Half-Life Syndrome

Late onset thyroid deficiency caused by maladaptive mutation

A disease that cripples the nervous system after prolonged bodily absorption of environmental toxics.

Transmission & Vectors

The disease is triggered after years of exposure to "unseen fire," the toxic phenomenon associated with the uninhabitable badlands. The fire will readily kill most people who are exposed to it but there are some who's genetics are adapted to endure limited exposure. Such individuals' bodies are mutated to temporarily store the fire's toxics in fatty tissue before it is eventually expelled through adapted respiratory and digestive processes; however, the small residue of toxics that may remain eventually causes disease when the subject reaches advanced age.

Causes

The syndrome occurs when a buildup of toxics overwhelms the thyroid's protective barrier and releases contaminated particles into the nerve cells of the brain and brain stem. The unseen flames of the particles, still smouldering within the body, cause healthy nerve cells to burn and decay.

Symptoms

The early symptoms of Half-Life resemble those of Blood Sickness, but unlike Blood Sickness, these symptoms of fatigue and chronic pain do not turn accute leading to rapid mortality. Instead the subject's symptoms malinger and he or she experiences increasing neorological maladies, such as loss of motor control, loss of memory, worsening executive reasoning, and sensory processing disorder.

Treatment

There is no known treatment for Half-Life, only palliative care measures.

Prognosis

The syndrome steadily worsens and the subject loses more and more neurological function until he or she is left in a catatonic state, utterable insensible to external stimuli.

Affected Groups

The disease affects genetic outriders who carry a set of genes that otherwise render the subject resistant to certain environmental toxins. The buildup of these toxins in the body, over time, causes chronic neurological illness resulting in death.

Type

Neurological

Origin

Mutated

Cycle

Chronic, Congenital

Rarity

Rare