Reptiles? You shudder. You've never felt a liking for those cold-blooded animals. Birds would be neat to see, you think, wondering what might be at the end of these corridors. But you decided to stick to your leftward-leaning instincts and you follow the sign pointing toward the mammals.
Maybe this leads to some sort of petting zoo, you think, absently reaching up to scratch a tingling behind your ear. You run your throbbing fingers over your scalp, feeling a prickling in your hair follicles. Must be dusty down in these corridors. Dropping your hands, you roll your shoulders a few times, starting to feel confined. You've never experienced claustrophobia before, but your shirt is feeling tight and you're beginning to pant a bit, your mouth hanging open just a tad.
Padding along, you don't notice that you've started to walk on tip-toe, the arches of your feet elongating a bit with each step and you toes plump and expand, a rough callus forming under the ball of your foot and each toe. You gait slows, and your shins and knees begin to tingle, but you have suddenly become absorbed in the flickering light of the next candle. Mesmerized, you reach out, astonished despite the visual evidence to find a real wax candle in the sconce.
As you pull your hand away from the light, you become aware of a faint scrabbling behind the wall beside you. Your ears twitch, following the sound, swiveling a bit on the side of your head. You notice that the candles must be letting off more light than before, because suddenly you can see every crack in the wooden planks surrounding you. Your eyes dart about, your vision sharper by the second.
Reaching up again to scratch at an itch on your upper lip, you notice your thicker fingers feel stubbier, and your nails sharper. Rubbing your mouth, your fingertips feel a short stubble pushing through the skin of your face - it must be time to schedule a waxing appointment again, you think.
The corridor opens out abruptly and you find yourself in a circular room, this time branching in more than ten directions like the spokes of a wheel! You wonder just how large this "ship" can really be on the inside! The signs rattle off more choices, and you're tempted by many:
AQUATIC, EQUINE, MARSUPIAL, FELINE, CANINE, BOVINE
Along with some you don't even recognize, such as
MONOTREMES, ANAGALIDA, and UNGULATES