Anticat

"How are you so calm right now?" I glared at Ryan.

She shrugged, "You're the one acting weird, aren't you always like we must be calm and collected at all times?"

"Yes but this is cats! The devious creatures clearly have bad juju!"

She looked at me and shrugged, "I don't see how it's all that different from taking down a gang that wants to blow up a building, now it's just the planet instead of a building. Although, those tunnels are rather creepy, those grates covering them remind me of weird storm drains."

"Let's get this over with then." I started to leave when Ryan stopped me.

"Good luck!" Ryan held out a fist and held it out. I raised an eyebrow but made one and tapped her back with it. "You've got to make it explode at the end or it's not a proper first bump!" Ryan complained.

I sighed in exasperation and headed toward where my assigned gopher hole was.

Ryan was a lost cause if she actually wanted to do well and partner with a cat.

This must have been part of the cat brainwashing syndrome. Some kind of mind attack.

In fact they had lots of mind attacks, why else would they show up to our doors and be instantly let in. I thought back to the day that deviant had arrived and Kaityln took it in.

It purred pathetically on the front step of the director's house then when Kaitlyn aww'ed at it, it pranced right in and basically demanded food.

I narrowed my eyes as the term 'vacation planet' came back to me. Now that I think about it, it was basically like the kitten was checking into a hotel, in a manner of speaking. After that it had the audacity to demand room service from its new can opener servant. Yep it all fit. Kaitlyn had fallen victim to them.

Was that a requirement of these tests? To find humans who liked cats?

I looked into the tunnel where I was now standing. Next to the entrance were several more entrances. Nope I don't get it. A tunnel made no sense for finding out who did or didn't like cats.

The tiger looking cat came over to our group.

"Good luck humans. I am known as Stripe, one of the glorious saviors of this planet. I do hope at least one of you will meet our expectations. You may begin."

Talk about a cat with an ego, actually no, all the cats clearly had egos. I pulled up the storm drain and entered the tunnel. It clanged shut behind me leaving me in darkness.

I stared at the darkness for a moment then turned the light on my phone on. What was the point of this? Did the cats think we were such cavemen as to not have lights?

I started walking and the tunnel grew even narrower, then it started getting shorter as well until I was crawling on my knees. Stupid cats.

Huh? I looked down as the dirt changed to mud. My pants should come clean right? What kind of dirt did they use? Well if they didn't I'd just burn them and get a new pair. I stuck my hand forward into the wrist deep muck. The slimy feeling covered me as I continued onward. I really hope there aren't any leeches or something else down here.

That's just the dumb joke space cats would have. Haha look what we made the humans do before we killed them all, made them have hope and do foolish tasks for entertainment.

"Uh." I stopped looking ahead worry clouding my face. "I don't think this is normal?"

The tunnel ahead of me dipped down into the water leaving nowhere to crawl further. It was completely submerged. It would be hard to turn around in one of these tunnels, but it would be possible. Crawling backwards should also be possible although very time consuming, and it would mean giving up.

I carefully entered until my head was just barely poking out of the surface of the dark water. It was freezing.

"This better be worth it." I stuck out a foot in front of me and felt around. The tunnel split into two.

I took a deep breath and submerged myself into the water gliding foot first into the first tunnel for a few feet then swam back for a breath. I repeated the motion on the second tunnel. I felt my foot slam into a wall. I pushed back off it until I was back up to the air.

"Okay, first tunnel it is." I dove foot first again this time letting myself drift further.

I was about to kick and go back when my foot broke into air again. I scrambled around under water for a moment, probably resembling a dying fish, thankfully no one was watching… I think.

Then I surfaced in the new area.

I brushed mud from my phone's light and scanned around me.

The things people do for cats. I made a sarcastic laugh to myself. The things I am doing for cats.

Obviously I wasn't planning to turn around, that would have been too easy. So I kept waddling my way forward.

The path split again and I wanted to cruse the cats who had made this. They had turned this into a maze, did they want claustrophobic people to have a heart attack?

I scratched my chin for a moment. That was probably accurate. They wanted physically fit humans without any limitations. This is just the sort of psychotic thing they would use to remove humans with fears. Did that mean spiders would be next?

I grimaced, yeah no spiders please.

I started tracing the left wall. As long as you followed only one wall you would eventually get out of a maze. All they were doing was wasting my time. I reached a dead end and groaned before slowly moving backwards until I could go through the next tunnel. I hope the exit is closer to the left side.

I wandered for a solid fifteen minutes and came to a downward slope. I tossed a pebble down it and watched it roll away. Would this also be a dead end? It was more accurate to call it a slide given how slick it was. If it dead ended I could easily become stuck.

Then again, since when did death scare me?

Tell me your secrets! I ranted to myself.

I shuffled around slightly before sliding feet first down the tunnel slide. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I quoted to myself as it got faster and faster. Okay now this was a little freaky to slide into the darkness. I gripped the side of my jacket to prevent any rug burns.

I was practically vertical, free falling, RIP me, my grave stone would say lost to the center of the Earth.

Why did the cats build this? They totally wanted to just kill off the strongest humans for entertainment.

"Well it worked didn't it?" I said softly continuing my fall into the darkness. Of the agents here today, all of us could be considered some of the strongest humanity had to offer.

Wasn't curiosity supposed to kill the cat not the other way around?