The months had passed very quickly and easter was around the corner, which meant that it wasn’t very long until their trip to Greece either. All four friends they had asked, Lily, Chris, Lena, and James had agreed to come along. The flights had been booked, and Ben had mailed one of the wheelchairs to the house in Greece – in preparation, as he claimed. In preparation, because Emily and Ben were about to surprise their friends with a rule change: Everybody had to lose at least one limb for the entire weeklong holiday in Greece. They had assembled their four friends in their living room on the Friday before easter, three weeks before the trip to Greece was set to begin. Now Lena, James, Chris and Lily were sitting on the couch or in the armchair and waited for Emily and Ben to deliver whatever news they had planned to deliver.

Ben entered the living room with a box of what looked like gummy bears.

“Em will be just a second. Before she comes in, promise not to freak out. She’s fine, I promise. Lena already knows about this, she can back me up here…” Ben smiled at Lena, who nodded eagerly. “The rest, relax, okay?”

“This is what I told you about”, Lena whispered at James and Lily. The two’s eyes went wide, and they tensed up in anticipation.

“Alright, Em, come on in”, Ben said. They heard a tap-tap-tap and a few moments later, Emily came into the living room. Hopping. She was wearing a yellow dress that highlighted her single-leggedness. Her single right foot was planted firmly on the ground. It was evident that she had spent plenty of time with only one leg. The dress was sleeveless, which also allowed everyone to see that her right arm ended in a perfect round stump a few inches below the elbow.  She smiled and hopped to the centre of the living room, so everybody could properly see her.

“What the hell??” Chris looked distraught.

“Relax, mate”, said Ben. “Like I said, she’s fine. This is reversible and all in good fun. Isn't that right Em?”

“Hell yeah”, Emily exclaimed, and Lena nodded as well and muttered her agreement.”

“We’ve been experimenting with this for months now and it’s a lot more fun that I could have ever imagined”, Emily continued. “Would you like to have a closer look, Chris?”

Chris still seemed bewildered. “So you cripple yourself for fun? What’s wrong with you folks?” He looked disgusted.

“Well…technically yeah, but since this is not permanent, where’s the harm? It’s a way to challenge we and experience the world from a different perspective”, Ben said.

“It is still sick. Maybe going on a holiday with you guys is not such a good idea. I’m out.” He got up, gathered his things, and left.

There was a moment of awkward silence. “Well, that was…disappointing, but probably to be expected. Not everyone has the same attitude towards this as we do, this was bound to happen at some point”, Emily said. “Still, it’s a shame.”

“He could still have humoured us for a little longer. Spoilsport”, Ben said.

“True, but it is what it is”, said Emily. She turned towards the couch, where Lena sat looking a little awkward after Chris’ hasty exit, and Lily and James just stared at Emily. “Do any of you have any questions?” She hopped a little closer to the couch, so everybody could have a better look at her.

“Lena has told us about your devices and toys. It sounded fascinating, but…how?” James looked curious, but still undecided whether he liked the idea.

“Does it hurt?” Lily still stared at Emily’s arm.

“Okay, I can combine the answer to both questions. There’s this shop at the nearby mall. They have a device that can reduce your limbs, make them disappear. It disperses the limb on an atomic level, and programs the cells in the stump to regrow into the limb after a set amount of time. The entire process doesn’t hurt one bit and is very clean and quick”, Ben explained and Emily and Lena nodded in agreement. Lily seemed relieved.

“We have a handheld version of the same device. We can reduce any limb out of existence for varying amounts of time”, Emily continued. “That is what we have done with my limbs here.”

“Can I see?” Now Lily’s curiosity took over entirely.

“Sure.” Emily hopped even closer and extended the nub of her right arm for Lily to inspect. Lily marvelled at the perfect skin on the edge of it. She took it in her hand and squeezed lightly.

“It’s so squishy!” She exclaimed. Emily giggled. “Someone’s having fun.”

She turned a bit and held the arm out to James, who also inspected it and seemed to make up his mind about this whole absurd scenario.

“Alright, you got me. So what’s this got to do with us?”

“Ah, yes”, said Ben. “Em and I figured it might be fun to introduce a rule for our trip to Greece, but we wanted to clear it with you first. We have decided to make this a reductive holiday. We all must lose at least one limb for the entirety of the trip. We can set the Atomizer – that’s the name of the device – to one week and implement whatever reduction we want. The house we will stay at is at a remote location with access to its own little beach. The house is in fact pretty much directly on the beach, it’s like ten metres and five steps from the door down to the beach. We only need to see people when we buy groceries or go out, but could theoretically stay at the house all week without having to see anyone. Are you up for that?”

“Hell yeah!” Lena grinned. “Last time was surprisingly fun and I would totally be up to trying this for a week.”

“Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself”, said Emily with a grin.

“If Lena is so excited about this, it can’t be that bad. Count me in”, said Lily.

“Nice”, said Ben. “What about you, James?”

“What the hell, why not? You guys seem to have this figured out. Let’s do this.”

“Fantastic!” Emily smiled. “Two more things we need to figure out. The first is what we do with the last ticket. I would like to ask Hanna from my work to join us. She has just broken up with her boyfriend and would probably enjoy the distraction. She was also among the people who first discovered the shop at the mall and tried out the Atomizer with me. So she already knows this tech. Is everybody okay with that?”

“Sure”, said Ben, and everybody nodded in agreement.

“Okay, then last point we need to talk about: how do we travel there? We can either make the reductions here or we take the Atomizer to Greece and do it there. If we do it here, we get the experience of travelling both ways with our reduced bodies, and we can leave the Atomizer here. If we do it down there, we can go grocery shopping on the first day without limitations and then be free to do whatever we want all week. We can also do it for each one individually, so just figure out what you want to do.”

“I think I would like to travel with my body intact”, said Lily.

“So would I”, said James.

“I don’t, I want to experience it all”, Lena grinned.

“Alright, then we can meet here and travel to the airport together. Maybe the able-bodied folks can lend the others a hand when we get to the airport?” Ben looked into the round. Everybody nodded.

“Great”, Emily took over again. “One last thing: You guys need to figure out how you want to spend your week in Greece.” She hopped to the table and picked up the box Ben had brought into the room at the beginning of the meeting. “These are reductive gummy bears. Lena already knows those, but I will go over this again for you two. They work just like the Atomizer, but for a shorter amount of time. The gummy bears come in four colours. Each colour stands for a limb. Green is for the right arm, yellow for the left. Red is the left leg; orange is the right leg. The more gummy bears of a colour you eat, the more of said that limb you lose. The effects last for 24 hours after you ate the last gummy bear. The effects also last for each leg individually, so if you eat three red gummy bears, wait for four hours and then eat two green ones, your left leg will reappear four hours before your right arm. Got that?”

Everybody nodded.

“Great. We will give you all two bags of these to take home, so you can experiment with them for a bit.” She tried to open the box, but struggled with her right arm stump. She hopped back to the table and placed the box on it. She used her stump to hold it down and pulled the lid open with her left hand. She grabbed six bags of gummy bears and hopped back to the couch, where she handed them to her friends.

“It would probably also make sense to have complimenting reductions. The rental car we have in Greece will be an automatic, so we don’t need to worry about shifting gears. It would probably still be wise to have at least one person intact enough to be able to drive and a second person with at least one hand, but we can figure that out over the next weeks. We also have just one pair of crutches and one wheelchair, but unless we go far, we probably won’t need them. But just saying, unless one of you organises more crutches, that’s all we have”, said Ben.

The others agreed.

James spoke up: “Right, so this all sounds well planned and like a fun. About these limb reduction gummy bears, can we start trying them out now? Or would you prefer to us until we are home?”

Ben grinned. “Why do you think we asked you here on a Friday night? Emily, could you…” He gave her an inquisitive look. She smirked.

“Sure!” She turned around again and hopped out of the living room. Two minutes later she was back with another box of gummy bears. She placed it on the table next to the other box and opened with her stump and hand again. Then she grabbed it and took it with her to the couch. “Take your pick! Though I recommend you eat them one after the other to get used to their effect and coordinate the reduction.” She held the box out to the three friends on the couch. Lena went first and picked a couple of red ones. She paused, thought for a second and grabbed a couple of orange ones and four green ones. A few moments later, she was missing her right arm from just above the elbow, her right leg mid-thigh and the left leg just below the knee. She leaned back looking content. Lily stared at her wide-eyed.

“Huh, this is odd”, said Lena and wriggled her single knee. The skin on her right stump twitched, because she apparently tried to move her right leg as well. There was just nothing there to move. She waved with her abbreviated right arm. Your turn, Lily.

Lily swallowed and nodded. “Maybe I should start slowly…”, she said.

“Sure, just whatever you are comfortable with. That’s why we gave you the bags of gummy bears, so you can do this in whatever speed you like”, said Emily encouragingly.

“Should I go with an arm or a leg? I like the way your arm looks, but I imagine it’s harder to get accustomed to having just one hand. So maybe a leg?” She seemed lost deep in thought.

“If you lose a leg, you have to hop all day tomorrow. That is no big deal, but can get a bit annoying for you. Yes, doing stuff with just one hand is tricky, but you figure things out fairly quickly”, said Ben.

“Still”, said Emily, “having only one hand can be just as annoying as having only one leg. It doesn’t really matter.”

Lily nodded and considered things for a second. Then she closed her eyes, grabbed a single gummy bear put it in her mouth and swallowed. Her left hand disappeared. Lily’s eyes widened and she started breathing heavily as she held the stump of her left wrist up.

“Shh, you’re okay”, said Lena. “All good, we’re here and you’re fine.”

Lily swallowed and inspected her stump. Then she nodded and took another yellow gummy bear. A few seconds later, her left arm ended midway between her wrist and her elbow.

“This is crazy”, she said. She inspected her stump again. “But it’s also kind of cool. I have never experienced anything like that!” She took another deep breath and grinned. “I like it!”

“Good”, said Ben, smiling. “I’m glad to hear that!” He turned towards James. “Your turn, James.”

“Alright”, said James. “After what you guys told Lily, why not do both?” He picked three red gummy bears and four yellow ones. A few moments later, he was missing his right leg just below the knee and his left arm just above the elbow. “This is fascinating!” He felt the stump of his arm with his right hand before he waved it around. Then he did the same with the stump of his right leg. He waved it around and watched how his empty pant-leg flailed around.

The rest of the evening was spent exploring their new limitations. At some point in the evening, Emily called Hanna and asked her if she wanted to come with them to Greece on short notice. She also mentioned the rule they had just implemented. Hanna was overjoyed to be invited and readily agreed to come along and abide by the rule. The others cheered when they heard that Hanna would come along. They called an Uber for their guests around eleven o’clock. Once their guests were gone and they had cleaned up, Ben grabbed a fistful of random gummy bears and ended up with two limbs missing completely, one arm being just a short stub and one leg ending just below the elbow. Emily helped him brush his teeth and get into bed and the couple spent some time getting intimate and exploring each other’s bodies.

Three weeks later, on the morning of the flight to Greece, Emily and Ben got up particularly early. Ben had decided he would travel completely able-bodied to take care of the others with their limitations. He restored Emily’s arm and leg. She had spent almost a month missing them by now and had to take a minute to get used to being complete again.

“So, what do you want to do?”

“Well, I still don’t know if I’m ready to lose everything, but I would like to go armless over an extended amount of time”, said Emily.

“I like the sound of that. Do you want a time limit?”

“No, we can restore me whenever.”

“Alright. And how much should I take off?”

Emily though for a second. “You know what, I already have had handless with a single stump once. I want to go completely armless. Can you do that?”

Ben nodded. “Okay, hold your arms out to the side in a 45-degree angle.” Emily did as she was told. Ben activated the Atomizer and a few minutes later, Emily’s arms were completely gone.

“Wow”, she said coyly. She shrugged her armless shoulders and tried to reach out with her arms that weren’t there anymore. “I like this, but I feel super helpless.”

“You are sexy as heck like that! Come on, let’s get ready.”

Ben helped her shower, did her hair, fed her breakfast, and brushed her teeth. Emily couldn’t do a lot else other than cooperate with him. Once Emily was dressed, Ben got himself ready while Emily watched TV in the living room. He had given her a pen in a glass so that she could use it to switch channels. He joined her on the couch once she was done. She was wearing a sleeveless top that exaggerated her shoulders that were so void of any arms. At quarter to eight, their doorbell rang. Ben went to open the door and two minutes later, Lily, Lena, Hanna and James came into the living room.

“Woah, Em, you are stunning”, said Hanna.

“Yeah, damn, Emily!” Lena agreed. “Are you going to let Ben do all the work?”

“That’s the plan!” Emily grinned and the three giggled while Ben rolled his eyes.

“Okay”, said Ben. “The cab will be here in 45 minutes. They are coming with a van. Lily and James, you two will take the reductions until we are there, right?” The two nodded.

“Okay, that leaves Hanna and Lena. Ladies, what do you want to lose?”

“Well, I quite enjoyed missing three limbs”, said Lena. “I want to turn it around, though. Last time I had one arm left. Can we do one leg now?”

“Sure”, said Ben.

“Okay, so my right leg above the knee a little higher than mid-thigh...” She performed a cut motion with her hands where she intended to lose the leg. “…and I want both my arms just above the elbow.”

“Interesting”, said Emily. “Should be fun!”

“Okay. Emily and Hanna know this already, but I need you to lose any clothing over the limbs you intend to lose.”

“Okidoki”, said Lena and began to undress. “What?” She had noticed that Lily and James were staring. “Is there anything here you have never seen before?”

“I guess not”, said James, blushing.

Lena continued to undress and then turned to face Ben. “Ready!”

“Alright. I guess we’ll do the leg first. Hold still.” Lena stood still. Ben switched on the Atomizer and a few minutes later most of Lena’s right leg was history. “Okay, that was quick. Now…for your arms. Hold them in a 45-degree angle to your body and…shit!” His eyes darkened suddenly.

“What is it?” Lena’s voice showed signs of panic.

“It’s nothing major. I just realised I forgot to set the timer”, Ben explained.

“So what happens now?”

“Well, your leg won’t come back unless I make it with this pen. Emily and I usually use this setting. Hang on, I’ll just restore your leg and we can start over with the right setting”, Ben said.

“You will do no such thing”, said Lena. “I don’t mind having my leg gone until I say I’m ready to get it back.”

“You sure?”, asked Ben.

“Very”, said Lena. “Just use the right setting on my arms.”

“Alright! I will set your arms to eight days, so you will have one more day with your limitations after we come back.”

“Sounds good.”

Ben adjusted the timer and five minutes later, Lena sported two almost identical stumps above the elbow where her arms used to be.

“Lily or James, could you help Lena get dressed again?” James nodded and began to help Lena.

Ben turned towards Hanna. “So, what will it be for you?”

“Left leg above the knee, right leg below”, Hanna said quickly. She had already gotten out of her pants and was ready.

Ben set the timer to eight days again and it was over in ten minutes. Hanna’s left leg ended a few inches below the knee, while her right leg ended just above the knee.

“Okay, is that it?” Ben looked around inquisitively.

Lily cleared her throat. “You know, I think I changed my mind. I would like to start now. Is that okay?”

“Sure”, said Emily.

“Okay!” Lily smiled shyly. “Can you do my left leg above the knee? As high as you can get.”

“I can try”, said Ben, who by now had figured out how to take a leg off at the hip completely with no stump left and without vanishing genitals, which, as it turned out, was indeed possible.

“Thanks!” Lily smiled again and began to get undressed.

Ben went to work and soon Lily was hopping through the living room. “I reserve myself the right to add another reduction when we are in Greece if I deem it necessary”, said Lily, prompting Ben to chuckle. He left the living room to stow the Atomizer in his bag and came back with the crutches, which he handed to Lily. Then the doorbell rang, and they all headed downstairs. Ben and James carried the bags to the cab, and Ben carried Hanna into the cab.

Thirty minutes later, they arrived at the airport. Ben dealt with their luggage, while James carried Hanna. They drew a lot of eyes on their way to the gate, but all had a good laugh about it.

They received priority boarding and at eleven o’clock, their flight took off towards Thessaloniki.