“Right guys, have you decided what you want to do for costumes this year?” Sanya asked. She was sitting in her wheelchair and looked around the living room, where Allie, John, Dan and Sanya had gathered.

It had been one year since the fateful Halloween that ended with Allie losing her right leg at the hip for three years. Allie was still one-legged. It had almost been a full year since Allie had removed all four of Sanya’s limbs for varying amounts of time. By now, Sanya had regained a bit of her right arm and both her legs had partially reappeared , leaving her with a completely armless left shoulder, a few inches of her right arm and two symmetrical leg stumps that ended below her knees. Coming up with a costume in this state had presented a challenge, but saying that Sanya didn’t enjoy the challenge would be a lie. Thanks to her legs reappearing until below the knee, she had regained a fair bit of independence. Of course, without arms she still relied on others to help her with most tasks rather heavily, but with a short arm stumps and two half legs she could at least move around independently, carry things and manipulate them in some fashion. She was looking forward to regaining some of her digits so she could properly grasp things again, but so far, she valued what she had regained in recent months.

“I’ll be a pirate today. Toby’s friend Mustafa built me a peg-leg attachment for my prosthetic leg and a hook prosthetic arm in his extracurricular workshop. He gets credits for it and I agreed to display them if he gave them to me early so I could use them at Halloween.” Allie pointed at her prosthetic leg, which she had received courtesy of BodyVis Inc., who had sent it to Allie free of charge. It was a cheap attempt at good PR, but since it got Allie a free prosthetic custom fitted to her hip stump she had gladly accepted. “I’m already done though”, she said and raised her left arm, which ended about halfway between her wrist and her elbow. “I had it done at the shop at the mall.” She’d had the shop remove her hand for six months, but she didn’t tell the others that. Not that they really cared, they still used the Atomizer as a disciplinary measure between them and usually everyone was missing something at any given time.

“Alright”, Sanya said. “Could you stick around in case we need your hand to help with the others?”

“Sure!” Allie smiled.

“I’ll be taking the second wheelchair. I want to be a merman”, John said. “I just need to lose my feet so my legs fit in my fish-tail costume, and I’d like my lowest phalanges of my fingers webbed. Don’t we have a stick-on tool for the Atomizer for that?”

“I’m pretty sure we do”, Sanya said.

“I’ll be a zombie without arms”, Dan said. “Not completely without arms, but almost. I want little stubs I can move and nothing more, for maximum creepiness. I have contact lenses and latex prosthetics for wounds.”

“Maybe you should get yourself ready first. It’s gonna be tough without arms”, Allie suggested.

“Sure! I’ll get right on that”, Dan said and left.

“I’ll be a snake. Not much I can do anyway, so I might as well lean into it. I’ll need my arm stump removed for twelve hours, and I need help with my contact lenses and costume. I have a bodysuit for my lower body, as well as latex nipple-covers. Dan agreed to help me with the lenses and the costume. He’ll also help me with the body paint. I should get that done before we remove his arms. Could you start with my arm, Allie?”

“Yep, you got it. Twelve hours you said?”

Sanya nodded. Allie set the timer to twelve hours and showed it to Sanya to double check. She checked it a third time, then removed Santa’s right arm stump until it matched her left shoulder.

“Thanks”, Sanya said and walked out of the living room and to Dan’s room on her knees.

“Okay”, Allie said, turning to John. “Let’s do you.”

John took his pants and socks off while Allie fetched the Atomizer equipment. Then she removed John’s feet before webbing his fingers with a thin layer skin between the bottommost phalanges. Once that was done, Allie went to get ready herself. She used the Atomizer to remove her right eye until the next morning and put an eyepatch over the empty eye-socket. Then she hopped to fetch her prosthetic leg. She removed the leg from the socket and attached the peg leg with her one hand. She struggled a bit with the missing hand, but it was easy enough. Then she put on her costume and made her way back to the living room, her peg leg clicking with every step. She had gotten pretty good at using her leg. It was exhausting. The complete lack of her right leg meant that she had to rotate her hip back and forth, and sitting down and standing up was difficult, because she couldn’t straighten her right knee to propel herself upward. Still, ever since she’d received her prosthetic leg, she’d used it as much as possible when leaving the flat, and she’d gotten quite adept at it.

In the living room, she waited for Dan, who looked shockingly great once he entered.

"Oh my God, Dan, that looks amazing", Allie shrieked when she saw him. "And so do you, Sanya."

Sanya couldn't anything other than grin, but she happily acknowledged the compliment. As did Dan, who was the artist behind both his and Sanya's costumes.

She removed his arms, leaving just short stumps, barely enough to wriggle them around and point at things. The four looked at each other, appreciating Allie as a double amputee, one-eyed pirate, limbless Sanya as a snake, John without feet in a wheelchair as a merman with webbed fingers and Dan as an armless zombie. Then the four friends left together to go to Marcus and Ben’s annual Halloween party.