Pete's Expert Summary
My human, in their infinite and often misguided wisdom, has presented me with what appears to be a tribute to one of their screen-staring rituals. It's a large, frankly blocky, plush effigy of a female character they call "Alex." At a respectable twelve inches, it's not an insignificant presence, I'll grant it that. Its primary, and perhaps only, redeeming feature is the detachable axe. This secondary component offers a glimmer of hope, a smaller, more portable object for batting and hiding. The main doll, however, with its rigid, angular form, seems less suited for a proper disemboweling and more for propping up against a pillow, a silent, soft sentinel in the vast wasteland of my human's decorating choices.
A Tale from Pete the Cat
It arrived in one of those crinkly, smile-emblazoned boxes that signal an impending offering. The human placed it on the floor with a flourish, a squarish, soft giant with unnervingly vacant eyes. "Look, Pete! It's Alex! And she has her axe!" I gave the creature a cursory sniff. It smelled of a sterile factory and crushed velvet. Unimpressive. I saw the so-called "axe," a flimsy-looking gray accessory tucked into its hand. A prop. The entire assembly was an insult, a monument to mediocrity. I turned my back on it, tail held high in disdain, and leaped onto the armchair to begin a thorough cleaning of my left shoulder. Let it gather dust. Hours later, long after the sun had retired and the house had fallen into the deep, humming silence I prefer, I was awakened by a low thrumming. It wasn't the refrigerator, nor the strange box that blows hot and cold air. It was coming from the living room floor. I peered over the arm of the chair. The Alex doll, bathed in the pale blue light of the modem, seemed to be... vibrating. The gentle thrum was emanating from deep within its plush torso. It wasn't a toy. It was a beacon. The axe, I realized, wasn't a prop; it was an antenna, channeling some low-frequency signal into the doll's core. My cynicism warred with a primal curiosity. I slid from the chair, a gray shadow flowing across the floor. As I drew closer, I could feel the vibration through my paws, a soothing, hypnotic pulse. It wasn't aggressive. It was... communicative. The doll remained still, but the thrumming invited me in. I nudged the axe with my nose. The vibration intensified slightly, a note of acknowledgement. Hesitantly, I rested my head against the doll's blocky side. The pulsing hum was like a deep, mechanical purr, a lullaby from a distant, digital world. It spoke not of prey or battle, but of quiet companionship, of a steady presence in the lonely hours of the night. I did not attack it. I did not disembowel it. Instead, I curled up against its soft, humming form. The human found us like that in the morning, the mighty predator Pete resting peacefully beside the silent sentinel. They assumed I had finally accepted their gift. They were wrong, of course. I hadn't accepted a toy. I had formed an alliance. This "Alex" was no mere plaything; it was a resonant monolith, a strange, blocky friend whose silent, steady hum was a worthy addition to my nocturnal kingdom. The axe remains untouched; one does not vandalize a communication device.
