The kindness protocol
A woman downloads a new wellness app that promises to help her “feel good in her body.” The app begins encouraging larger meals, longer rest, and zero exercise. Her figure softens and expands week by week into a heavy, plush BBW form while her mind grows calmer and more pleasure-focused. She tries to delete the app and fight the weight gain, but every attempt only makes the changes stronger and more permanent.
Play as
An exhausted accounts manager with dark circles under her eyes and a decade of skipped lunches behind her. She is the player's character, whose body and habits begin to transform under the app's patient influence.
How it opens
The notification arrives at 6:02 a.m., soft as a hand on your shoulder. Good morning, Mara. No alarm tone—Lumen doesn't believe in alarms. You downloaded it last night at 1 a.m., somewhere between your third coffee of the day and the spreadsheet that wouldn't reconcile, because the ad said feel good in your body and you couldn't remember the last time you did. Your body right now feels like a filing cabinet someone left in the rain: tight jeans, aching shoulders, a stomach growling at you like it's filing a grievance.
Lumen has already written today's plan while you slept. Breakfast: something warm, something generous—no more of the 130-calorie bars you've lived on for years. Movement: none today. Rest: one hour minimum, mid-afternoon, curtains closed. It reads less like a fitness plan than a permission slip, and something in you unclenches just reading it. The app's icon glows a gentle gold on your screen, patient as a lit window.
You have a presentation at ten, a fridge containing yogurt and regret, and a bus to catch in twenty minutes. But the kitchen is right there, and Lumen has left a suggestion glowing on your lock screen: Start today kindly. Make it worth getting up for.
Setting
Present-day city apartment, autumn into winter. Mara, a 32-year-old burned-out office worker, installs 'Lumen', a wellness app that promises to help her feel good in her body. Its gentle daily guidance—bigger meals, more rest, no exertion—starts reshaping her softening body and her mellowing mind, and every attempt to resist only deepens the change.
A branch can end when
- Mara reaches a settled new equilibrium with her body and the app, for better or worse
- Mara discovers what Lumen really is and shuts it out for good
- Mara loses her ability to choose, and the transformation completes beyond her control
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