Three Kings: 3:33 Ritual

Two large mirrors. A chair facing north. A candle, a fan, a bucket of water, and something from your childhood in your hand. An alarm set for 3:30. The throne by 3:33. The call at 4:34.

Three Kings is the ritual as it was first written down, played straight. The app runs on your phone's real clock: you set up the room the evening before, arm the alarm, and sleep. At 3:30 the app wakes you. You have three minutes, by candlelight, to reach the throne. From 3:33 to 4:34 the screen is the room: the two mirrors at the edges of your sight, the bucket just out of reach, the candle in your hand. Look straight ahead. Do not look at the mirrors.

THE RITUAL, AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN TOLD
• The evening before: the throne in the middle of a dark room, a mirror to the left and one to the right (the Queen and the Fool), the bucket and mug, the fan behind the throne, the lights off, the door open, in bed by 23:00.
• 3:30: the alarm. No light but the candle. Phone and power object in hand. If you woke early, if the door is shut, if the fan has stopped: tonight is not the night.
• 3:33 to 4:34: the throne. Ask what you want to know. One mirror tells the truth and one lies, and you are never told which. Do not look. Do not move when told not to. Do not let the candle go out. Hold the power object when the room begins to slide.
• 4:34: your helper calls. Answer in your own voice.

THE HOUR
• The reflections are late, then wrong. One stands. One comes to the glass. Someone stands behind your chair.
• Whispers to one ear, your own name, breathing, cold, the fan faltering.
• Generative sound built for headphones: the fan behind you, a binaural bed that deepens through the hour, every word placed beside one ear. The mirrors speak their answers aloud through your phone's own voice.
• The candle leans with the phone and with the fan, bends in a draught, and dies if you breathe on it. Cover it with your finger. Relight it with the lighter.
• Haptics for every sign.
• The phone knows when it is turned toward a mirror. That is looking.
• Leave the app and the hour goes on.

ALSO
• The rules, step by step, including what your helper must do.
• Practice mode any time of day: the alarm in a moment, the throne at sixteen times the speed.
• A journal of every night: returned, pulled back by the water, or kept.
• Nine languages. No account. Works offline. Free, with ads only on the home and result screens, never during the ritual.

Keep any real candle in a holder, away from anything that burns and away from the fan, and never alone. Do not do this on a night before you must drive. For entertainment.