Matt was a wet-behind-the-ears freshman in desperate need for cash, as his grant just wasn't covering the mounting expenses he was facing at Jones University. The college town surrounding the struggling education center was mercilessly squeezed for available jobs, and there was no unskilled work Matt could get that would mesh with his hours of study at the university. Struggling to find anything, Matt started asking around, eventually hearing from word-of-mouth about an obscure pet-shop, surprisingly within walking distance of his campus housing.
Matt was diligent if financially desperate, and he investigated the shop, only to find it had zero net presence, no reviews, and didn't appear on any of the search-engine maps. He was wary about the place, so he called to make sure several of his friends knew where he was headed and when he'd be back, as he set out in his ill-fitting suit to land a job a bedraggled fellow student said was a huge financial opportunity. Matt realized his choice of attire was a bit ill-suited, as he began sweating walking over to the obscure dirt road where the pet shop was located.
The path was longer than Matt anticipated, and as he approached the pet shop, he was left with an even sketchier feeling as he marveled at the huge, concrete complex, which bore no sign or markings, except a small, dusty sign which read 'Yancy Randall's Exotic Pets! (Tours by appointment only)'. Still, he was desperate for the job, so he gulped hard, pulled at his tight, damp suit, and knocked on the rusty, locked front door, and waited. Matt wondered if anyone was even inside the concrete building, covered in boarded up windows, as he knocked again on the rusty metal door, louder. After waiting several minutes, Matt noticed an uncovered spot on one of the windows and peeked in. He spied an old, heavy-set man carefully untying and putting away a length of rope from the ceiling, before trundling towards the door, as Matt quickly returned to position at the front step, increasingly nervous about the whole scenario.
The old man opened the creaking metal door, and stared down at Matt with a rheumy, awkward expression. The pair just awkwardly stood there, Matt staring up at the old man, until Matt broke the silence, saying "Umm, hello, I was told about a job-" before being cut off "Hah? Wazzat? Oh right, you're the new kid, alright, Come in." and without further adieu, the portly, unhealthy looking elder ushered Matt inside, before trundling away again with little scooting steps. Matt had a moment of crisis on whether to proceed with this venture, but his sense of economics won out, and he followed ahead into the musky smelling, damp, dark petshop. Matt quickly realized something was incredibly off about the whole establishment.
The first thing Matt noticed, was the pet-cage lay-out, though it would be more accurate to call them 'barred pet cell-blocks', as Matt marveled at the unnaturally large creatures that stared casually back at him with mild interest as he followed along this old man, who was apparently 'Yancy Randall'. Matt spied an unnaturally huge pelican, a gigantic snake, several huge, bloated lizards, and a bizarre looking horse that radiated an ominous presence as Matt quickly followed behind his elderly guide. The man began speaking aloud, unprompted "So here's the situation sport, these animals here, they ain't natural. Some bio lab kicks 'em down to me for cheap, and I try to find crazy-ass exotic pet buyers for these weirdo freak-things." he slowly mumbled out, as Matt strained to hear, following along into a more aquatic section of the 'petshop'. Matt was overcome by the rows of tanks, featuring exotic fish, worms, snails, all unnaturally enlarged. Matt gawked at a gigantic octopus, which gazed back at him with sparkling intelligence gleaming in its big round eyes, as he walked past. Yancy continued "So, these test-tube mutts come out all weird and peculiar, and the black-site lab that churns 'em out feeds the weirdos a steady diet of, get this, Filipino broads! Go figure. Anyway, that's where you come in. I'm too old to handle the feeding and maintenance of this whole facility, so I'm going to need you to take care of all operations immediately. The lab gives me a weekly six figure stipend for the troubles, so you can have half of that, as long as the place doesn't fall to ruin." and as the old man rattled off his sentence, Matt's mind spun with what he was just told.
Eventually, the college student reasoned that this man must simply be dangerously senile, before leading Matt to a back-room filled with security monitors, as the old man pushed in an old VHS taped and said "Look, just watch this and you'll understand." as the fuzzy tape footage played, and Matt observed a security recording play out. It featured Yancy heaving the gigantic octopus Matt had observed earlier, which gripped around the old man securely with all eight appendages as he teetered and tottered under its weight, before awkwardly chucking it into a nearby floor-pool. Yancy motioned for him to look at a door which opened straight to the pool, as a dark-skinned Asian woman strode in, immediately falling into the water below, with the giant octopus. Matt's heart started racing at what he saw, as he realized the footage looked genuine, as he watched the octopus wrap it's slimy tentacles over her thrashing body in the turbulent water. "Keep watching, darn thing's been debeaked apparently, so it puts on quite a show..." the old man mused, as Matt sat transfixed, watching the grizzly footage. Slowly, the octopus used its eight tentacles to curl the struggling woman into a tight ball, as it gathered her towards the center of its mass, and began shoving her into a yawning pink opening at the cephalopod's stretching middle. Matt just watched, as the curled up Asian woman was slowly gathered up, and engulfed in the yawning pink octopus flesh, which gathered around her, pulsing and contracting rhythmically, as she gradually disappeared into its slimy depths, out of sight. Matt noticed the octopus's body bulging with the woman's curled up frame, as her fitful struggles were still visible feebly struggling within the underwater creature's stomach. Yancy turned to Matt and asked "So, any questions?"