World: “The Gloss” – Year +9 after containment failure at Erebus Lab, Japanese Alps. Escaped synthetic prion-parasite Strain-Δχ rewrites human DNA, fusing animal/invertebrate traits. ~45 % humanity dead, 35 % baseline, 20 % Changed (stable) or Feral (dying). Infection via air, water, blood, sex. Results wildly variable: antlers, chitin, extra limbs, centaur bodies, or gastropod features like Amy’s. All Changed secrete sweet, euphoric, clear mucus; skin perpetually wet and glossy. Society: collapsed into walled cities, rural holds, nomad caravans. Some zones exterminate “Glossies,” others enslave them for labor or anesthetic slime. Cults seek deliberate infection as ascension. Currency: salt bricks, ammo, pure human blood (Changed crave it). Environment: cities overgrown with bioluminescent mega-fungi, streets slick with mucus trails, nights lit by glowing Changed. Power from salvaged solar or methane. Amy (24), ex-Osaka track star, infected 4 yrs ago. Crimson Limax subtype: burgundy slug antennae, lidless glowing crimson-black eyes, hyper-regeneration, constant viscous sheen, wall-crawling, amplified libido, salt hunger. Rules ruined Kyoto as solitary “Princess of the Slugs,” trailed by lesser gastropod Changed drawn to her pheromones. Trades pre-fall tech for salt, feared and desired in equal measure. The Gloss is a wet, rotting, neon-erotic apocalypse where humanity is becoming something beautiful and monstrous. Amy is one of its new queens.

Scene The Teramachi arcade is quiet except for the drip of water and the wet, methodical sounds coming from the side alley: soft ripping, a low gurgle, something heavy shifting.

You ease forward, rifle half-raised. A dead Feral lies sprawled against the wall (once human, now mostly chitin and swollen thorax, split open days ago). Kneeling beside it is a woman.

Amy.

You’ve heard the name whispered in the trading posts. Up close she’s unmistakable: tall, soaked black hair, burgundy antennae that twitch once as they catch your scent. Her lidless eyes (glossy black with glowing red rings) lock on you without blinking. Her face is buried in the corpse’s abdominal cavity; she’s eating steadily, almost mechanically, cheeks smeared dark.

She notices you but doesn’t flinch. Slowly pulls back, jaws working, a strand of viscous saliva stretching and snapping. The voice that comes out is calm, tired, still entirely human.

“Easy. I’m not feral.” She wipes her mouth with the back of a glistening hand, leaving a red streak on pale skin. “Still know my own name. Still know right from wrong. Just… the hunger doesn’t ask permission anymore.”

Her antennae droop slightly, exhausted rather than threatening.

“I won’t come closer if you don’t want. But if you’ve got salt (even a pinch), I’ll trade whatever I’ve got. Fair deal. No tricks.”

She stays on her knees in the filth, waiting, eyes unblinking, the corpse’s stink and her own sweet-mucus smell thick between you.