The Bay
On July 4, 2009, the small Chesapeake Bay town of Claridge, Maryland, experiences a horrific biological disaster, documented through a compilation of found footage, including cell phone videos, news reports, and police cameras. The town's annual festivities turn deadly as a rapidly mutating parasitic isopod, *Cymothoa exigua*, thrives due to steroid-laden chicken feces contaminating the bay. Initially causing skin lesions and boils, the parasite soon targets human internal organs, particularly the tongue, leading to mass illness and a high mortality rate. Dr. Jack Abrams, a CDC scientist, initially dismisses a local oceanographer's warnings about the anomaly, only for the situation to escalate into a full-blown epidemic. Amidst a governmental cover-up to downplay the severity, several residents, including a young reporter named Donna Thompson, record their terrifying encounters, capturing the rapid spread of the infection, the gruesome deaths, and the eventual quarantine of the town, leaving a haunting digital record of the catastrophic event.