“Close the damn doors!” yelled Doublestash. Serverboy launched out and banged them shut. Now the shrieking noise was muffled, but they could still feel the vibrations. “What do we do?!” yelled Doublestash and shook Serverboy by the shoulders, who went wavy.

After blabbering and convulsing from the shake, he came to and said, “Hah?! How should I know?! You’re the serge! You give the orders!”

They faced off. “Oh, really?! Then I order you to order me!”

“Oh, really?! Then I order you to not order me to order you!”

“Oh, really?! Then I—wait, I’ve lost the plot.” He was scratching his head.

Serverboy sighed. “Well, anyway, I think I’ve got something.”

“Really?!” Doublestash clasped his hands together, glittering sounds and stars came out of nowhere, a rainbow streaked his face, and hearts replaced his eyeballs. He was smiling wide. Then he came to. “I mean,” he began with a deep voice, “you better!” He pointed at Serverboy authoritatively. Meanwhile Serverboy had turned his back on him and was headed for the control board.

Serverboy heaved up a metal box onto the edge of the control board and struck it squarely in the middle. It split open. He started to muck around the box and it produced ungodly noises: a spring came out of it and made a spring noise, and a cat wailed as he threw her out. Doublestash stood there watching and making a confused hum.

Serverboy produced a Walkman. “Here,” he said, “put the headset on.”

Doublestash was stunted. “W-what for?”

“When I say, press this button.” He was tapping on the "play" button. “I used to listen to this tape when I had trouble falling asleep.”

“Hm?” Doublestash put the headset on.

By the way, he wore a brown leather apron with a steel-colored anvil embroidered into it. Around the apron he wore a leather belt which held a pair of pincers and a ballpeen hammer with loops. Unfortunately, that’s all he wore... Except for the earrings, which were also anvils hanging from his earlobes, the anvil rings on each of his fingers, and the leather wristbands.

He thought a while, then snapped his fingers. “Right! So you want me to fall asleep, so I don’t have to do anything!” He gave a double thumbs up and smiled.

“Bingo!”

“Yyess!” He balled up his fist in victory.

Serverboy chopped him on the crown of his head. “Of course not!”

“Ouch!”

“You see, while I was shutting the doors, I noticed something at the edge of the dome... A button.”

“A button?” Doublestash said while rubbing his head. “What kind of a button?”

“It was a red button with an X on it.” He crossed his arms into an X. “It’s like he wants us to press it.”

“Hmm?”

“But with all this commotion, we’ll never make it to the button. That’s why I gave you that.” He pointed to the Walkman, which Doublestash had strapped to his belt. “To block out the noise, so you can get to it.”

“Hah! What a circus!”

“I’ll stay here and watch. Here, strap this on your head.” Serverboy handed Doublestash a cam with a strap, which Doublestash mounted to his head. Serverboy checked the live feed from the cam on one of his monitors and gave the thumbs up.

Doublestash nodded, pressed the “play” button on the Walkman, waltzed over to the doors, pushed them open, and hopped down. “Ooh-whoopp,” he said.

He should’ve stayed in the van. Now, had you been behind him, you would've seen his hairy-ass, and his asshole was only covered by a strip of leather which hung dangerously all over the place... Doublestash was a short, fat, round (except for his head), hairy, muscly man with a tattoo of a long pair of pincers running up his back. I’m sure he was somebody’s type.

Jonas was watching from a webcam mounted to one of the monitors high up the dome. He could see and hear everything clearly. The dome was not just monitors: they were fitted with an audio system of speakers and mics.

Doublestash clocked the button Serverboy had been talking about: it was set on a white stand near the edge of the dome before him... All he had to do was get to the stand and press the button, and it was going to be over. But he took a minute to check around the dome. The dome was huge and surreal-looking: thousands of bendy monitors blasting internet videos, no doubt much of it porn, some of it the news, some of it social media stars talking into a camera, some of it music, movies, tv shows, ads with plenty of malware, whatever. Doublestash was in awe.

He slapped his face. Concentrate! All I gotta do now is get to that button... Hm? “Now, be sure to take some deep breaths... We are going to fall asleep together.” This is what the tape spoke into his ears through the headset. In the background, calming music played along with the sound of water gently streaming. He didn’t think much of it. He set out for the button ... and had quite a ways to go!

“Hah,” said Jonas, while sipping from a grape juice box. “So this is your plan, huh?”

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“Yes! Yes!” said Serverboy. “Keep walking, old man.” He was getting closer. Closer. Closer. He was halfway there ... but suddenly, he was slowing down!

“W-what’s going on?!” said Serverboy. “Hah! What’d you give the old man to listen to, huh, Serverboy? Sleeping pills?! Nyahahaha!” said Jonas.

Doublestash was murmuring what the tape was telling him: “Take a deep breath,” said the kind, gentle-sounding woman in the tape. “You are going to be alright... You are tired... That’s okay... It’s okay to be tired.” “It’s okay to be tired,” echoed Doublestash, as his eyelids were draping over his eyes, and his arms were practically dangling dead before him. “It’s...” said the woman, “going,” said Doublestash, “to,” said the woman, “be,” said Doublestash, “alright,” they said in unison... With that, the old Doublestash fell over, having been knocked into a deep slumber. He began snoring LOUDLY, with his mouth opening and closing.

“HAH!” said Jonas.

“HAH?!” said Serverboy. “What the fuck is this?” they said in unison.

“Shhhhit,“ said Serverboy, bopping all over in a frenzy. He touched his earbuds. “Shadow! Shadowee! Where are you?!”

“Coming!” said the voice of a teenage boy. He was in a rush, parkouring his way towards the dome on suburban houses. “I can see it!” he said. It was easy to see. It took up a large street. Anyway, on the other side of the street, also skipping on houses, a shadow was running. It shadowed the movements of the boy perfectly. “You ready,” said the boy, “sis?” said the girl. “Yeah,” said the girl, “I’m,” said the boy, “ready!” said the girl. They mirrored not only each other’s movements, but their voices!

“These,” began Doublestash from behind the cam in the hangar, “are Shadow and Shadowee respectively.” He panned the cam on the ... girl, then on the boy. The girl was a shadow, except she was 3-D. They stood side by side awkwardly. “Say hi,” Doublestash said. The boy waved with his right hand, and the girl waved with her left exactly on the dot. “No,” Doublestash said, “actually say hi, with your voice!” “Hi,” they said in union, the boy with the sound of a boy, the girl with the sound of a girl. “These are my second and third recruits... Hah! The squad is growing by the day... As you can imagine, these kids are naturals, not DIY. They were born with ... whatever this is... Well, it’s not exactly fair to say they were born with it either... They ... became this way.”

“Another C?” came the screeching, terrible voice of a gargantuan beast of a woman. “Your brother has been taking home nothing but As, and you dare shove your face in here with this?!” She held up Shadow’s report card, which came back with a C- average.

The beast must’ve been 2 meters tall, and put down 400 on the poor scale every time the hooves made their way onto it and forced it to suffer her weight. She wore a pink night robe with sliced watermelons on it. She also wore a bra underneath which barely held her giant melons. She had about seven chins, there was a giant mole below one eye, slightly to the side, she wore red lipstick but only in the middle, she had a bit of moustache.... She was hideous, alright?

Shadow was here not a shadow, just a little girl, many times prettier than her mother, who liked to wear her red hair in a cone on one side of the crown of her head.

“It’s just a letter!” the little girl exclaimed, almost crying.

The beast froze, and turned to her. “Did you just ... talk back to me?!” She looked to the kitchen sink and seized a frying pan.

“No!” the little girl threw up her arms in defense. The beast lowered the pan to her side, then waited, then sighed, then spoke.

“You will always follow in your brother’s footsteps, which is exactly why you’ll never catch up with him... You’ll live in his shadow till one of you dies... No... You are his shadow... Even now... A weaker, inferior form of her brother ... is his sister.” She paused. Then she spoke, with absolute contemptuous hate. “You and your pretty little face ... have embarrassed me for the last time!” She raised the frying pan. The girl flinched and made a noise. The beast swung down the frying pan with the force of a thousand swordsmen! It was going to hit that poor child and crack her skull...

“AAAAAH!” came a boy’s yell from somewhere in the house.

They both panted. The pan was suspended mid-air. “Sweetie?!” The beast took off at the speed of light and fled through the adjoined hallway. She sprung up a short flight of stairs, ran down the dark hallway till she got to a flung open door to the left. It was the bathroom.

“Sweetie?! What’s wrong?” She paced in and stood by him, placing her meaty paw on the boy’s shoulder blade. Clearly it was below her to play favorites.

“There is a mysterious, ugly monster in the mirror!”

“Where?! Where?!” She was bobbling her head left right and center, trying to find the monster. But she couldn’t see it.

“There!” the boy pointed where the beast’s reflection was in the mirror. He began laughing heartily. The girl stood in the hallway, peeking in with her hand on the doorframe. She was giggling at the ploy.

The beast’s face began convulsing, veins started popping out on her forehead, she was clutching the frying pan harder than before, and she was breathing heavy... The boy knew she was not going to be tickled pink, and took off. He banged a left and disappeared. “You ... are ... so ... DEAD!” She took off in pursuit of the prankster. The girl watched her barrel down the hallway, which is likely to have produced minor earthquakes.

She was now in a living room. She was stalking the boy, brandishing the frying pan like a baseball bat. She came upon three laundry hampers. “Heh,” she said. She raised the frying pan above her head and swung it down on the first hamper. She absolutely wrecked it to bits. There was nothing but some clothes in it... She moved to the second one. “Last chance to come out!” No answer. She swung it down and destroyed the second one. There were some toys in it. She tilted her head down, her expression darkened. She slowly moved over to the third one... “Mysterious, ugly monster,” she whispered. That got her in a frenzy. She lifted the frying pan with a force of a hippo, and was about to swing it down like hell, but before she could, a red boxing glove on a spring jumped out of the hamper, punching the lid off and the beast squarely in the face. The punch sent her staggering back, and she landed on her ass.

The boy and the girl stood at the door and laughed heartily.

“My face! My gorgeous, beautiful face!” She went on screaming. “YOU ARE BOTH SO DEAD! SO DEAD!” Then she went on wailing. “My beautiful nose...”

Later that night the boy was reading manga in the bed. They shared a room, but the sis was nowhere to be seen. The boy called out to her. “Sis?!” No answer. He threw the manga away and got out of the bed and went to collect her. He scanned the living room. “Sis?!” The kitchen. “Sis?!” Then he walked down the dark hallway. There was a pale shadow tracking him on the wall, but he couldn’t see it.

He entered the bathroom, but again nothing. He decided, what the hell, he will brush his teeth. As he was brushing away, he noticed something in the mirror: something dark was on the wall behind him. It was following his brushing movements. He spat the toothpaste and water out and turned quickly to face it. It was the figure of a girl with a cone on one side of her head. He screamed and the shadow also screamed. They mirrored each other perfectly.

The beast soon barreled in, which probably settled the house a little, and stood at the door. The boy and his shadow turned to face her. She had on this face mask from hell, with white cream and black stuff on the white cream. Her hair was gathered on hair rollers. The boy and the shadow both pointed at her and screamed, and she pointed at the shadow and screamed. They were pointing and screaming at each other in a triangle. The boy, the beast, the shadow, the boy, the beast, the shadow, the boy...