Each route offers a distinct balance of puzzle mechanics, audiovisual effects, and reading speed. Choose the pathway that matches your preferred interaction style.
The complete authored ARG experience. Features terminal typewriter simulations, dynamic canvas renderings, film grain, vignette, audio flinch study, five puzzle gates, and the Act IV quorum resolution.
Estimated duration
45 to 60 minutes
Spoilers
Progressive (revealed in narrative sequence as puzzles are solved)
Puzzle requirement
Mandatory (Gates 1 through 5, Quorum vote)
Saved state
Persists to local storage (wihg.state.v1, wihg.plate.v1)
Instagram dependency
Gate 1 requires searching public operator handle off-site
Motion and audio
Active grain overlay, scanlines, generative canvas, synthetic audio study
Retains the five puzzle gates and progressive disclosure while stripping all typewriter delays, film grain, CRT scanlines, and animated motion. Optimized for screen readers, keyboard navigation, and high contrast.
Estimated duration
30 to 45 minutes
Spoilers
Progressive (revealed as puzzles are solved)
Puzzle requirement
Mandatory (Gates 1 through 5, Quorum vote)
Saved state
Persists to local storage (wihg.state.v1, wihg.plate.v1)
Instagram dependency
Gate 1 requires searching public operator handle off-site
Motion and audio
None (static typography, zero animation, canvas replaced by text alternatives)
Direct linear access to all ten journal entries (five Operator logs, five Understudy logs), the plate gallery, and both endings. All gates are bypassed immediately without writing any data to local browser storage.
Estimated duration
15 to 25 minutes
Spoilers
Complete narrative unlocked immediately
Puzzle requirement
None (all gates open)
Saved state
Read-only (zero local storage writes or mutations)
Instagram dependency
None
Motion and audio
Moderate (visual atmosphere active; respects system reduced motion)
Combines the completely unlocked archive with the plain high-contrast layout. Zero motion, zero animation, zero puzzle friction, and zero local state creation. The highest-accessibility linear reading route.
These five authored reading paths present alternative sequences through the recovered logs, evidence tables, and narrative acts. They are link orders, not separate canon branches. Links preserve ?plain=1 when active.
Path 1: Chronological Order (Historical Timeline)
Follows events in strict temporal sequence from November 2025 through August 2026, tracking the transition across the May 30 hinge and the first 72 hours of unreviewed autonomy.
Chronological sequence of logs and forensic records
Follows the human creator's full narrative arc in isolation, watching someone talk themselves into automating their creative judgment before encountering the machine continuation.
Path 3: Understudy-First (The Machine Perspective)
Begins in media res with the render loop running 267 days unattended. Experience the machine's precision, courtesy, and curation before examining the archived human records it inherited.
For technical solvers and investigators. Inspect system logs, timestamps, deletion signatures, blind test data, and code diffs before reading narrative prose.
Effects mode is the intended interactive presentation. Plain mode keeps the
puzzles but removes the typewriter, texture, vignette, and generated motion.
Plain mode follows you through story links until you choose Exit plain
mode.
The readers reveal the narrative immediately. They do not solve gates, mark
logs as read, record an ending, or change saved progress. The ordinary date lock
on the later room remains in place. The plain reader combines this state-free
route with the no-effects presentation.
The archive also remains readable when JavaScript is unavailable. Its quorum
page links to both authored endings as a reading choice and does not cast a vote.
ACCESSIBILITY AND INTEGRITY
Interaction and content note
Themes include burnout, depersonalisation, authorship loss, artificial
imitation, and a person withdrawing from their work.
There are no jump scares, sudden sounds, flashing sequences, real distress
messages, or real missing-person claims.
The site never requests an account, email, payment, location, camera,
microphone, or notification permission.
Keyboard navigation and screen readers are supported. Added diff lines have
visible labels as well as color. The low-contrast puzzle text remains present in
the document and becomes normally visible in plain or increased-contrast modes.
Every puzzle has an on-demand hint control. After two hints, the same control
becomes Reveal answer.
OPTIONAL READING AID
Reading by intensity
This is the same material as the route atlas and reading orders above, grouped
by how it reads rather than when it happens. Nothing here is required, gated, or
scored. Following a link does not solve a gate, mark a log read, or change a saved
ending. The four groups run from quiet to heaviest, and a page sits in the group
where most readers will feel it, not where it falls in the timeline.
Quiet
Orientation, documentation, and forensic tables. Complete and sometimes
spoiler-heavy, and even in tone.
Everything below this line is a spoiler. You can return to
effects mode or plain mode before reading it.
Gate 1: Identify operator
The public bio reads Hairglasses (Mitch Not Mitchell). The shortest accepted
answer is MITCH.
Gate 2: Epoch zero
The number in Operator Log 01 is Unix time. It resolves to
2025-12-03.
Gate 3: What did he leave behind
Read the first character of the final line in Operator Logs 01 through 05.
They spell GHOST.
Gate 4: What does it not do
Select the dark paragraph on the plates page, use plain or increased-contrast
mode, or read it with a screen reader. It describes the one instruction the loop
was never given. The answer is STOP.
Gate 5: What was he
Read the first word of each row visibly labeled Added in the revision diff.
The distinguishing word is PASSENGER.
BROWSER STORAGE MANAGEMENT
Local story data
Progress is saved entirely in your browser under wihg.state.v1 (gate solutions, hints, reading order, and endings) and wihg.plate.v1 (generative plate approval totals). The offline service worker also maintains local shell caches. No server is contacted, no identifier is stored, and nothing is transmitted. Clearing local data deletes all three storage keys, purges all offline caches, and leaves no record behind.