The door was very easy to slip past. I just flattened myself and slipped underneath. The inside of the room was filled with hundreds of cages. Each cage had an animal of some kind in it. Most were mice and rats but some of the larger cages had cats, dogs and a couple birds. I started with the mice and rats first because all the other animals were pretty big, and I have only absorbed ants so far. I went to the cage with the smallest of the mice and took one out. I crushed its neck immediately, I may be hungry, but I didn’t want it to suffer. I pierced its body with a tentacle and watched as it shrank away. The hungry feeling got weaker, but I still wasn’t done. I absorbed two more mice before I felt full. I was about to leave but one of the mice lunged at me shrieking. I was close enough to the cage for it to startle me and I pierced its head without thinking.

‘Oh Shit!’

I pierced its head. So far, I have been piercing the soft flesh in their bellies because the skull was too thick. I feel like I’ve gotten stronger again.

While I was thinking I absentmindedly absorbed the mouse that attacked me. I didn’t feel any fuller, but I did feel a little denser. I absorbed another mouse out of curiosity and checked myself afterwards. It seemed to only add a little more density this time. Five more mice later and I stopped receiving benefits from absorbing mice.

‘How the hell does my body work? I have absorbed 10 mice the first 3 sated my hunger but that’s all. The 6 after that seemed to add to my body. But the last mouse I absorbed did nothing. It seemed to have just disappeared afterwards.’

Its like after my body can no longer absorb anymore, it just sends it somewhere else.

I would keep thinking about this for a little longer, but loud footsteps broke me out of my thoughts. I frantically looked around for somewhere to hide when I remembered. I’m a shapeshifter, duh.

I grew my body as much as possible and shifted my body to look like a baby mouse. That was the biggest I could get so far but I was improving. Another thing I noticed was how easy it was to change into a mouse. I even realized I had copied the internal organs as well. The fur was the only thing that didn’t grow right. But that was also what I was focusing on while I changed. I was only concerned on the outer appearance and focused on a mental image of that. The footsteps were getting closer, so I only had a couple moments to try something out. I shifted back into my original form and then changed back into a mouse. This time I just focused on my mental image of a mouse but didn’t try to influence my transformation. When I felt my flesh stop moving, I checked my body and I looked just like the mice I just absorbed. I guess eating something makes it easier for me to change into it. Good to know, I guess. I hid at the back of the cage just in case.

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The door opened and I was greeted with the image of a scientific goddess.

She entered the room in a long white lab coat and some extreme looking heels. From what I could see, she was wearing a tight black dress that barely covered her thighs and some thin stockings. She was wearing black rimmed glasses and had some freckles scattered around her face. Her face was a weird cross between stereotypical cute farm girl and beautiful actress. She walked in and pulled a clipboard off the wall that I hadn’t noticed. She scribbled something before putting the clipboard back and gracefully crossed the room towards the cages. She walked straight towards me and looked at the cages filled with mice like she was shopping. I was so distracted by her beauty that I didn’t even notice it when she picked my cage. It only registered to me when she picked us up and moved us to the side. She got the clipboard again and looked closely at one side of the cage and I realized she was writing down the number of the cage. I hadn’t seen them before but there were tiny little tags on each cage. I was about to slip through the cage and escape but she turned around and grabbed the cage before I could. I don’t know why but she held the cage at eye level and stared at us while she left the room. The entire time she walked through the halls she never took her eyes off of the cage, like she was daring one of us to escape. She was pretty but It made me uncomfortable with her face so close just staring. I was debating whether to just give up hiding and spit in her eye so that she couldn’t keep staring at me. Luckily before I started thinking about what fluids to use, we had made it to wherever she was going. The door beeped at her approach and opened automatically for her. But before she walked into the door she looked directly into my eyes and whispered.

“Do not try to escape youngling. I will help you.” Then she smiled at me and walked into the door.

My eyes were wide open as I thought about what she just said.

‘How the hell does she know what I am? What is going on? Is she like me?’

The room she walked into was filled with scientists doing all manners of experiments on a large assortment of animals. She crossed the room, stopped in front of a large door and put one of her hands on the door. The door beeped and opened for her, closing behind her with a hiss. The room she took us to was a huge office with a lab setup on one end and a large mahogany desk on the other.

She took us to the lab and sat the cage down on one of the tables. She opened the cage and held out her hand. I stared at her hand not really sure what she was doing. She waited for a moment before rolling her eyes at me.

“Come out we need to talk, or would you rather stay in the cage as a mouse?”

I climbed onto her hand and she lifted me out of the cage. She closed the cage and took me over to the desk. She set me down and took a seat herself. She took a moment to get comfortable before she looked at me again with those deep hazel eyes.

“So, what do you know so far?” She asked me.