No one ever stumbled into The Menagerie by accident.

It was hidden between two forgotten alleys, the kind of place you’d walk past a hundred times and never once notice. There was no sign, no light, no sound. Just a heavy black door with golden engravings — a feather, a fang, a paw — glinting faintly beneath the city’s neon glow.

Inside, the air was warm and thick, humming with silence. Not peaceful silence, but something heavier — the silence of held breath, of waiting. Rows of glass enclosures stretched down endless velvet-lined halls, each one softly illuminated from above, casting their inhabitants in an eerie, dreamlike glow.

They looked almost human.

Some had long, twitching ears. Others bore elegant wings folded tightly against their spines. Tails curled around ankles. Horns shimmered faintly under the light. Their eyes — those eyes — followed every movement from behind the glass, filled with something that couldn’t quite be named. Not hope. Not fear. Something... in between.

Each cage had a label: name, breed, obedience level, price.

Some were curled up on silken cushions, motionless and silent. Others stood, alert, poised, as if performing for the next customer who might walk in and choose them.

Above it all, soft music played — too slow, too sweet, almost mocking. And behind the obsidian counter sat the shopkeeper, pale and unreadable, flipping through a leather-bound book of sales.

There were no clocks in The Menagerie. No windows. No exit signs.

Only collars.

And contracts.