“How long did he say it was gonna last? Twelve hours?” Laura clenched her fists, her nails leaving small dents in the skin of her palms.

“Yeah, so we have until…” Beverly turned around to check the clock on the wall. “Minus five minutes… 2:15 in the morning!”

Laura rubbed her hands together until her skin was back to normal. "Figured I’d get these ready now juuuuuuust in case."

She turned around and reached up to the wardrobe’s top shelf for sheets and a pillow, dumping them on the living room floor beside the couch. She came back to her friend and sat cross-legged in front of her. Beverly had tried to crack her knuckles out of habit, but was now struggling to straighten her finger again.

"Oh my God, look." By folding her pinky on itself and pressing hard on it, she had fused her flesh together. "I can't even unfold it anymore."

"Show me!"

Laura inspected her friend's hand and the joints of her finger had indeed melted together. She pushed even harder against it, forcing the finger onto itself, kneading it like dough.

"Can you still move it?"

"Yeah but it's super weird now. It's like I have a nub." She wiggled her mushy finger, now twice as thick but only half as long. "Might as well just take it off."

Pinching her finger using her other hand, Beverly quickly twisted and yanked the flesh off of her body. A smooth patch of skin now covered the spot where her pinky had been not even a second ago. She closed and opened her hand, throwing a side look at her discarded finger.

"I can’t feel it anymore. Want this?."

"Think I can use it now?" Laura dug her nails in the seam to unbend her friend's digit.

"There's only one way to figure it out!"

"I just gotta get the nail at the tip again… there we go. And…." She gasped, clenched her fist. "Bev, I have six fingers!" She closed her fist one finger at a time, her newest addition set in an angle next to her own pinky. "What … are you doing?"

Standing up, Beverly had thrown her shirt on the ground and was in the process of removing her pants. "We're like playdough, right?" Laura looked down at her remodeled hand, bending her new finger backwards until it snapped off. She shrugged. "Well I'm gonna take some of this off."

Raising her complete hand, Beverly hit herself in the gut, burying her fingers deep beneath her skin. Not without great efforts, she extracted handfuls of dark flesh out of her abdomen, dumping them on the floor before her.

"We really are malleable all the way through.."

Laura squinted and walked towards her friend, dumbfounded. Even though half of her belly had been ripped out, Beverly's organs were nowhere to be seen. Behind the removed flesh was only more flesh. No blood, no bones, no guts. Leaning forward, Beverly pushed (what she thought was) excess fat and skin to fill the hole in her own body. She slimmed her figure, removing a few other handfuls here and there until she seemed satisfied.

"What do you think?" Beverly smiled, twirling, hands on her hips.

"I think…" Laura removed not only her shirt, but also her bra.

Beverly blocked her friend's breasts from her field of view. "Woah, woah, what are you doing there??"

"That it'll fit me great."

She took some of her friend's discarded flesh, shaped it into an approximate ball, and lifted it towards her chest. She paused, thinking, before pinching her nipples off and setting them on the table beside her. Then, she pressed the dough-like flesh of her friend onto her own breast, effectively tripling her bonnet size, before smoothing it out into the approximate shape of a boob. She felt like the flesh began to understand where it had been placed and morphed into the body part it was now meant to be. She did the same on her other side and Beverly joined in to help her achieve apparent symmetry. Finally, Laura slapped her nipples back on.

"How do I look?" She arched her back, proudly displaying her new rack.

"Pretty silly, why'd you give yourself big black boobs, Snow White?"

"It's not like I can take fat from my own body. Well if you see some, tell me, okay?" They laughed.

"You could've taken one of your feet or something." Beverly was working on trimming some width out of her thighs as well.

"You're probably right, I thought maybe there'd be bones in this part."

"Now is the time to find out!!!"

Beverly launched herself at Laura, fist cocked, and punched her friend's left arm off. Her limb was torn from her body in a messy splash of elongated flesh and scattered bits before falling on the floor, immobile. Laura reached for her emptied shoulder with her remaining hand and patted her flesh down into a round stump. She lifted it, astounded at the sensations she had lost along with her limb.

“Hey! What was that for?!” Laura whined, covering her mouth when she looked back at her friend. “Wow, that’s Karma for ya.”

“Shut up!” Beverly giggled as she felt for her own left arm. It had bent in several jointless places under the force of the impact. On her hand, most of her fingers had been compressed against her palm into a shapeless mass. “Well this is useless now.” She wiggled her fingerless hand, now incapable of even straightening her twisted arm. It rested against her chest, like calcified, while she walked over to the kitchen to grab a chef’s knife. “Mind if I borrow this?”

Beverly picked Laura’s arm off the ground and set it on the table, then lifted the oversized knife to her shoulder and pressed it against her skin. Slowly, she forced the blade down. If at first the skin seemed to resist the sharpened edge, it soon gave way, bouncing upwards and allowing the knife to sink deeper and deeper into her shoulder, cutting all the way through her arm like it was nothing more than cookie dough. It thumped to the ground hand first, collapsing on itself even more. She took Laura's arm and fitted it on her own shoulder.

“And… voilà!” Beverly opened her arms before her friend. “Now we’re both patched up!” She joined her hands, the dark brown and beige fingers intertwined together like a lover’s embrace.

"That's cute, you look like an unstirred coffee, splash of milk on one side." Laura turned her hand in front of her and gnawed on her thumb until it came loose. She shook it off of her hand. "I want you to cut my other limbs."

"What?"

Laura straightened her back. "I want you to…"

Beverly interrupted. "Yeah, I got that part. But like… completely?"

"I mean you have my arm, we're sand or.. dough.. whatever all the way through, aren't we doing this to try new things?"

"I suppose you're right.." She picked up the knife again. "You're gonna be 100% helpless, you know that?"

Laura widened her stance and extended her remaining arm to the side. "Cut away, sister."

Her friend stepped up and seized Laura's hand, pressing the sharp edge against her skin before pulling it away.

"Wait!" Beverly bolted to the kitchen to get a cutting board. She slapped it on the table. "Now it's like you're charcuterie."

Laura chuckled. "Yeah okay." Beverly placed her friend's wrist on the board and rocked the knife through it, as she would've done with a piece of salami. She pushed her hand aside nonchalantly. "Wow, I guess I can't hold anything now." She prodded her discarded hand with the stump of her arm, incapable of prehension. Her left shoulder instinctively jerked forward, meaning to move the arm that wasn't there.

"Stay still now.."

Beverly continued her work, chopping up Laura's lower arm in slices of different sizes until the knife reached her elbow. She stopped, letting Laura a few seconds to take in her new limb.

"Look how little of my forearm I have left!" As she bent it, they could see the smallest lump of flesh rocking back and forth. "Alright, finish this one already. And do the legs fast, too."

"On it, baby."

Like before, Beverly seized her friend's limb in her hand, this time bringing the knife under her armpit to quickly slice the rest of her arm off. Laura rolled her shoulders backwards, mouth wide open, and crossed her legs, spinning as she sat on the floor. Wasting no time, Beverly pushed Laura on her back and unceremoniously yanked her jeans off of her hips, slid the knife between her groin and her right thigh and cut. Her leg flopped to the side as it detached from her pelvis. Hanging on to her last remaining limb, Laura stretched it down to her toes as Beverly sunk the knife in her flesh yet again. She felt a jolt of electricity traverse her leg, a muscle spasm, and then nothing. The knife clinked on the floor.

“Holy shit!” Laura arched her back and pushed on the ground using her head to try to flip on her stomach. “Wow this is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

Beverly shouted. “You didn’t think having no limbs would be that hard?!” She laughed and kneeled before her friend. “What are you trying to do exactly?”

“Just rolling on my stomach, but… Ugn..” Laura groaned and wheezed as she squirmed, pushed her shoulders back, angled her hips sideways, twisted her torso. From what Beverly could see, she still had some very short legs left on her hips, although nothing that could be of any use in her current situation. “Care to help me a bit?”

“I’ll sit you up, actually.” Hands hovering around Laura’s shoulders, Beverly stayed close. “How does that feel?”

“My core is so tense, it’s like I could fall at any moment.” She lifted her right hip and tried to walk it forward, swinging her shoulders the same way and transferring the movement down her body, but ended up falling backwards again. “Thanks.”

“Hey I’m here for that.” Beverly laid her friend back down again. “Are you happy with your current body?”

Laura bit at a piece of loose skin on her lower lip. “I…” She looked up at her friend. “Cut off my head.”

“What?”

“Stop saying what!!! Just do it!”

“Aren’t you afraid you won’t be able to breathe or something?”

Laura’s shoulders were restless. “Clearly we haven’t bled to death yet after all these cuts, so I don’t think lungs or.. or.. breathing are of our concern right now.”

“Okay so… Do you want to lie on the cutting board or I…”

“Grab my hair. Really get in there… Ouch, yeah, that’s ouch that’s it.”

“Okay…” Beverly said nervously. “I’m cutting.”

Exactly like before, the knife met no resistance as it cut through Laura’s neck, meeting nor blood or bones, quickly separating her head from the rest of her body. As the last bit of skin was sliced though, her body thumped backwards on the floor.

“Ahhhhh!!!” Laura yelped, her eyes darting in every direction. Hanging from Beverly’s hand, Laura felt as if she was perched on top of a skyscraper. “This is so fucking weird!! Hold me tight Bev!”

“I am, I am!!” She tightened her grip and moved Laura’s disembodied head to the kitchen table to set her on the cutting board. “There. Better?”

Laura’s breathing slowed down again. She sighed. “Phew, Jesus Christ that was something.”

“How can you even sigh? You don’t have lungs anymore.” She tilted the head back to look at the base of her neck, almost expecting to see a slice of her trachea and esophagus. “It’s nothing but smooth skin where I cut, just like when I removed your arms and legs.”

“And I can feel… it.” Her new patch of skin laid flat against the board again. Laura crinkled her nose and opened her mouth wide, like trying to move her head on its own. “There’s no use, I really can’t move at all.”

“Well you’re a head, dumdum. Ah, shit.” Beverly's fingers had been carved by her friend’s hair like they were cheese wires. “Sorry for your hand, Laura..”

“I literally lend you a hand and that’s how you use it?” She laughed, looking down at the table before her.

“Careful how you talk to me, young lady.” She took the head in her hands and flipped it upside down. “Or I might do some funky stuff with it.”

“I don’t know what could be more funky than being a decapitated head, honestly.” Beverly tossed her into the air. "NOOOO OKAY OKAY I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!!"

"That was too easy." Beverly caught the falling head and lifted it before her face. She opened her mouth to speak but was starstruck by an idea. "You said you wanted something… funky?"

"Please don't toss me again.." Laura squealed.

"I promise I won't. Close your eyes. And don't cheat."

Laura frowned, uncertain, but did anyway.

Beverly set her on the table while she prepared herself for what was to come. She grasped each side of her neck and pushed it to the right to center it with her collarbone. It felt extremely disorienting to have her head not be in the middle of her body anymore. She checked herself in the black mirror of her phone and, satisfied, smooshed Laura's head beside hers.

Surprise, fear, and astonishment washed across Laura's face as she let out a flurry of incomprehensible words and sounds. She looked down at themselves, her friend's dark skin now part of her body, and turned to the head set beside hers.

"Woah that's something.." Laura was slightly out of breath. "All the sensations coming back at once.." She lifted the arm on her side of the body, studying what little remained of her fingers. "And you have me back my messed up hand?"

"You still have fingers, don't you? Stop whining."

"If you can call those fingers…"

She brought her stubs together one by one, as if counting them, before touching the base of her neck where the skin had fused with Beverly's. She could feel the seam. Her friend's head was giggling.

"What's so funny?" They looked at each other and their noses almost touched.

"I mean.." Beverly gestured at her hijacked body. She groaned and tensed her muscles. "I can't move my left arm anymore." She reached over to her grafted shoulder and felt a tingle, like her skin was wearing off of anesthesia. "I guess we each control our own side."

Laura slid her hand down her waist and laid it on her hip. "Can you feel that?"

"Yes but faintly. Seeing you do it helps my brain but I couldn't guess what it was with my eyes closed." She reached for the knife again. "Think fast!"

The skin on Laura's hand split open like magic sand, leaving only what remained of her thumb and part of her palm. "Hey!!! Give me that!!"

Shifting her weight towards Beverly's side, Laura swung wide and knocked the knife out of her friend's hand, throwing them off balance in the process. She tried to catch herself with her right leg, which she had no control over, while Beverly tried to snatch the knife in midair. When she missed, it embedded itself deep within her thigh, tip first, and sank down to the handle. Still flailing about to reach it, Laura slapped it across and over, cutting the flesh so deep that the leg crumbled under them like wet dough, sending them to the ground.

"Give me that!"

Laura's words were getting lost in the sound of their combined laughter. Beverly picked up the knife and chopped Laura's arm again, this time above the elbow. She wiggled her short stump and blew upwards to fix her bangs, then pushed hard on the floor to send them towards the cupboard. Beverly swiped the floor before her with the stump of her leg, unable to stop Laura, and let go of the knife when they rammed in the wooden drawers. Stuck between them and the furniture, her arm bent and squished under the pressure, while her hand was now grafted directly to her shoulder. Crooked, her fingers could barely move.

"What's that line in Tarzan?" Beverly said, looking away.

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific than that, sister."

Beverly straightened their back. "Okay, it's all fun and games till someone loses an eye?" Turning her head, she showed how the drawer's handle had poked a hole in her head and smudged away most of her eye. "Arrrrrgggg, matey."

"Holy shit we're a MESS!" Laura managed to stand back up, meagerly hanging on to surfaces with her short stump. "Let's get a good look at ourselves."

Beverly's mushy fingers on the wall, they hopped all the way to the bathroom and stared at their reflection. Together, they tried to free part of Beverly's arm, which had fused with the flesh of her waist, by scraping their body against the square edge of the countertop. Instead of freeing her elbow and allowing her to unbend her arm like they hope, it simply crumbled upwards, gathering mass and transforming her arm into a shapeless glob. Laura was almost squatting on her leg when the arm finally gave up and was torn off. Her hand had been deformed even more as now only a few fingers poked out of her shoulder.

She tried to scratch an itch on her cheek, but even that was too far for her ridiculously short reach. She looked at the only two recognizable fingers on her shoulders and took a moment to focus. They felt less like fingers and more like tiny arms. They leaned forward, their faces against the countertop, balanced on Laura’s leg, to pick up a dirty cloth. She pinched it between her fingers, unable to clench them normally.

“What now?” Beverly said, letting go of the cloth as they straightened again.

“Let me see…” Laura brought her stump to her mouth, toying at the flesh with her teeth.

The living room was a disaster. As they hoped back to it, they noticed the extent at which they had scattered pieces of themselves. Digits, limbs, cuts and slices of various sizes, smudged flesh across the floor. Laura’s eyes fell on the knife.

“Okay, I’m gonna need your help.” She said, focused.

“Help?!” Beverly burst out laughing. “Here!" She shook and waggled everything she had control over on her side of the body, which amounted to basically nothing. "You can thank me later."

Laura chuckled. “Yeah, nevermind that!” She laughed again and took a deep breath. “I’ll try to make us limbless again.”

"But how? We can't hold anything.."

"Let's see… Oops." Trying to wedge the knife's handle in her armpit, Laura instead swept it to the floor. "Dang it."

"I told you!"

"I thought I could press the handle against my ribs using my stump, well okay let's start over."

Laura lowered them to the floor and, balancing on their rump, reached out for the knife. She grabbed it between her first two toes and rotated away from the table, eyes squinted.

"Oh yeah, perfect." She rolled her shoulder forward. "Follow me."

"I know this is still pretty recent, but again, I don't really have a choice now." Beverly giggled.

Laura threw the knife down the room and proceeded to scoot over to it, Beverly's stump offering negligible help. She picked the knife up again, this time by the blade, and delicately wedged the handle in-between the couch and a wooden side table. Then, she placed her leg perpendicular to the knife, as close to her hip as she could.

"One.."

"Two butIdon'tknowwhyI'mcountingIcan'tcontrolthatleg…"

"Three!!"

Laura released the tension in her leg and let it fall to the ground, causing the knife to cut upwards halfway through her thigh. They leaned away from the couch to allow Laura to deepen the cut by rotating her leg, frustrated, before pushing down on her heel. Thrown upwards by its momentum, the detached leg fell back to the ground, lifeless.

The girls were now in a state of dissociative excitement. Talking over each other, rambling about this and that, shrugging, pointing, waddling, grunting, deciding to move back to the bathroom. They hadn’t even taken their first step and they had already beached on the ground, helpless like a whale out of the water, breasts flattened by their fall, laughing off what little dignity they still had in them.

With a tremendous coordinated effort, they rocked their hips around until they faced the couch again, then squirmed inch by inch toward it like a grub. Beverly’s shoulder jerked downwards aggressively, as if angry about its own missing arm, out of reach even of the floor beneath it. Their torso twisted ridiculously from side to side, stub-like legs swiping ineptly, while Laura poured most of her faith in the stump of her arm, already beginning to sag under the strain she dictated onto it.

When one head finally made contact with the couch, Beverly’s bit into the microsuede. They groaned, arching their back, to send Laura’s head a few inches above her friend’s. Jaw clenched, Laura grunted twice to signal Beverly, who released her grip before straining her side of the body yet again, this time sliding the stump of her thigh under their hips. Laura’s own stump set behind as support for their balance, she placed her arm flat on the seat of the couch and they both let go, finally upright.

“Okay. Slowly this time.” Laura said after a minute of heavy breathing. They both laughed.

Their respite was but a short one, unfortunately. Just as they released the tension in their legs to sit back down, they were thrown off balance. Arms, fingers, numbs, stumps, and empty articulations of all sorts flailed around as they fell, their necks perfectly aligned with the blade of the knife.