The tension in the room wasn't what it should've been—not with two extra versions of Jake and Carl standing in front of them.
Carl stared in disbelief, his mouth slightly open. His female counterpart mirrored the expression. Meanwhile, Jake and his opposite just looked at each other like annoyed twins stuck at a family reunion.
"First off," Jake'a female version said, folding her arms, "what the hell are you doing in our house? Second, introduce yourselves. Third, why do you both look like us?"
Jake just blinked. "Uh... outta our house, please." He pointed to the door.
Carl's other, scoffed. "What do you mean your house? You freaks broke into our house."
Jake muttered under his breath, "Great. Now I gotta deal with two empty heads."
"Excuse you?" Carly snapped.
Carl quickly stepped forward. "Okay, okay. We're all confused here. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. How about we introduce ourselves first? I'm Carl, and you are...?"
"C-Carl? I'm... Carly," she said, narrowing her eyes.
"Expected as much," Jake's other, mumbled. "I'm Jane."
All eyes turned to Jake.
He rolled his eyes, turned, and walked toward the living room. "After the storm, walk them out, Carl."
Carl shrugged awkwardly. "He's Jake. Don't mind him—he's like that a lot."
"I can hear you, idiot," Jake called back.
Jane followed Jake to the staircase and cut him off. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you're going?"
"My room, you varmint," he replied with a frown.
"Our house, genius," Jane shot back, frowning even harder.
Jake almost spoke back when he noticed something different. The stairs now split at the top, leading to two opposite doors with a third in the center.
"What the...?" he muttered.
Jane followed his gaze, her eyes narrowing in disbelief.
"Now I'm sure this is not our house," they both said at the same time.
Carl and Carly came up behind them. "Uh, what's going on, Jake?"
Jake gestured vaguely. "If I knew, would I be staring like this?"
"Well, we could check them out at least," Carly suggested.
Surprisingly, no one argued. Jake and Carl took the left stairs. Jane and Carly took the right.
Jake opened the room and saw a pink lip gloss on the floor. "Carl, why's a lip gloss on the floor? Is that strawberry?"
"Lip gloss? Not mine." Carl replied out.
"Smells like armpit in here?" Carly gagged from the other side.
Everyone regrouped at the central room.
Jane tried the doorknob. "Locked."
They all stared at the door, then at each other.
"So technically, that..." Jake pointed behind the girls, "should be our room, but..."
"What's it doing in our house, right?" Jane echoed.
Jake shot back, "It's your room in our house. Not the other way around."
Carl backed away. "While you two debate what is and what isn't, I'm grabbing some Nachos."
"What Nachos?" Carly snapped. "There's only one left in the cupboard—and it's mine."
"No way. I bought that yesterday."
"Nope. I bought it. My Nachos!"
They both sprinted downstairs.
Jake and Jane watched the chaos, then faced each other again about to speak, only to be interrupted by a thunderclap.
Outside, the storm had escalated. Jake checked his phone. No signal. He sighed, pocketed the phone, and walked off toward what he believed was still his room.
Jane did the same, neither saying a word.
Downstairs, Carl and Carly emerged from the kitchen, covered in crumbled Nachos.
Carl flicked one off Carly's hair and ate it. "Not bad."
"Ewww," she said, horrified.
He shrugged and turned then felt a little pull on his hair. "I felt that," he said casually, climbing the stairs.
"Felt what?" she asked, chomping on another nacho she'd pulled from his hair.
Carl opened the door to his room—and froze.
Jane stood inside, wearing a long black shirt that barely covered her bare thighs.
Carly opened her door and saw Jake in shorts, shirtless.
Doors slammed.
"Wrong room," Carl said, with an embarrassed look on his face.
"Mmhmm," Carly replied, holding the same expression as they awkwardly passed each other to their right rooms.
Outside, the storm became apocalyptic. Skyscrapers collapsed. Houses vanished. And then—everything glitched back into place as if nothing had happened.
The sky remained dark, flashing with blue and red lightning. Rain poured heavily.
Hours passed. Finally, at 12:00 a.m., the storm stopped.
Jake stepped out of his room, holding a book. Jane exited hers at the same time, also holding a book. They both paused.
"Why are you aren't you sleeping?" Jake asked.
"Because I'm awake, duh. Why are you awake?"
"Because I'm not asleep."
Jane groaned. "Ugh. We're even, then."
They both descended their respective staircases and sat opposite each other at the dining table. Phones out, flashlights on, books open.
Jane peeked over her pages. "So we're just gonna act like seeing our gender swapped doppelgangers is normal?"
Jake said nothing.
"What? You too into your book or just keeping your trap shut?"
He looked up with a deadpan face, then back down.
Suddenly, the lights flicked back on.
Jake stood up and silently walked into the study room.
Jane gritted her teeth. "Tch. I study in there too... but if I follow him, that'd be weird."
She sighed, switching off her flashlight.
"What in the world is happening...? Ugghh"
The next day
[6:15 AM.]
The kitchen was strangely calm, considering the cosmic-level nonsense that had happened the night before. Carly sat perched on the counter slab, lazily munching on a cracker. Jake leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. Carl stood by the cupboard, fidgeting. Jane lingered nearby but kept a respectful distance.
"So, it's either we're trapped in a fantasy or the universe hates us, which is it?" Carly said flatly. "Now how about we try to actually figure out what's wrong?"
"And how exactly do we do that?" Jane asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We start by sharing what happened yesterday," Carl suggested, then launched into it. "We were walking home from school, fighting against the windstorm. Then lightning flashed, and Jake turned into... well, Jane."
Carly nodded. "And then another flash, and you were me."
Carl pointed at her. "Exactly."
"Do you remember anything before coming home?" Carly asked.
"That's what I was about to ask," Jane said.
"It's like the last two weeks never existed," Carl muttered. "Like, straight-up blank."
"Brainwashed, maybe?" Jane suggested. "The last thing I remember was being in Voxbridge."
"That's like... what, two weeks back?" Carly said, doing the math.
Jake laughed—an awkward, brief noise. "Vox-what now?"
"Voxbridge," Jane repeated, glaring.
"What the hell is that?"
"You know Fordham, right?" Carly asked, stepping in.
Jake nodded. "Yeah, it's in The Bronx."
Jane blinked. "Where's 'The Bronx'?"
"Fordham's in Voxbridge," Carly insisted.
Jake raised his hands, clearly quitting the argument. "Okay. I'm out. Carl, your fantasy theory just went full-on real world."
Carl perked up. "Wait, wait—you're saying the notes are real?"
Jake turned back, looking exhausted. "No, I'm saying the plates are fake. Of course I am, idiot."
Jane tilted her head. "What notes?"
Carl grinned. "Glad you asked! I've been working on a few theor—"
Jake fake-coughed. "Fantasies."
Carl rolled his eyes. "Fine. Call it what you want. I've been writing down ideas. Stuff about another version of our world—same people, different details. Places, names, timelines... all slightly off."
"Yeah, I've drawn stuff like that too. Don't like writing much," Carly added.
Jane folded her arms. "So you're saying you're from another world."
Jake dragged his hand down his face. Jane shot him another glare.
Carl pushed forward. "No—you're the ones from another world."
The kitchen devolved into another overlapping arguments, pointing fingers, and circular logic. Jake finally walked out of the room, done with the nonsense.
Meanwhile — Oak Ridge National Subsurface Lab
Echo, Site-9 — 30 stories underground
The once-bustling facility was now locked down. Armed FBI agents prowled every angle, but something was... off.
Agent Samsa stood at the very bottom level, surrounded by dust, metal crates, and silence. He held a phone to his ear.
"Yes, it's Agent Samsa speaking. We've locked down the entire facility as instructed. But I need to report something... unusual."
He turned slowly, eyes scanning the empty space before him.
"I'm currently in Echo, Site-9. No signs of any human down here. Completely. I've already requested the full staff list—I intend to follow up with home visits."
He took a slow breath.
"But the real issue... The Parallel Resonance Engine—the core of this entire experiment as you told me. 88-feet mega machine... is absent."
He stared at the vacant space where the colossal machine once stood. Now, just air.
"We might need some people to start talking. Soon."