King Cake Season

In the swamp-soaked town of Bayou Rook, a single rule governs every winter: whoever finds the baby hidden inside the king cake dies within seven days. Most people treat it like a joke. A superstition. A party trick. But everyone still cuts their slice carefully.

Eighteen-year-old Kelsey Hebert knows better. She knows what this town really is-how it protects monsters, how it swallows screams, how it turns a blind eye when cruelty lives behind closed doors. So when her abusive stepfather bites into the cursed slice, Kelsey doesn't pray for mercy. She lets the curse do what the town never would.

What follows is a slow, suffocating descent as Bayou Rook's ancient hunger begins to move-from one body to another-feeding on fear, guilt, and intent. As the curse tightens its grip, Kelsey learns the truth no one dares speak: the baby doesn't choose its victim. People do.

King Cake Season is a brutal Southern Gothic horror about generational silence, ritualized cruelty, and what it costs to break a cycle-even if breaking it means becoming part of it.

Some traditions aren't meant to be kept.

But in Bayou Rook... they always are.