LIFE ISN’T ALWAYS A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. UNTIL YOU BECOME ONE.

LOGLINE

When environmental toxicologist Mara Vale discovers a contaminated cacao harvest was quietly blended into one of America's largest chocolate brands, she realizes the product she helped clear has already reached millions of consumers. Those who eat it develop an insatiable craving before their skin begins to bloom, blister and soften into a grotesque chocolate-like mass. Worse, victims entering the final stage release microscopic spores capable of infecting anyone nearby, transforming a food recall into a rapidly spreading outbreak. With her employer burying the evidence and entire cities beginning to melt down, Mara must expose the conspiracy and trace the original Dark Batch before the contamination becomes impossible to contain.

THE STORY

A global cacao shortage has pushed Gooder Foods to accept beans from a growing region Mara Vale warned had been exposed to a mysterious environmental contaminant, but corporate testing declares the crop safe enough to process. Rather than destroy millions of dollars in inventory, executives dilute the questionable cacao across enormous quantities of clean product and give the compromised shipment an internal designation: Dark Batch. Weeks later, consumers begin reporting fever, strange cravings and a pale residue spreading across their skin—a condition Mara recognizes as eerily similar to chocolate bloom. Then the victims begin to melt.

Mara joins port inspector Benny Cruz and school nurse Tessa Monroe as they trace the outbreak from shipping containers to supermarkets, cafeterias and homes, only to discover eating the chocolate is merely the first transmission route. Once infected bodies reach the Bloom stage, they release spores that spread the contamination from person to person while Gooder Foods suppresses evidence and insists its products remain safe. As hospitals overflow and the recall becomes meaningless, Mara discovers the corporation knew the contaminated crop behaved abnormally before production began—and her own approval was used to make the decision look legitimate. To stop the outbreak, she must expose the company that made her complicit and find the original contaminated source before America becomes the final batch.

EAT. MELT. DIE.

Sweetness spreads.