They Notice You

You breathe frantically, in a state of constant panic. You feel so helpless after what you just saw, so weak and ****. Within mere minutes, humanity's been stripped away from someone else, and your mind races with thoughts of just how easily it left. Are you really so little that a dip in a pool could completely change who - and what - you are?

Blood rushing through your veins like a freight train, your heart beats like a jackhammer, but you find yourself paralyzed. Even with all this fear-driven adrenaline in your system, even with the immediate threat standing right in front of you, you just can't bring yourself to move. Even when the red panther's ears perk up and he turns in your direction, locking his gaze with your own, you find your legs stiff and unresponsive. Even as the two of them approach you, eyeing you like a hungry dog eyes his next meal, every muscle in your body refuses to obey. It's a new sensation to you, being completely frozen by fear, and it only terrifies you more to think that you can't even control your body when you most need to. When the pair grabs on to your wrists, you fall to your knees, feeling the weight of everything that's happening to you pressing down. It's over. You're finished.

Someone's different about the situation this time, though. They aren't melting on you as the wolf had earlier. They aren't tossing you into the pool so that you can change as the teen did. Instead, they drop you on the floor next to the pool, and for a second they just stare at you. Maybe you haven't provided enough entertainment for them yet? You don't know. Whatever the reason, they aren't doing anything to you yet, and somehow the uncertainty of whether or not they're going to act is more unsettling than anything you could imagine them doing.

After a while, the panther holds out a paw-hand, extending his claws. Rubber or not, they look painfully sharp and solid, glinting menacingly in the dim light of the room. He reaches down to you, and you resign yourself to the thought that you can't get out of this anyways, that all you can do is let him do what he wants with you. At first, you think that he's going to just slash your throat and let you die, and part of you wants that, preferring it to the apparent alternative, but he doesn't. He just reaches down to your stomach and touches your belly button, and for a moment you feel a pinch and a tingle, and then nothing else as he pulls back away.

Curious, you reach slowly down towards the bottom of your shirt. Neither of them reacts, so you lift it to take a look at what the panther's done. Where your belly button was, there's now a small rubber air valve, the sort that you see on inflatable beach balls or pool toys. It's closed, and when you poke it, you're surprised at the sensation, feeling the slight movement of it in the surrounding skin. It's... part of you? You don't understand. You'd expected something scary to happen, but this isn't scary, it's just surreal. You stand up, and they still don't react to you. You look at the wolf, then at the panther. Both just watch you intently. You take a few steps towards the door. Neither of them stops you. A few steps more, and they still just stand in place.

So... what, does this mean that they're done with you?

You can just leave now?