"We are not bargaining," the girl hissed as the fabric of space and time started to run together, as runny as the pinkpurplesoundflowerslights.

Her face had been melting for a while.

"I'm not like the sorcerers you've grown accustomed used to in your parochial little corner of hell, looking for a petty immortality bargain."

I wanted to object because this was actually a pretty high traffic commercial area.

But my organs, my veins and the blood inside them, were starting to turn inside out.

"Choose the end of this flesh, or its transformation, I care not." The purple gal loomed, not in words but in time.

"But choose. You can no longer hide, mutilating pathetic mortals to do your bidding. Choose."

Her words went backwards, forwards, written in the unfolding of every dimension.

The box stayed the same.

I blacked out after that.