In the hyper-saturated city of Dulce, the sun never sets, and the air smells of spun sugar. The society, led by a matriarchy of "Confectioners," lives in a permanent state of aesthetic perfection. To these women, The Licorice Man is merely a dark nursery rhyme—a cautionary tale of a man who turned bitter and retreated into the lightless deep.
But the sweetness has become a trap. A cosmic anomaly known as The Saturation is bleeding into their world, forcing a "perfect" evolution. The horror is beautiful: skin turns to shimmering porcelain-glaze, and breath becomes a suffocating violet mist. It isn't killing the women of Dulce; it is transforming them into living, hollow ornaments—conscious but paralyzed in a crystalline "masterpiece."
As the city’s leaders begin to succumb, a small group of survivors flees the blinding light for the only place the Saturation cannot reach: the Salt-Wastes. There, they find the legend is real. The Licorice Man is a scarred hermit who has survived by embracing the acrid and the vile. To save their humanity, the women must undergo a brutal "unsweetening"—learning that in a world of lethal beauty, the only way to stay alive is to become something the "perfection" refuses to consume.
"Licorice is delicious in comparison."
