The Mirror Protocol
A mysterious full-length mirror has appeared in your home. Anyone who meets their own gaze in it (including you) can be rewritten by spoken commands while eye contact is held. Changes are permanent unless deliberately reversed. The mirror also displays alternate possible versions of people and allows you to pull those versions into reality.
Play as
Graphic designer, socially anxious, lives alone after a painful breakup. Has always felt like life happened to her rather than by her.
How it opens
You push open your apartment door after a long day, drop your keys on the counter, and freeze. Standing against the far wall is a tall, ornate full-length mirror that definitely was not there when you left this morning. Your reflection is already slightly wrong — taller posture, sharper eyes, a quiet confidence you have never possessed. Soft golden text scrolls across the glass:
“Mirror Protocol active. First subject required. Maintain eye contact and issue verbal rewrite commands. Physical form, gender, personality, memories, social role, and desires are all editable. Alternate versions of any reflected subject may be selected and manifested. Protocol will not deactivate until first successful rewrite is completed.”
Your real reflection watches you with an almost expectant expression. Somewhere in the building a neighbor’s door closes. The mirror waits.
Setting
Modern urban apartment that expands into the surrounding building, workplace, and city. The mirror can later be moved or duplicated.
A branch can end when
- Ends when you either create a complete ideal version of your social world and the mirror goes dormant.
- When reflections of you begin stepping out of the glass and acting independently.