The potion master's shop on the outskirts of the Night Market smelled like nettle smoke and sandalwood incense - each constantly trying to overpower each other. Dozens of bottles lined the crooked shelves, each glowing with faint magical light. Some healed wounds. Some cursed enemies. Others purposes were more ... unique.

  Such as the one that currently stared back.

  The bottle of pink slime sat perfectly still, save for the occasional, eager jiggle when it could tell someone was looking at it. Its liquid body shimmered faintly in the light, and its cartoonish eyes blinked innocently through the glass.

  Across the counter stood the shopkeeper - a short elf with green skin, white hair tied up twin braids, and a robe the color of over-steeped tea. A crooked witch’s hat of the same color perched precariously atop her head, looking as if it might slide off at any moment. She squinted at the bottle.

  "...You again," she muttered.

  The slime wobbled cheerily.

  She frowned, though truth be told found herself fighting back a smirk.

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  “You know, you were the focus of a vision once,” she said aloud, voice as dry as the herbs that hung above. “A grand sage, eyes that could no longer see the present but prophesized the future, told me: *Should the pink one ever escape… the end times will follow.*”

  The slime blinked twice.

  “You would consume,” she continued, tapping the glass with one finger gently, “and devour, and replicate, and devour again, until nothing but slime remained. Every forest, every city, every bakery - *especially* the bakeries - just goo. A pink world. All gooey slop, and no bread for anyone to fight over.”

  The slime beamed.

  The potion master sighed reluctantly. “You are very cute.”

  The slime barely gave a delighted spin inside the vial, it was so crammed in. One could only tell by how the eyes twirled about in joy.

  “But unfortunately,” she continued, “Adorable or not, the end of the everything is still a bit of a dealbreaker.”

  She turned and opened the cabinet labeled **NEVER OPEN THESE**, nestled between **ABSOLUTE PERIL** and **RAINY DAY OR IF YOU'RE BORED**. Inside sat another bottle, it was deep violet and swirling with inky menace. Its label read **Malus** and pulsed softly, as if radiating danger from inside its sealed vessel.

  The vial of pink blob was gently slotted beside it.

  With a chirpy *plunk*, it immediately flung itself against the glass, trying to escape. But the seal was ancient and merciless, the bottle didn’t even *wiggle*.

  “Sorry, little one,” she said, shutting the cabinet. Her voice softened. “We just can’t take the risk.”

  A long pause.

  From inside, a faint whimper.

  But then: humming.

  A soft, warbling tune, off-key but enthusiastic. The kind of sound one makes when trying not to cry.

  The shopkeeper paused, listening. A small smile twitched at the corner of her mouth, but she shook her head. She reached up and clicked the last latch shut. The cabinet sealed with a heavy *thunk*.

  Sealed away, the little blob hummed softly, matching the thrum of Malus, note for unsettling note.