PORTFOLIO
The Favorite
When an unmarked 16mm reel from a 1970s farmhouse ritual is digitized and uploaded to Bloodgate, a scrappy horror streaming archive preparing for its first film festival, platform engineer Alex Moreno notices something in the data: every user who watches the footage to completion stops generating activity. Then the users themselves start dying.
As demand for the mysterious clip builds online and a packed theater audience demands to see it, Alex races to stop the screening before the final line of the ritual is spoken and the entity known as The Favorite emerges.
Alex and Bloodgate founder Isaac destroy the file and shred the original reel. But a copy has already been emailed. And uploaded. And shared.
The Favorite is spreading. And it only needs you to press play.
Somnus
After the sudden death of his wife, Jonas Keene receives an unsolicited Somnus smart bed through a corporate bereavement program he never requested. The system promises optimized sleep. For the first time in weeks, he rests without nightmares.
By the third night, something has changed. His grief feels quieter. Not healing. Quieter. His reactions feel thinner. His memories feel further away.
Jonas begins to suspect the bed is not helping him sleep. It is taking something from him every time he does. And it is not going to stop until there is nothing left to take.
Lake Moriah
When the historic Lake Moriah Hotel burns to the ground with contractor Steven Reid's body inside, the town assumes he set the fire himself. His widow is left in poverty. Owner Peter Carson collects a half-million dollar insurance settlement and begins rebuilding his life.
Then something begins following him.
Peter convinces himself it is guilt. Stress. Exhaustion. But the presence grows sharper. More deliberate. More physical.
As the truth behind the fire surfaces, Peter realizes what is haunting him is not his conscience.
It is judgment. And it has been waiting.
Floaters
San Francisco optometrist Nolan Sayer has spent his career telling patients the same thing: floaters are harmless. Microscopic protein strands. A normal part of aging. Nothing to worry about.
Then half the city starts seeing them at once.
Patients return to his clinic calmer than before. More agreeable. Their movements synchronized in ways Nolan can't quite name. His assistant seems different. The streets feel quieter. Not empty. Coordinated.
As an interstellar object approaches its closest pass to Earth, crowds begin drifting toward the waterfront with quiet purpose. Nolan drifts with them.
No one resists. No one runs. No one was ever supposed to.
Why Graham Works
In a surveillance state where identity cuffs track every citizen and compliance is currency, Graham has spent his entire life doing exactly what the system asks. He has never missed a check-in. Never filed a late form. Never questioned a directive.
Then a system error marks him noncompliant.
Access revoked. Home locked. Job erased. Every appeal requires a form. Every form requires permission to request the form. Every office is closed for Unity Day.
As the state methodically dismantles his life over a glitch he cannot prove, Graham discovers the most terrifying thing about the machine: it works as intended and incapable of being wrong.
A dystopian thriller in the tradition of Brazil and The Trial, built for a lean production footprint with franchise potential.
In an era of social credit systems, algorithmic decision-making, and AI-driven compliance, Why Graham Works is not speculative fiction. It is five minutes from now.
Good Season
Western Pennsylvania, 1990s. A sinkhole opens in the Holter family's rye field. The crops begin to fail. The men gather at night and come back without much to say.
Nine-year-old Ellis Holter notices things. A boy standing at the edge of the fields who no one else reacts to. Questions about his family that never get straight answers. Adults who watch him a little too closely and say a little too little.
When Shane, a new kid in town, becomes Ellis's only real friend, the two drift through fields, rail lines, and church basements while the community keeps watch from a distance.
Then Shane disappears. The explanation is simple. He moved away.
The rye turns green again.
Ellis is nine. He is quiet. He is observant. And he is starting to understand exactly what kind of town he lives in.