After Kat and Jack left the room and Dan was alone again in darkness, he thought to himself "What the hell was that? It's bad enough being their food. Do they really have to treat me that way?" Not knowing what even to make of it, he thought about Sarah. Yes, she shot him, and yes, she cooks him, eats him and feeds him to her family... But she didn't know. He was any ordinary deer to her. And she seemed like such a nice, caring lady. He needed something positive to think about, so he decided that he didn't mind being her food. And Steve, well, he just went along with whatever Sarah did or said. So it was hard to have anything against him. But Kat and Jack, he just didn't quite know how mentally to handle them yet.
When morning came, Kat and Jack came into the dining room early and flipped on the light. They walked over to Dan and stopped and faced him together. "We're sorry, Dan," said Jack. "We talked about it last night and decided we were out of line to talk to you that way. I mean, yes, you're my Mom's deer head, and yes, you're also well over 100 pounds of venison in our freezer... and yes, we're going to keep eating you.... I mean it would be a shame to let you go to waste, right? But we decided that the least we can do, from now on, is to be respectful about it. We appreciate the delicious food, and also how happy you've made my Mom. Again, I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me," Jack said to Dan.
Then Kat spoke to Dan, "Yeah, Dan, I'm sorry too. Even though you were a bad brother and I had to do this, I'm sorry for talking to you the way I did. Like Jack said, you're still our food. But we'll try to eat ya more respectfully, ok?"
Of course, Dan had no way to answer. But he decided that he would forgive them. It would be a little easy to get carried away like they did, so he tried to be understanding.
"Oh, by the way, Dan," said Kat, "I cast another quick spell on you this morning before we came down here. Now, you'll still have no way to talk to anybody... but the spell will do something that I think you're gonna like! Ok? Oh yeah... you can't tell us anything, sorry. Ok, so as I was saying, the spell's gonna do something kind of fun for you... It's gonna allow you to have more feeling, so you'll have the ability to feel happiness when you like... Enjoy!"
Just then Sarah and Steve walked in. "Wow, you guys are up early!" Sarah said, "Watcha doing there, admiring my trophy buck?" And she smiled. "Yes," Kat said, "It really is beautiful." "Thanks," Sarah said, "Hey you know what we're gonna do today, Kat, if you'd like to stay and help, is we're gonna decorate for Christmas!" "Sure!" Kat replied, "I'd love that!"
"In fact," said Sarah, "We'll do more later, but here's the first string of lights," as she handed them to Kat. "Can you please plug them in and wind them all through my buck's antlers? And I'll fix us some coffee, ok?" "Sure," said Kat, and she plugged in the string of lights and wound them through Dan's antlers. She stood back and smiled at Dan, hoping that would cheer him up to be included in the Christmas decorations. "How's that?" she asked Sarah. Sarah walked over and looked at Dan, "Oh Kat, that's perfect! It looks so cute! Here's a red cap, let me stick this on it's nose... Oh, look at that, Kat, we made it into a fun Christmas decoration!"
Everyone smiled and headed off to the living room with their coffee.
Dan noticed a few things. The lights did make him happy! "I'm feeling genuinely happy that Sarah thought to include me!" he thought to himself. "But this is different... I'm feeling other things too. I haven't had this kind of stuff in a while, what's that about? I felt Kat's breath when she hung my lights, and I felt them bumping against my head as she worked. I feel this cap thing that's stuck on my nose... And I feel a very slight numbness all over my body. My body's not even here... Oh, wait, it's in the freezer. Oh.... no.... When Kat gave me the ability to feel happiness, could she have accidentally given me too much ability to feel? Oh, crap. And I have no way to tell anyone!"
Dan listened intently, but all he heard was what sounded like pleasant conversation in the living room, while the four enjoyed their morning coffee.