I might as well make this post, long before release or anything of the kind.
I can hear people in the future - “but Robert, why make a game about mirrors, mirrors aren't scary - you only see what is there” to which I say To Hell With You.
Mirrors are terror incarnate. That which reflects our world and bastardizes it. The untrusting double. The world on the 2D plane. The untouchable realm. Mirrors are truly the worst.
The true hatred of mirrors came from an early age.
As a child, I suffered from extreme night terrors. My mother would recall fits of me thrashing and screaming in bed. Completely unwakeable, she would spend the time watching me suffer by cleaning my room to ease her own anxiety about my night fits. I don't recall many terrors I had….
Well…… Other than one.
When I was a child between ages 4-6, I distinctly remember waking in my room. Dark, lit by a dull blue light, I realized there was something wrong. The entirety of my walls, floors, and even the roof was completely covered by mirrors. From top to bottom, mirror after mirror after mirror. In the center of my room stood a vanity - obviously not something a young child has in their room.
Then suddenly, a face appeared on the mirror. Then every mirror. While I know in my heart it was not a face I have ever or will ever see, the closest approximation I can make is the face in the mirror in Sleeping Beauty - and is likely the bastardization of that face that my brain produced… whatever the fuck I saw.
That face, that omnipresent, inescapable face that had entered my dream, decided it was the appropriate time to mock me. While I don't remember the exact words, I remember the extreme guilt and shame I felt due to this face mocking me - and I tried to hide, to escape this terrible fate that 5 year old me was experiencing, but there was not a single place within my room that I could hide. Everywhere I went, the face followed, shaming me for existing.
I had that dream several more times throughout my life - being constantly chased by that face, never being able to escape.
Now I sit here. Rather than continuing to run, I need to accept that…..
If you see something in the mirror that isn't there, it's likely more real than you are.
Love, as always
Robert