Orange Bloom

Voltaren-a silvery, high-voltage metal discovered in 2095-promised clean energy and seamless AI integration. By 2097, every home had a bot: housekeepers, assistants, companions. No one questioned the technology. No one suspected the danger.

Until Aurispore emerged. A parasitic fungus that feeds on Voltaren, Aurispore spreads through AI bots, releasing microscopic shards into the air. Early symptoms are subtle: memory loss, fatigue, orange rashes. But within weeks, it destroys the lungs, blood, and brain. Fatality rates soar. Humanity spirals into panic.

Louis Banks has barricaded himself in his old apartment, obsessively experimenting on himself and the disease, determined to find a cure-even if it kills him. Two years of isolation have left him stoic, methodical, and dangerously close to the edge.

Then Samuel Derricks appears: a reckless, selfless scavenger, protector of a fledgling safety zone, refusing to leave anyone behind. When he follows Louis into the abandoned complex, their worlds collide-scientist and survivor, isolation and chaos, obsession and hope.

In a society decimated by plague, with a cure that may never exist, their fragile connection becomes a spark. But in the shadow of Aurispore, not all sparks survive.