As the receipt was printing, Maya watched an anthro rabbit walk into the gift shop. She at first assumed it was a costume and admired how realistic it looked in spite of it being out of place in the museum. However, upon looking closer, she realized the costume was TOO realistic.
The person’s long ears twitched slightly and their tail seemed to move subconsciously. No way could a costume do that.
The woman—Maya could only assume it was a woman from the presence of breasts on the rabbit—was wearing a grey blouse and a black skirt with a hole in the back of it that let her fluffy white tail stick out. She calmly walked over to a rack displaying shirts and picked a purple one with the logo of the museum on it. As she examined it in her hands, Maya could only watch her in shock and terror. How was a rabbit person in the museum? Better yet, how was that even possible?
"Here you go," the cashier said as he handed Maya her receipt, redirecting her focus back to what she had been doing.
Maya looked at the cashier in surprise, nothing the indifferent expression on the college-aged man. Why was he not reacting? Did he not see her?
"Sir, do you see the woman by the shirts?" Maya questioned him.
The man, whose nametag said Greg, looked in the direction of where the shirts were and spotted the anthro white hare there. He turned back to Maya and said, "Yeah. Is she your mom?"
"NO!" Maya yelled, making the cashier pull his head back in surprise. "I mean… no, she’s not."
"Then why are you asking me about her? Did you see her shoplift something?"
Maya shook her head. "No… it’s just… she’s not human."
Greg looked at Maya with a bewildered look. "Anthros aren’t supposed to be human, they’re only supposed to be anthropomorphic animals," he said in a confused tone, as if wondering why he even needed to bother explaining this… as if it was completely normal.
"B-but… that’s not supposed to be possible," Maya said and then turned back around to look at woman. She was still by the shirts and a man dressed in the same uniform as the cashier walked up to her.
"Do you need any help miss?" the man asked the rabbit.
"Yes, do you have this in my size?" She held up the purple shirt by its clothes hanger in her right hand.
"I can check in the back. Can you let me see it?" The woman handed the man the shirt and accidentally brushed her hand against his fingers. In mere seconds, the human man was there no more, an anthro male stoat now in his place.
Besides his species being changed, he looked exactly the same; he still had the same physique and clothes. Regardless, it still unsettled Maya to see the man instantly transform into another animal in front of her. Maya turned back to the cashier and exclaimed, "DID YOU SEE THAT!?"
Greg—who had been watching the entire exchange between his anthro stoat manager and the leporid customer out of boredom—slowly nodded his head in response to Maya’s question, his eyes wide open in surprise from Maya’s sudden outburst.
"The rabbit touched him and he turned into some sort of… weasel, right in front of us," Maya said as she began to panic, her heart pounding in her chest.
"What are you talking about? My manager’s always been a stoat," Greg said in a nonchalant manner. "Besides, it’s obvious that woman is a hare, not a rabbit."
Maya could barely register the cashier’s responses. He just sounded so… calm about this. Was it possible that he didn’t even notice what was happening? Why was that? And, more importantly, why was this happening in the first place?
"Maybe you should go drink some water and sit down. You don’t appear to be feeling well," Greg told her.
Maya shook her head furiously, her long blonde hair swinging wildly as she did so. "No, I feel fine. It’s… this that’s wrong." She pointed to the hare lady still standing near the shirt display.