Can you just confirm if I got all of this right?
Ok, glad I understood your idea :)
What does the anomaly rely on in the human body? Oxygen, nutrients, water? All of the above?
Right, the anomaly is literally "living blood" as the name suggests. It acts as if blood had a mind of it's own. It uses everything the host intakes for itself while still giving enough to the host to keep them alive and healthy. Biologically, you are correct to make the color of the anomaly yellowish, as that's what blood would look like if you hypothetically removed all of the hemoglobin out of it but kept it functional.
Why does it keep the host aware and healthy?
Ahhhh, that explains it. It lacks the ability to control the host fully 24/7 and simply adjusts their body for their benefit. It's more like a fucked up symbiotic relationship rater than a full-on parasitic one. A hyper-intelligent being that acts as sentient blood. Neat!
Now that's a plausable explanation of why it doesn't zombify the hosts, and makes it way more original than the overused topic of "wow another evil zombie virus". Oh and you're right, it's way scarier to keep the hosts fully conscious.
What does the "war" between the two infected hosts look like?
This is definitely the right vision lol. Lemme tell you my couple of thoughts to make this make sense and also be disgustingly scary. First of all, I love body horror if it's done right. Imagining a person slowly becoming a pile of pulsating flesh covered in pale yellow sludge with barely recognizable human parts feels about right XD.
Now, adding a dehumanising type of horror to this would add another layer to the spook factor. Combining both of our ideas, this is what I came up with: When the anomaly senses the presence of another host, it will instinctively want to ensure the other host is gone for good. The way it needs to destroy the "enemy" is by combining with it, and, as you explained, violently reacting with the opposing sludge. On a cellular level, this can be done by both parties (once combined) using specialized antibodies to attack the others' oxygen-carrying cells, which causes the strange "combustion" reaction. As you said, sometimes there will be a victor. Sometimes there will be none. But how will it reach the other sludge? Here's where the dehumanisation comes into play. In order for the sludge to combine, it obviously needs to have access to the other "enemy" sludge. How does it do that? Well, by creating a cocktail of hormones and temporarily binding it to the hosts hormone receptors! This cocktail will cause the host to very quickly become enraged and hateful towards the other host, and vice versa, no matter of the hosts relationship. They will stop feeling pain due to the abundant amounts of adrenaline in their poor brains, and basically go all-out in order to inflict as many open wounds to their enemy as possible so that the sludge can mix and start its cellular warfare, and to obviously incapacitate the enemy to gain the upper hand. If a victor emerges, the winning sludge will suck up all of the sweet nutrients from the defeated opponent and use them to regenerate the host. The host will regain normal function soon after, as if nothing had happened. Now that's a fucked up scene huh?
Bonus suggestion to think about: What happens if the infected subject's blood is attempted to be drawn? Does it react in any way? Does it enrage the host like it does when it encounters another infected person? I'm curious with what you can come up with. Now that could be a damn interesting additional bit of information for your article. Just rambling at this point, but a research log about a failed extraction attempt, where the article's writer observes their assistant, who is not infected and is wearing a protective hazmat suit, attempting to draw out the infected "blood". The blood starts to… vibrate? Suddenly, the infected subject lunges out of their chair, breaking open the assistants face shield and, well, you get the picture. Idk, this was just a lil thought I had.
Oh, also, and apologies if you already mentioned this, you will need to clarify how long it takes for the anomaly to take over a host and completely replace their blood, because if it happens instantly it's a bit contradictory since wouldn't the two hosts immediately kill each-other then?
