Misadventures of a Very Bad Pet

Chapter 5

For the second time that day, I opened my eyes to see the grey ceiling above me. I was spread eagled on my back, or at least as spread eagled as I can be in the space given. I pushed myself up gingerly, my hand instinctively reaching up to sweep away a few stray locks of hair out of my eyes. What happened?

My fingers bumped against something cold and hard, and my hand flinched back at the unexpected touch. What the? I brought both hands up to my face, feeling a wire basket over my nose and mouth. My fingers followed it up and back to behind my ears where it connected to thick leather straps. I poked and prodded around before realizing what it must be. I let my hands fall and an insulted laugh escaped my lips.

A damn dog muzzle. 

I honestly didn't know what to think. I'm kind of flattered they think I pose such a threat but this... this was just degrading. 

"Fuck you assholes," I muttered under my breath, working my fingers around the strap behind my head to see if I can work it off. 

I uselessly fiddled around with it for a few minutes before I suddenly froze.

Oh shit. Stumpy. The water. It must have had something in it, dammit Stumpy. What else did they do to me when I was out? 

I quickly checked myself over. Luckily, I found nothing else new and turned my attention back to what was happening around me. 

Not Dog was taking a snooze, probably in a food coma after a double breakfast. Sad Toad was unsurprisingly still settled there, barely moving from the position it was in after it ate.

The most notable change were the sheer number of aliens around, who seemed to be milling around and looking at various creatures in different cages. There seemed to be so many different alien species out there, in various sizes and colors. Some were ridiculously tall, having to bend over half their height just to enter through the front door. Others had so many limbs, it was hard to even count them. 

I even saw some wearing clothes, though most stayed relatively bare. The babble of so many different tongues blended together in a rather odd cacophony. I looked around in shock, taking it all in. It felt like I was the one looking around in a zoo.

It took a while before I spotted Stumpy and Orange out there. They were interacting with the other aliens, leading individuals or small groups towards different creatures. They seemed to all understand each other despite how different their languages sounded. 

Some kind of translators, I assumed, though I couldn't spot any devices on the aliens.

My eyes wandered around the spectacle before me, and it was when I finally saw an alien family taking a small creature away in a crate, I realized that this wasn't a zoo. It was a damn pet shop.

Well, shit. That changes things a bit.

I entertained myself by alien-watching over the next few hours, and I've seen a lot more of those lizard aliens like Stumpy and Orange come in. After watching them come and go for this long, I began to notice the differences between the females and males.

The females were typically shorter, their snouts and tails more slender and their bodies with less overall muscle mass. Those frills behind their heads were also shorter and less colorful than than the males. 

With that in mind, I compared my lizard notes to Stumpy from across the room. Long vibrant frills, check. A broader snout, check. Tail? Looked kinda broad to me, but I'm not too sure since it was cut short. Muscle mass and height? Hmm, dude was more on the short and slender side, but most likely a guy.

My eyes flicked to Orange, who had came up to Stumpy. The two were conversing now, and I quickly compared their features. Orange had a even more slender build, his frills noticeably shorter and duller than Stumpy's. I frowned a bit. I thought that his frills would be a lot more brighter since-