Frankie sat in the desk chair facing James with her feet propped up on a stack of papers facing towards him.

“They are like... Well fuck it’s hard to explain.” Frankie said. James drummed each finger against each other finger.

“Think of us…? Them? Me? Think of me as a normal expert but like I’ve gone so far beyond what any other human has ever done in my craft that I can do things that an ordinary human couldn’t do with their arms, legs or mind. So not really a normal expert but you get the point. We are in general as a community some of the most valuable creators, fighters, artists, and general humans around.” Poppy watched them as they moved around with each other. Both Frankie and James were constantly moving, shifting, touching things but their bodies both turned into each other.

“General humans. Hello sir. I'm the general human number 1 to serve your needs.” Frankie said in a fake robotic voice. They both laughed. Poppy opened up the bag of chips.

“So what kind of things can Master’s do? I feel kinda like an idiot still.” Poppy said, putting a handful of chips in his mouth.

“You are kinda like an idiot, don't worry.”

“Yep you definitely are an idiot. Someone’s totally wiped your memories.” At some level Poppy knew that he didn’t remember anything. Inside his mind where there should be a vast glut of memories and feelings and emotions he just had nothing.

“Frankie, you think it’s like some kind of memory wipe spell?”

“Nah this was a total soul wipe. Someone just redid his hard-drive. Rejiggered his cock.” Frankie said, lighting her cigarette. Smoke drifted up to the ceiling.

“Do you have anything from your previous life? Memento? Object? What do you remember?”

“I don’t remember anything. My first memory was… Leaving some sort of university. All I have from before was a watch.” Poppy lifted his wrist to show them. They both looked. James grinned from ear to ear.

“Nice watch. Pretty old though. Ancient in fact. I won’t pry though. Should we do a demonstration of what I can do Frankie? You think that’s a good idea?”

“Probably.”

“You know, I like you Frankie. When we go to the bar after this session you want to get really shit-faced.” James grinned and took a sip of water while still grinning.

Frankie shifted in her seat. She moved her shoulders inwards, bending them towards James.

“That sounds good to me. I want the world to go black for me.” They both stared into each other’s eyes. Poppy couldn’t look.

“I should tell you what I do. I, my dear young clueless remembering friend, am an alchemist. None of that traditional lead to gold shit either. I mean all due respect to John Dee but that shit is boring. I combine things together. I make them better. I’m an essence eater, a chef de cuisine for essence, I combine them together to create “effects”. Usually beginner alchemists just combine essences of other objects but I combine the essence of people together. Haven’t you seen the paintings here? They are my creation, I’m a double-major You see this whole place. I control it. It shifts to me.”

He opened up the bag of potato chips and took a potato chip out. The air shimmered. He cracked the potato chip in two and dropped it on the ground. The room began to shift, the walls turned to sludge and poured underneath their seats.

Frankie’s desk began to bubble and molt and change. They all began to move, the room morphed and shifted like silly-putty wrapped in hands and being torn to shreds.

Poppy saw from several angles at once. From one end he could see himself and the other end he could see Frankie. His face was torn to pieces and they floated in the bloody aether of the room.

Poppy’s face came back together, his sight came back to normal, they shifted. Frankie and Poppy sat in red leather chairs. James sat in the middle of the room sitting on a short stool overlooking a massive easel. Two seconds after falling into the chair the nausea hit. It felt like his head had been flipped, slammed and beaten over twice in two seconds.

His mouth felt like a desert, like some God had shoved down ten thousand tiny cotton-balls down his mouth. He tried to lift his arm but it wouldn’t lift.

“Isn’t it such a great feeling. God I love that. Like I really love it. Holy fuck. Man, man, man, man, man.” James clutched at his head. His smile showed from end to end. Like a small curved moon in the center of his face. A deep yellow like the moon too. Through half-closed eyes Poppy made out a thin white aura around James’s face.

Poppy grabbed his own face. Everything felt off. His skin felt too wet.

“I can’t stand that shift. You should warn us more, give us some type of waiver or something before that.” Frankie said unmoving. Her whole body didn’t move except her mouth which only opened a sliver.

“Nah that’s stupid why would I do that. I need suspense. I need a looking audience for this. Frankie, Frankie, Frankilla, Frankstilla, Frankiestelia, at my stage in life we need to savor all the euphoric things we go through. If I was doing drugs I wouldn’t want them to end all of a sudden now would I.”

James took a paint brush in his hands and walked towards Poppy.

“I’ve been thinking alot, you know as I do, I have all the time in the world. Did you know the higher the Master level the longer we can live? Isn’t that cool?”

He kept on walking towards Poppy. His arms stretched over to him, paint brush in hand. Poppy tried to move, the paint brush was wrong. It didn’t feel right. It was like looking down at a toothpick pointed right at your head.

He brought it down on Poppy’s arm and it went through. It felt like a warm stick was being jerked through his body. Like someone had heated a skewer on a fire for too long and it had gotten molten and red and that person in some sort of drunken fashion had stabbed it right into Poppy. It burned. He grunted and turned, holding the brush with two hands, his eyes looking to the ceiling, he was searching for something inside of Poppy. He found it.