They were all on one of Caine’s stupid adventures - again. This time, they were at a fast food restaurant, being forced to work as employees - and Gangle had been made shift manager! And she’d promptly gone completely crazy - he supposed she was manic again. Jax knew it made some amount of sense, given her background in working fast food, but still! He would do a much better job—
Oh, shit, Gangle was talking to him again, in that irritating, high-pitched babble that characterised her mania. She was going on about his lack of ‘can-do attitude’ - God, could she give it a rest? Jax rolled his eyes and spoke down to her, his irritation clear.
“No. I don’t care about any of this. And I liked you better when you were sad.”
There was an audible clink as Gangle’s mask cracked, the plastered-on smile faltering for a second. For several long moments, they just stared at each other, Gangle’s eye twitching. Then she smiled brightly, laughed, and spoke in that infuriatingly chipper voice.
“Well! Maybe you just need some more…"
She didn’t finish, staring vacantly off into space. Jax looked down at her disdainfully.
“More…—"
“Training!!!” Gangle interrupted him, as though nothing had happened.
Jax barely had a second to process that before large, disembodied white hands erupted from the shadows and seized him, making him choke and cough. He was immediately yanked backwards into pitch darkness, not even having enough time to feel afraid.
When the lights came back on - although the room was still drenched in shadows - he was in an empty white room, with only a TV. He let out a confused ‘huh?’ before the TV turned on and Gangle’s infuriating voice poured out of it, accompanied by obnoxiously pleasant music.
“Hi! Welcome to Spudsy’s! In this video, you’re gonna learn the ins and outs of what makes you a good crew member - AND a valuable asset to the Spudsy’s corporation!”
Jax groaned. “When did you make this?”
Gangle’s voice continued.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking - I don’t wanna work in fast food! I wanna be a comic artist and eventually launch my own manga-inspired webcomic! And it’s cool to have dreams! But you ALSO need to remember that they’re completely unrealistic, and you need to STOP TRYING!!”
Jax’s pupils flicked from left to right rapidly as he tried to process that. Gangle still wasn’t done.
“But before we get into all that, first things first!! Are you smiling??”
Jax narrowed his eyes, sounding bored and more than a little confused. “Uh… no?”
The music abruptly stopped. Gangle turned to stare directly at Jax, pupils dilating and smile dropping. Her voice was eerily flat.
“Why not?”
Suddenly, the hands were back, more of them this time, and they were grabbing Jax, pulling and twisting and hurting. He made a series of confused “wait”s and “uh”s as he was pulled this way and that, before being shoved against the screen. He broke off in his stuttering to ask, “No-Nobody can see this, right?”
Gangle’s smile was back, a terrifying false rictus.
“It’s time for your employee reevaluation!!”
Suddenly, Gangle’s image on the screen was replaced with an image of a white mask on a dark screen. It was quickly replaced by a bright white screen, and back and forth and back and forth, accompanied by alternating tones that only seemed to speed up. The flashing images continued, and Jax’s pupils contracted wildly as he struggled for a few seconds before going limp, realising it was futile. The hands still holding him in place were too strong, too tight.
Some amount of time later, an incredibly dazed Jax was pushed back into the kitchen of the restaurant, ears flat against his head. and pupils constricted to tiny pinpricks. He was patted on the head a few times before the hands vanished, leaving him swaying weakly on the spot. What had just happened?
His last memory was being trapped and forced to stare at the flashing screen until it was his whole world, and everything had begun to jerk and move and blur and fade…