The Mercy Pit

Archaeologist Dr. Caroline McCarthy uncovers a mass execution site from the late Roman Empire in the fictional European nation of Valduria. The 57 skeletons display ritualistic wounds linked to an ancient “resource reallocation” purge of the unproductive. As her team dies one by one in bizarre accidents mimicking the ancient trauma, McCarthy realizes the modern Social Security Bureau, led by a man named O'Malley, is silencing anyone who connects the ancient slaughter to the present-day disability assessment algorithms. The horror is not a curse, but a living system.