Tender Is the Flesh

A mysterious virus makes animal meat toxic, and governments respond by legalizing the breeding and slaughter of humans for consumption. Marcos works at a processing plant in this new system, trying to keep himself emotionally separate from the brutality around him while managing grief, family strain, and the machinery of the industry.

His job brings him into close contact with the entire system: breeding, transport, slaughter, packaging, euphemistic labeling, and the rules that keep people from seeing the victims as human. The narrative stays close to Marcos as he moves through a society that has normalized cannibalism, surveillance, and dehumanization.

When Marcos is given a live specimen, his distance begins to collapse. That relationship pushes him toward moral conflict and reveals how much of the world’s violence depends on language, habit, and consent to the system.