[Contains a girl melting and being reformed]

I’ve always been interested in potions. The idea that drinking such a seemingly inconspicuous liquid can cause your body to do all sorts of amazing things is such a wild concept to me, and the science behind it seems mind boggling, though I’ve heard it’s less of mixing compounds together and more similar to programming somehow.

In any case, I’ve always been intrigued by potions, but for whatever reason, I’ve just tried. I guess there’s just not a lot of places near me that sell them. Either that or I just don’t have the time.

Luckily, I have a friend who’s big on potion-drinking, so I figured she’d be able to help me out. She seemed excited when I texted her asking about it, and was quick to give me a bunch of recommendations on where to go and what to get. I eventually decided on a small indie company that makes recreational potions, since she told me it’s one of her favourites.

I feel like my friend had already planned on getting me into potions, because she offered to buy me my first one, which I couldn’t say no to. She gave me a list of different potions to try, and they all had oddly vague names; Handy Dandy, Big World, Better Than One, none of them gave a clear indicator of what they actually do. I tried asking her, but she just said it was “part of the fun”. Eventually, I decided on one called Melt Away, and she told me she’d place the order.

A day later, my potion arrived. A small square box about a foot tall was waiting for me on my doorstep, and I brought it inside and opened it up to reveal a semi-translucent flask with a magenta liquid inside. The bottle had a label on it which read “Melt Away - A&A Potioncraft”. I held the bottle by the neck and turned it around, looking for any other information, and I found another label on the back.

“Feeling stressed and need to relax? Drink some of this and it’ll almost feel like your troubles are melting away!”

They keep mentioning melting... Do they mean figuratively or literally? Only one way to find out. I took the potion to my room, taking care not to spill any of it, and stood there looking at it in my hand, watching the deep pink liquid glitter with refracted light as it swirled around the bottle. No one was home, so no one was around to bother me. No more waiting.

I lifted the bottle to my lips and drank the entirety of its contents, as my friend told me to do. It had a sweet, watermelon-y taste, but not too strong. Breathing out and setting the bottle on my nightstand, I waited patiently for the potion to take effect. I stood there for about a full minute and... nothing. I felt exactly the same. I tried to focus on anything that felt even slightly different, but I just felt slightly tingly, which I assumed was because I was thinking about it to hard. Perhaps the potion would take time to start working. In the meantime, I decided to go to the kitchen for a snack.

Entering the kitchen, I went to the pantry and looked for something snack-worthy. Granola bars, crackers, some cookies that were probably stale... Nothing I was exactly looking for. I closed the pantry door, and I noticed some slight residue on the handle. Not thinking much of it, I started walking away and felt like something was tugging at my feet, like the floor was all sticky. I looked down, but nothing seemed unusual.

Looking behind me, however, I noticed small drops of some strange black liquid, the exact colour of my socks. I rubbed my eyes, and as my hands moved away from my face, I noticed tiny skin-coloured strands stretching between my face and my fingers before dissipating. Was what was happening really what I thought was happening? I looked back at my feet, and they seemed to have expanded slightly. I lifted my foot, leaving behind a puddle of black ooze that stretched between my socks and the ground. Yep, I was melting.

For a while, I didn’t know what to say or do. How had I forgotten about the potion less than a minute after leaving my room? Sure, I should’ve expected this based on the name alone, but I wasn’t sure what exactly that entailed. It seemed like my entire body, clothes included, was turning into some kind of thick liquid-like substance. Had I known that, I would’ve stayed in my room. I felt myself getting shorter. My feet had almost entirely dissolved, yet I could still feel them as they spread as a puddle across the kitchen floor, and it felt... good?

It was a strange tingly sensation, a bit like when your foot falls asleep, but it was incredibly relaxing. It was as if every single molecule in my body was de-stressing as I slowly turned into goo. I wiped my forehead because I felt like I was sweating, and was met with reddish-brown stains on the back of my hand. Even my hair was melting. As I looked at my hand, it seemed to droop down without my control. My fingers seemed to be fusing together, and tan-coloured drips were falling to the floor.

The black puddle expanded slowly but surely as my sweatpants were seemingly absorbed into the abyss. My legs looked like a pair of wax candles, and they were being pushed down by the weight of my body. Strands of hair-coloured goo hung over my eyes. I flicked my head to get them out of the way, and a few drops of hair fell into the dark puddle.

I trudged through the goo with what remained of my legs. I felt the need to go somewhere, do something, but I couldn’t think straight. Was my brain melting too? Maybe the surreality of the situation made me confused. I forced my way to the counter, which seemed significantly higher than it used to, and reached my hand atop it. As I put pressure on the countertop, my hand rounded out and started to dissolve into it’s own puddle. Grey strands hung from the sleeve of my sweatshirt, drooping down at the elbow into the inky black puddle beneath me. Strands near my armpit connected my arm to my torso.

What do I do? I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I don’t think there’s anything I want to do. I just feel so relaxed. All that remained for me was to melt further. Time seemed to slow down, yet I knew I was only melting faster. My arm dropped as my hand had melted completely, leaving a skin-coloured puddle on the counter. The dark puddle had reached my thighs now. My hair poured down my shoulders, reddish-brown mixing with the grey of my sweatshirt. My other hand reached the black puddle. This was it.

The tingling was only more intense. I felt numb, and yet I felt everything. My mind was fuzzy, I don’t remember much details. The counter goes up, the inky void gets closer. My pale hands mixed with the black sweatpants and the grey sweatshirt, with reddish-brown specks of hair throughout. It was up to my hips now. Then my waist, my breasts, my shoulders, my neck. My vision went up as my head tilted back. My mouth sealed, my nose closed, and my eyes were consumed by darkness.

It felt like hours, but it only lasted twenty minutes, and it was pure bliss. It sounds weird, but it’s the only way to describe it. My entire body was combined into one homogenous being, spread across the cold kitchen floor. It was as if my entire being was at one with itself, and there was nothing left for me to do but relax. Let everything go. No worries, no stress, barely any thoughts. Just peace...

I eventually woke up lying on the kitchen floor, feeling oddly rejuvenated. I sat up and inspected myself. My body was back to its original shape and solidity. I hesitantly stood up, feeling the rigidity of my legs. I felt... lost somehow. Like those past thirty-ish minutes weren’t real. Like me standing here right now wasn’t happening. It was so strange, like waking up from a nap and everything was different. I turned and walked to the pantry; I could use a granola bar right now.