she finally started working on it...

*POOF!*

...Well that didn't sound good.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" screamed Julie.

"Is everything okay?" I asked that without being too worried since it often happens when she studies potions. A little-too-big unexpected puff of smoke and there she goes running around the apartment.

There was a few seconds of silence.

"Nicole, could you come here and help me please?"

After a short sigh, I got up and walked to the kitchen.

Right before I got there, Julie said:
"Just... please don't freak out."

"What could be so... OH MY GOD! What happened?!"

"I erm... was working on a disappearing serum. It's final state only works on inanimate objects but the intermediate state can also affect living things. That's why you usually wear appropriate clothing when brewing anything..."

"And you clearly didn't", I said with a suppressed laugh.

"Well I got some on my clothes and I tried to rub it off... Then... yeah, fuck."

The pot still simmered on the oven, but Julie was now sitting on the floor. The effects of the potion were striking. Well first, the potion almost entirely consumed her legs. All that was left were two stumps barely long enough to be seen poking out from her pajama shorts, both about the same length. They looked round and smooth, not bearing any scars. It was as if someone sliced through her thighs with a knife and then proceeded to give it a smooth look by using sandpaper. Julie nervously moved them up and down as I stared down at her. Her arms weren't as clean as her legs, though. Since she instinctively wiped off the excess off her clothes without using any gloves or protection, the mixture got to work on them too.

Her right arm was a disaster. Her forearm was somehow shorter now like it didn't grow long enough before birth, and she had lost quite a few fingers. Her thumb was nowhere to be seen, which is weird since it usually gives the hand its characteristic shape. Also, her pinkie and ring finger were also gone, to which her palm narrowed to fit her current hand features. Now, her entire hand was just as large as her wrist. That left her with barely half a hand with only two fingers, and a reduced palm, not able to grab anything because of her lack of a thumb. The look of it reminded me a lot of T-Rex arms, but on a human. It looked very cute on her, like how you have a hard time taking a dwarf seriously (real bearded ones, not the medical condition). Her left arm... didn't exist anymore. She probably scratched her shoulder (or something like that) before her right hand started shrinking so the potion ate the flesh up to this point. It didn't sprout any appendages. It was mostly funny because you could see she kept forgetting about it every time she wiggled her empty shoulder, possibly trying to relieve another itch on her body or stabilize herself.

"That is by far one of the most impressive error you've ever made here." I laughed a bit then extended my hand. "Want me to help you up?!"

"It's not funny, Nicole!" She said, slamming her little arm on the floor. "I'd love to watch you try!"

"If only your ingredients didn't bite me when I get too close to them."

"It's not my fault, magic is very..."

"Yeah yeah, I know. I don't mind, just forget about it. What do we do now?"

"Okay. Could you please turn off the oven? Thanks. Now let me just calculate some things..." She put her two fingers in the pocket of her shorts and got her cellphone out. After a miserable fail at holding it while trying to type on it, she lay it on the floor and tapped on the screen for several seconds. "Cool! I'm stuck like this until the end of the week!"

She facepalmed and lost her balance. Luckily, the cupboard was right behind her so she managed to lay on it without falling to the floor. She sighed, looked up to the ceiling in helplessness, then sighed again. Grabbing her phone again, she set it in her lap and logged on Facebook.

"Oh my god", said Julie. "Look at my pictures!"

I leaned in to grab her phone from her extended hand. Struggling to hold it in-between her two fingers, I managed to catch it as it began to fall, touching Julie's hand in the process. The feeling of her new limb felt warm but unfamiliar. I stopped a second to feel it's new odd shape, but Julie softly retracted it with a blush. I wondered how it felt to maneuverer a limb which such a configuration. You can never know until you can try it, I guess.

"It's impressive how magic changes even virtual photos and such."

Her profile picture showed both of us, cheering to the camera with wine glasses, sitting on our couch. I remember this moment well since she was actually holding me in her arms for the picture. Now that she didn't have any legs to stand on, she couldn't possibly hold me up. Her empty shoulder leaned against me while she seemed to hold her glass without any problem with her reduced hand, one fingers on each side of the stem, hand facing up.

Her other pictures underwent the same treatment. Now always sitting, sometimes showing a wheelchair, but always the missing parts and that short arm. On one of the pictures, some of our common friends, blinded by the nature of magic, joked around on a picture of her mid-high-five, that was actually a high-two.

"Can you please carry me to the couch? I don't feel like doing anything for the rest of the day..." she said in a groggy voice.

"Of course."

I got on my knees, wrapped her arm around my shoulders and lifted her off the ground. With three limbs missing, she had become very light and I had no trouble carrying her around. Now on the couch, she relaxed herself and adjusted her shorts as well as the bra strap on her left shoulder. Without any opposable thumb, she mostly grabbed things between her fingers. Soon, she found out that clenching her «fist» also resulted in a relatively satisfying grasp.

"If my calculations are correct, according to the amount I spilled on myself and the current state of the potion (said Julie) I am stuck like this for about 81 hours, which is about three days. So you're gonna have to help me on this one I don't think I can cook, shower or even wipe myself!" She shrugged at the last remark.

"Don't worry, I'll do it. But you owe me one! Next time I feel like morphing into something weird, I'll remind you this very moment."

"Shut up and give me the remote."

She put on a tv-show while I went back to the kitchen. Seeing nothing there I could do, I simply put the lid back on the pot and went back to sit beside my dear friend. I watched the show, but she mostly played with her hand. Looking at it, grasping different things and testing it on her new leg stumps and empty shoulder. She tried squeezing my left wrist as hard as she could, but the reduction also obviously changed the strength in her limb. I looked her in the eye and squeezed her short arm back as hard as I could for revenge... but she didn't budge. I thought a smaller arm would also mean less pain resistance but seems like I was wrong.

"Erm... Nicole?"

"Hmm?"

"I think I still had goop on my shorts..." She said biting her nails.

I gasped. My hold couldn't hurt Julie because I didn't having anything left to squeeze with. Similar to her shoulder, my wrist now lacked a hand. Period.

"Come on really? I have a date tomorrow Julie!"

"I am sorry I didn't notice! It seems like it's all used up now so we shouldn't have any more bad surprises."

"At least you kept your good hand", I told her. "I am left handed, remember?"

"Well now you're... LEFT NUBBED!" She laughed out loud at her joke, wiggling her stumps faster than ever and barely covered her mouth with her hand.

I punched her in the boob, which she then shielded with her hand. Blushing, she said she didn't feel like fighting so we snuggled up again, now both getting used to our abbreviated selves. She fell asleep after a few hours. I took a blanket from the cupboard and lay in on her, then pushed it under her to make her look like a taco while bringing her legs up against her belly. There was hardly anything left of her.

I went back in the kitchen and looked at Julie's pot. I took the lid off again to find that almost everything had evaporated. Biting my lip and looking back at the living room, I carefully dipped my hand in the mixture so that only my pinkie and part of my palm touched it. Then, I watched the liquid being absorbed by my skin. I flexed my hand, then bit my lip harder. Then, I went to bed.