Ears.
Big ears.
That is what popped up on the ultrasound screen.
Not just one pair of ears.
But three pairs of ears.
Looking between the lady on the bed and the ultrasound screen, Stone plops back into his seat, bewildered and at a loss at what to do.
Feeling way out of his depth, Stone moves on autopilot. Following his instincts making sure the unconscious lady is comfortable on the bed before he moves all the equipment and himself out of the room.
Once he put away all the equipment, he returns to his office and sits down at his desk, lost in thought.
After a couple minutes of staring into space, does Stone notice the book that has been glowing the entire time.
Pulling the book out, Stone reads the now decrypted title:
'Basic Biology and Care for Humanoid Beasts'
(Humanoid beasts… huh.) Stone thinks to himself as he opens the very thick book.
As he reads through, it finally clicks in his head that this shop of his is by no means normal.
Subconsciously, he treated this shop like it was any other care facility. Just that it came with a whole bunch of gimmicks.
Until this moment that smacked him across his face with reality.
With renewed vigor, Stone starts studying the book to prepare himself for whatever comes next with the sleeping patient.
—
"There." Chelsea grunted as she finished closing the shop.
At this moment, she is still wearing the gas mask she procured out of nowhere when the latest patient came in.
Scrunching her nose thinking about her, she retreats back to her room, passing by Stone's office.
She peeks in, about to tell Stone that she finished closing up shop for the night when she notices Stone fully engrossed in a book and the countless notes he has made that litter the room around him.
Letting out a tired sigh, she leaves Stone to do his thing and returns to her room.
She then turned on the ventilation to max and found something to seal the cracks around the door.
Once she was sure that everything was sealed, she then took off her mask and took a cautious breath.
The scent she smelled earlier is very faint, but bearable. She flops onto her bed and starts complaining to herself.
"What a rancid smell, it's unbelievable that the silly doctor can't smell it."
She flops around on her bed for a bit before shooting up.
"Ugh, just thinking about it is making me feel dirty and grimy." She sniffs her clothes and arms. Even though she can't smell anything rancid, she tears off all her clothes, throwing it into a bin labeled 'incinerator' and hopping into the bathroom for a long shower.
After a thorough scrubbing, Chelsea steps out feeling very clean and refreshed.
As she is blow drying her hair, knocking could be heard from her door and is soon followed by Stone's voice.
"Left your drink by the door! You know the drill!"
Listening to his footsteps fading away, she opens the door quietly and picks up her drink before darting back into her room, all while holding her breath out of fear of encountering the rancid smell.
Sniffing the drink a little, Chelsea realizes that the smell is gone, just a sweet calming scent from her 'coffee'.
"Guess he finished studying whatever grabbed his attention." She mumbled as she nursed her drink. "I'll talk to him about the smell tomorrow then. It is going to be a very long day tomorrow I fear."
As the clock hits midnight, Chelsea sets down her finished drink and snuggles into bed.
Stifling a yawn, she closes her eyes and very soon falls into deep sleep.
—
*Beep Beep Beep Be-*
An alarm clock sounds and is immediately silenced by Stone as he yawns.
Rubbing his eyes, he enters the pharmacy and waits for the centrifuge to come to a stop.
"Time to extract the solution and finish up this tonic for the beast lady." Stone spoke to himself in order to stay awake.
"As soon as she takes it via iv, she's going to need to rest for a few days. Enough time to study the beast biology book some more. So far it only mentioned common beast species, from some of those fantasy novels, I'm pretty sure there are some super rare and special species out there."
Fully zoned in, Stone continues to ramble on as he prepares everything needed. During this time, Chelsea popped in to call him out for breakfast, but got spooked away due to how insane Stone looked at the moment.
She decided that all he got was a cup of black coffee and a croissant.
A few minutes later, Stone came out of the pharmacy and entered the patient room.
"Damn, she took three bags of fluid. Just what happened to this poor girl." Stone muttered as he changed out the fluid bag to the tonic bag.
"Hopefully this helps." Stone spoke softly as he noticed the scrunched up face on the beast lady.
Making sure that nothing wrong happened with the tonic solution and that there was no adverse reaction, Stone shuffled out the room and into the kitchen to make himself breakfast.
There he found the coffee and croissant Chelsea prepared for him, with a little note reminding him to get sufficient rest.
Finishing off the croissant, Stone moved into the lobby and started preparing to open up for the day.
"Time for a new day." Stone declared as he sat down with his cup of coffee. "Here's hoping that nothing urgent happens today.