The Reynoldsville Regional Zoo strikes many as miraculous . What began 30 years ago as a small collection of game animals in the eponymous rural town of Reynoldsville, the zoo quickly gained a reputation for conservation. Breeding programs for rare, exotic, and endangered animals, particularly large ones, were its specialty. The zoo’s breeding program was in fact so successful, that it became the lifeblood of breeding stock for most major zoos in North America. Heralded as the savior of hundred of species, one zookeeper at the San Diego Zoo commenting that a new pair of Pandas, “fucked like rabbits” - that pair alone instantly putting to rest any worries of the species’ future.
With success came expansion. The once local attraction’s modest facilities blossomed into a state-of-the-art international tourist destination. Sprawling habitats replicating jungles, savanna's, tundras, and oceans ate up the Reynoldsville’s farmland as the small town became fixated on the zoo’s success. Workers flooded from nearby villages as the zoo swelled with more and more jobs needed to keep it afloat as it flooded with more and more animals.
———
Beneath the exterior of the Reynoldsville Zoo lay catacombs of service tunnels. These functioned as the veins of the zoo, ferrying workers and animals in between the exhibits, each tunnel connecting to the heart. A huge warehouse, a location forbidden to anyone but employees with high clearance, was truly the zoo’s heart. Shockingly, inside the dimly lit expanse were rows upon rows of animals that at first glance seemed dead. Tigers, elephants, orcas - each animal was unmoving, each sitting in their place prone like an Egyptian Sphinx. They appeared like masterworks of taxidermy, not a hair out of place, eyes closed in a pensive-looking state as if they were asleep. But upon closer inspection, they were warm. Inconspicuously small breaths fueled their dimly beating hearts to keep each animal in a sort of stasis, their tails raised in the air to reveal their true purpose.
Lush, supple, and thick tail holes stood proudly on display for anyone willing to dare a closer look. Some extruded out as bulbous leathery donuts, others were pillowy soft and pliant openings of blushing pink flesh - each glistening and slick with a thin slime of animal sweat and hormone-infused juices, inviting any daring visitor to take an even closer look. The female creatures boasted swollen vulvas, sopping wet in their own honey as if they were in the middle of breeding season. Males sported over-stuffed animal balls - heavy scrotums splayed tightly over their orbs of throbbing virility. Lions sat just meters away from lionesses, stallions just meters away from mares; the only thing keeping away these matches made in heaven was the need for a host.
“Host Protocols.” Read a large poster plastered near the animals, showing a detailed diagram of a new hire performing their responsibilities on a lion.
“Anal Entry”
“Oral Entry”
“Vaginal Entry”
“Penile Entry”
Each image beneath the text shows the person pressing against the respective openings, the organs stretching to accommodate the human until… the person disappears inside the animal, each entry resulting in the lion wakening from its torpor and standing up. A few more sentences instruct you how to get used to all fours, to stay calm and focus on the job at hand while assuring that it was possible for the employee-animal to expel the human out again, with the animal returning to its stationary state and the human unscathed. But the end results were clear - the employee turning into a proud new zoo animal.
———
A sliver of sunlight peaks out a door as it squeals upon, the ray of light illuminating hundreds of zoo animals as well as a few doors labeled “Mythological” and “Extinct” that lead deeper into the warehouse.