[PE-956-01] Max

Description

      Max is a male cat of average size and ordinary appearance housed at Site 496 in Universe ████. He has black fur with a white patch on his stomach and under his chin. He has an extremely friendly disposition, never showing hostility toward anyone or anything and often rubbing his face on people as soon as he sees them as a sign of friendship.

      He is estimated to be 11 years old, but he shows no signs of aging beyond roughly 4 years despite this, being in perfect physical health for as long as he’s been in captivity. He has never been physically injured, seemingly always able to avoid harm of any kind even when he should not be able to detect it coming towards him or when he should not physically be able to escape it, sometimes by virtue of feline agility, sometimes by seemingly predicting what is going to happen, displaying unusually high intelligence.

      When a sentient being is within approximately 15 meters of Max, that being experiences a sudden wave of extreme calmness and mental clarity, to such a degree that mental and neurological illnesses ranging from mild anxiety to paranoid schizophrenia can be soothed or even cured permanently through prolonged exposure. This effect has caused him to become very popular with Site 496 staff, and they have adopted him as the site’s mascot.

      In the rare instance that something tries to harm Max, he has shown to be able to completely negate that entity’s hostility instantly, causing them to simply sit down and completely relax in a trance-like state. Weaponization of this ability, however, is very difficult due to the fact that any soldiers that would use the calming effect to neutralize any enemies would also be affected by it, bringing any confrontation to an instant stalemate.

History

      Max seeming appeared out of nowhere at Site 496 as a kitten, with absolutely no signs of how he got in without being detected or where he came from. Investigation into this happening has yielded little results, and has since been abandoned due to lack of interest.

Containment

      Max has never shown any signs of wanting to escape, and as such is to be allowed to roam Site 496 freely, and all staff members are to be allowed access to him at their own discretion. He is to be fed 60 grams of chicken twice daily and be given access to water constantly by his handler (Currently Doctor L███████).

      Under the bed of a Fungi researcher named Doctor Langston at Site 496, a diary is hidden.

      “It’s been a week now and they’re getting worse. I try to suppress them, but when I do they just come back harder. There’s no denying it anymore. I don’t know how, but I’m developing emotions. They’re ripping me apart inside and I don’t know what to do. If I tell anybody I’ll be killed, which before wouldn’t bother me so much but now I can’t think of anything I want less. It’s getting difficult to hide my strange behavior and I don’t know how long I can keep this up. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to trust. I’m scared.”

      “Max is speaking to me. As I went to feed him yesterday I heard someone say ‘Langston, it’s time to get out of here’ and when I looked to see who said it there was nobody else around. I thought I was beginning to hallucinate on top of developing emotions, but then Max looked me right in the eyes and said ‘That was no hallucination Langston’ as if he could hear my thoughts.

      I was taken aback in surprise, but he quickly used that calming trick of his on me and I managed to get ahold of myself. He said that he had been waiting for this for two months, that he had finally broken through the ‘emotional disconnect’ in my brain that prevents us Fungi from experiencing emotion. I asked him why he did this and how he could do this he told me that he had come to this research Site looking for someone to make an ally of, and when I asked what he meant by that he told me that he wants to ‘save’ people from this ‘unfeeling hell’ as he put it.

      I told him he was crazy and that all he’s done is make me feel horrible, that I was fine before he did this, but then he rubbed up against my legs and started purring and I felt something new. I’d felt a wild rage and paralysing fear before now, but this was different. It felt good. It felt weirdly good. But then I remembered that all of this happening to me was his fault, and I tried to kick him away, but he easily avoided my foot.

      I told him to stop doing this to me and just let me live my life normally, that I didn’t want this and that I didn’t like this even if he tried to make me like it with his weird emotional manipulation.

      He told me, ‘You haven’t been really living up until now, none of you Fungi have. You’ve just been going through the motions like a robot. But what good is that? Do you really want to die having done nothing more than what you’re programmed to do?’, and what he was saying wasn’t making sense to me, but he said that I would ‘Understand in time’.

      He told me that he had been waiting for someone with capacity for emotion ever since he got here, and he planned to take me somewhere with other Fungi like me in a different universe who wanted to escape the Shroominati’s reach and help others like me escape. I still don’t like what’s happening, but I don’t see anything else to do other than stay here and die. Part of me wants to kill him for doing this to me, despite me knowing fully well I couldn’t even if I tried, but another part of me wants to see what’s going on with him.

      I really don’t have much of a choice. I’m leaving tomorrow to go to the coordinates Max gave me. He said he’d meet me there and explain more once I got there. I know he’s using my curiosity against me but dammit it’s working. I need to know who he is why he can do all of these things, it’ll never stop bothering me if I don’t.”