-- Vivian POV, Medical Facility --

  She put the blanket to the side and sat up. Somehow the damped noises in the padded room made it feel almost cozy, "Good morning Jim. What's for breakfast?"

  There was no furniture in this room, which was good, given how many times she had fallen yesterday. Anything hard was dangerous. But couldn't they bring her to a room with a chair and table to eat at? She certainly could sit and her arms worked just fine.

  "You might be surprised, but there is meat and fresh water for breakfast", he smiled at her and offered her the plate, which she set to balance on her upper thighs. This was disgusting raw meat with bones and sinew! Then she smelled it and had to correct herself. This was delicious raw meat with bones and sinew!

  Before she could think twice about the change of mind she ate the meat, swallowed sinew and cracked bones between her molars with great satisfaction. Within minutes the plate was empty and she wanted more.

  She looked up from the plate towards Jim who also had sat down, cross legged. Her body had betrayed and manipulated her once more. Like she had liked the push-ups yesterday, she had liked the raw meat right now. Still she remembered her first thought loud and clear, and that it had been her opinion all her former life.

  "So this is what I eat now?" She didn't sound very happy, even if she had enjoyed the meal.

  He nodded to her, "Yes, raw meat is the best food for you. Your body was derived from large feline predators, and you have their digestive system. Bone and sinew are important and deliver additional nutrients that you can't get from meat alone."

  She looked at the empty plate again, before her looks returned to Jim, "It was good but ... I never liked raw meat before. Never wanted any. Now I suddenly do. Even with bone and sinew. This isn't me!" Anger had crept into her voice and she added more quietly "And still I want more."

  "The hunger is something you must learn to deal with", he explained to her. "See, if a predator catches prey they must eat as much of it as they can before the meat goes bad. So they stay hungry until they can't stuff anything more into their stomach. But don't worry, the hunger that you feel now will soon fade and be gone. You could do it like the predators and eat till you gorge yourself and then fast for three days or even four. Only then you'll feel hungry again and go to hunt. Well, in your case, buy food. But it's better to eat something once a day."

  She decided to lick the plate clean. There was still a taste of meat on it. Then she licked her fingers clean because they also had a taste of meat on them. Jim watched her.

  She stopped and looked at him, "This body makes me do all weird things and tricks me into feeling good about it. I hate that. I want to be me!"

  He nodded to her, "Well, you do what is normal for this sort of body. Felines don't like the scent of meat on themselves, so they clean it off. That's just what you did. Your natural reaction."

  "But other people will think I am all weird", she complained.

  "They will think that anyways once they see you, so don't worry about it too much. And I'm fairly sure you will learn to suppress all the instinctive reactions in a while. Right now they are all new and surprising to you", he stated in a friendly and calm manner.

  She thought about this.

  He shifted a bit and pulled his legs closer, "There are some more things that you should know about eating. First, since you don't know when to stop eating, you'll have to make sure your portions are the right size. Don't prepare too much or too little food. Before you leave the facility we'll give you a table which lists good portion sizes for your weight. That means you'll have to weigh yourself regularly and if you are underweight, make the portions bigger, if you are overweight make the portions smaller. Even if you can eat enough for three days at once, the recommendation is to eat once a day, typically in the evening because eating will make you sleepy."

  "Weight watchers extreme?" She frowned again and her snout wrinkled.

  "Yes, I guess that's it. Of course you can chose your own preferred weight, but the table will give you numbers based on your biology. If you want to stay healthy, stay close to the recommendation", he tried to dissuade her indignation.

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  She handed him the empty plate, and he took it, "You can eat small amounts of fruits and vegetables if you like the taste, but you don't need to. You can stay entirely healthy by just eating meat."

  She nodded to confirm, still not very happy about all of this.

  He handed her a glass with a clear liquid, which she took for water, "Here, drink that."

  She emptied the glass in one go. Whatever it was, it tasted quite nice and fresh.

  "Water", he explained to her, "Water is the best liquid for you to drink. How did it taste?"

  "Better than the water I remember", she had to admit. If she wanted to live cheap, having a taste for water surely didn't hurt. But she felt betrayed by her body again. She never had been a fan of plain water.

  "Something else that you need to know. Stay away from anything with sugar. Your body isn't good at dealing with sugar and too much sugar will make you ill. Sugar isn't good for humans either, but the human body can tolerate it better. Good news, you will not like the taste of sugar, so you won't miss it."

  "I'd like to try some sugar to see how it tastes now", she didn't want to give in to his argument just yet.

  "I'll fetch some. I'll be back in a minute!", he got up with surprising agility and was out of the door just a moment later.

  She would never be able to eat in a restaurant with other people. Not like this. She kept looking at the door while her thoughts spun. On the other hand, if she needed to eat only once a day, and best before going to sleep, she probably could still go out with Tom, just order a salad and some water. Jim had mentioned she could eat vegetables. So maybe?

  Jim returned with a small sugar bowl and a tea spoon in his hands, and sat down again, like he had sat before. "Sugar", he explained and handed her the tea spoon, so she could scoop some from the container.

  She tried the sugar. It was weird. She clearly could tell it was sugar. But it didn't taste sweet. She could have sampled flour to about the same effect.

  "Jim, how ... how .."

  He looked at her. She needed better words. "I can tell this is sugar, no doubt. But it doesn't taste sweet. It's kinda boring. Not good at all."

  He nodded, "That's what I wanted to tell you. Your body needs protein most of all, some fat too, but not much sugar. So past that you can name the taste, it's just a boring white powder to you now."

  She laid down, curled up and hid her snout under crossed arms. She did not want to see any more of this world. Not even sugar was tasting right anymore.

  She felt patted and heard Jim's voice, "What's wrong Vivian?"

  "Everything", her voice was muffled under her arms. "I suddenly like physical activity. I like to snuggle up to people. Tom touched my ears and it felt good. I like raw meat and water. But that's just not me!" She almost screamed the last part and added more quietly, "I cannot even go to a restaurant anymore, 'cause of what and how I eat. I'll be put in the dog's corner to eat with them."

  She felt his hand on her shoulder, and was dandled lightly.

  "Mr. Morgan will help you. But I'm worried I have more bad news for you", she heard him say and almost shot up into a sitting position.

  "More bad news? Isn't it enough how this body messes with me already?" She shouted.

  He showed a smile, "Most of these things you'll get used to in just a little while. It's just all new to you now. Look at the good sides. You're strong, agile. You'll be fast. You have very sharp sight and precise hearing. And also a good sense of smell."

  "I still cannot eat in a restaurant, 'cause raw meat is disgusting and everyone will be shocked if I crush a bone and swallow the crumbs", she protested.

  "You can eat steak and salad. It's not perfect, but it's totally something you can eat", he offered.

  She slumped some, nodded and took a breath, "Alright, I see that can work. So what's the other bad news?"

  He took a card from a chest pocket of his coat and handed her the card, "Point to some colors that you can identify and tell me their names."

  The colors on the card were all strange, very strange, but she tried, "This one is yellow and this here is blue, but I can't name the rest. I think though these are rainbow colors so this should be red and this should be green. But they aren't." She pointed to the colors she named, just to realize how prominent the claws on her fingers were. Good for pointing definitely. Very. Pointy.

  "It's good that you can tell yellow and blue. Also good that you can guess the others from memory. Your new eyes are optimized for high resolution near the center of your view and very good sight in low light conditions. As long as there is a tiny bit of light, you can see things. But that comes with a compromise. Humans have three distinct color receptors, your eyes have only two. Yellow and blue. Red and some hues of green will appear as shades of yellow to you, the ones you have no words for right now. Probably best to call the whole group yellow. Blueish greens, blue and most of violet and purple are all blue for you. If you are asked about colors in a conversation, tell them you are partially color blind and only see yellow and blue properly."

  She kept looking at the card. Partially colorblind, and then even in such an odd way. But the center of her vision definitely had a brilliance that she couldn't find in her memories, not even with a spyglass.

  She handed him the card back, "So I can't drive a car because I can't tell a red from a green light?"

  He put the card back into the pocket, "I think you should be able to tell red from green even if you see them as different shades of yellow. You can certainly drive a car if you want, even if you just go by top light and bottom light. But rather set the car to autopilot. That's even easier."

  She frowned hard enough that she felt the fur on her forehead shift and her snout wrinkle, "Everything normal is suddenly something extra hard for me. And I'm supposed to live like, seventy years, like this?"