It had only been a few hours, and Christine was already starting to sink into a depression. Sure, she had to admit that in some ways, her new body was kind of cool. Hell, if someone had offered her the chance to live among the zoo's leopards for a day, with the provision that she could return to her human life before long, she would have gladly taken it. But the bleak reality of her situation was setting in by now. The zookeepers only came to them for periodic feedings, and seemed to want to make it as quick as possible - if Christine had known how to communicate with them, she still probably wouldn't have been able to get a word in. And trying to escape was no good - not only would she run the risk of being shot with something much stronger than a tranquilizer dart, the enclosure was carefully, professionally designed to make sure the animals inside physically couldn't get out.
So Christine was sitting perched on a rock, trying to avoid the other leopards (not only were they potentially interested in mating, they were just as bored as she was), when she noticed one of the zookeepers push open the door into the enclosure, this time without a bucket of raw meat in hand. She watched as the keeper reached down to the other female leopard and stuck something to its back. Then, in a flash, the leopard was reduced to a flap of skin that fluttered to the ground, totally flat! If Christine hadn't already been living an impossible scenario, she would have thought she was hallucinating.
No one else - not the visitors up above, not the other staff, and not even the other leopards - seemed to be paying any mind to the zookeeper, who was now stepping inside the skin of the flattened leopard and trying to close it up. In another blink of the eye, there was a normal-looking leopard there again, and no sign of the zookeeper.
This was getting stranger and stranger. Christine could hardly be surprised when the very next thing the female leopard did was to walk right up to her. "Uh, hi," she said, in the same sort of semi-language Christine was familiar with by now. "I'm so sorry about this. I really didn't think this would happen. I swear I'm going to try to figure out a way to get you out of here."
Christine could hardly believe her ears. "Wait... did you do this to me? What the hell is going on here?!"
Bronwyn launched into a rambling explanation of everything that had brought the two of them up to this point. (Well, not everything - she figured there was no need to explain her original purpose for stealing the mascot costume, or what she was trying to do with it when she got home.) "Anyway," she continued, "when I heard about what was going on in the news, I immediately realized what must have happened to you. So I ran back over here, snuck into a supply closet, stole a keeper's uniform, and... well, I guess you saw what happened after that."
Christine was at least relieved to hear that Bronwyn hadn't stolen someone else's body in order to get inside here, aside from the leopard itself. But the rest of the story left her furious. "So you found this magical zipper and your very first thought was to take over somebody else's life from them?!" she growled. "You couldn't have even waited for me to take the damn costume off before you started trying to play with it?!"
"I had no idea what was going to happen," Bronwyn timidly explained. "I didn't even think it was really going to work. And I definitely didn't think it was going to do this to you once I zipped you back up. I thought for sure you'd just be back to normal and never realize that anything had happened to you."
None of those defensive responses made Christine feel any better about what had apparently been done to her. The idea that, if Bronwyn's plan had worked, she would have been none the wiser about what her body had been used for made her skin crawl - no pun intended. But at the same time, she had to admit that Bronwyn's return to the scene of the crime was a godsend for her. Not only did she now know why she had suddenly become a leopard, but she now had someone who knew what had happened to her and was trying to help her out of it. At the same time, that meant she couldn't let her anger show, justified as it was. Too much baring of fangs, and Bronwyn would probably be inclined to leave her here permanently and never look back. Could she really trust Bronwyn?