The Sludge
They slip through my fingers. I can't even make it less painful after a certain point, Naryn. We're going to loose them all if something doesn't give, and even quarantining the sick ones doesn't help. Just slows things.The Sludge is a new disease in Fyrwold. It has only arisen in the last 20 years. At first it was only a few people, in strange places. But slowly others, and by then there was no pattern. The new victims of the sludge seemingly had no contact with the old. The wealthy were struck as readily as the poor. No race or background seemed to have any defense against it, no prior disease seemed to bolster the immunity of the stricken. All they had in common was that they died. They all died as their lungs disintegrated into black sludge in their chest. Mortuaries no longer do full autopsies of victims of the Sludge, even if there is reason to suspect another cause of death. Quarantine procedures have done nothing to stop it's spread and so it has become a gloomy commonality in the world and the city of Isoforge is no different, even with the massive Hope Corporation and all their money and research capabilities headquartered there.
Transmission & Vectors
Doctors, Healers, and researchers of all sorts are frantically searching for the transmission vectors of the Sludge. None have yet been discovered except that there will be out breaks of it in geographical regions. There have been some periods when it seemed the outbreaks followed the travel patterns of someone up various paths, but at other times they were so dispersed as to be nonsensical so the general conclusion is those patterns are simply 'noise' lining up in the data, patterns made by the mind that simply do happen sometimes even in random data, a term drawn from the old radio transmissions and the expression 'signal to noise ratio.' Right now the researchers only find noise reliably, but as the Sludge spreads the search for a vector becomes more frantic.
Causes
There is currently no known cause of the Sludge, any more than there is a known transmission vector. Antibiotics and antivirals do not slow it. No treatment attempted has affected it. There is no genetic link between those who get it. It does not seem to be bacteriological or even biological. There are no signs of chemical scorching that might be indicative of an inhaled chemical weapon. Simply... The lungs decide to melt into black sludge one day.
Show Spoiler
The sludge is caused by an alien presence. The aliens are few in number, but they have strong paranormal capabilities. Among those capabilities is biological adjustment. The Sludge is the result of casual attempts to alter the human physiology in various ways. The Touched are the successful result, but the Aliens have not sufficiently grasped how human physiology works and still target their initial 'anchor' to the chest area and the human body sacrifices the lungs to protect the heart. No one has tracked Touched enough to realize that the Touched get the Sludge far more often than 'normal' humans.
Symptoms
The early signs of the Sludge are somewhat innocuous: a persistent cough with no other real symptoms. As the disease progresses the coughing becomes more aggressive as the body tries to rid itself of the broken and dissolving bits of lung. Here the victim is truly identified as having the Sludge... for the black material they cough up can be mistaken for nothing else. These two stages can last years depending on the health of the individual, but the longest survived so far know is five years before the final decline.
After a long, slow build, the Sludge switches, based on what no one has been able to ascertain, but it is speculated that a certain mass of the mutilated material builds up and creates a cascade effect. The final onset is, mercifully, brief in time lasting no more than two weeks. But it is brutal. The victim's fever spikes. They begin hallucinating. Universally they begin rambling in nonsense words. Those who work with the victims swear there is a pattern, but no one has written out enough of a sampling or followed or recorded enough of one to actually ascertain if it is a true pattern or simply the mind trying to make sense of the nonsensical. Breathing becomes more labored, and in the end the victim simply suffocates as there is simply not enough left of their lungs for them to function.
Treatment
There is no known treatment for the sludge, though keeping the victim healthy in other respects as long as possible and making breathing as easy as possible in the early and middle stages of the disease seems to extend the period before the final decline.
Prognosis
As of the present day the sludge is always fatal. Always. There is no cure and all attempts at finding one have failed. Things that keep the victim generally healthy can extend life, but once a person has contracted the Sludge. They die. It is only a question of when.
Show Spoiler
The Hope Corporation does have a cure... of a sorts. Ayro Hope was 12 years old when the Sludge first came, and unknown to most, he was one of the first victims... and survived. He was also one of the first Touched. As he grew he discovered others were not so fortunate. At 16 he went to his father's head of Research and volunteered his blood for testing. A few of the company soldiers had also contracted the Sludge and volunteered for the experiment. Nine months and six deaths later they isolated a component in his blood that would allow someone to fight off the sludge. The problem was the side effects. They were brutal, and were all too often fatal. The other problem was the source: all attempts at synthesizing the compound failed. It had to come from living blood. Ayro gave as often as he could and when the survivors had their own blood tested, they discovered their blood could also be used. Attempts at vaccination were likewise fruitless and fatal to the recipient. The Sludge Serum is the most carefully guarded secret of the Hope Corporation. They cannot make enough of the serum while maintaining an effective fighting force to meet their contracts to more than keep up with the Sludge in their own ranks, much less sell it at any price to anyone else. A fact that frustrates Ayro Hope, now in his early 30s, no end.
Prevention
To date there is no known method of preventing the disease, as it is not yet known what causes it and conventional Quarantine seems completely ineffective.
History
Twenty years ago no one had heard of the sludge. Colds, pneumonia, allergies, and the myriad of other human ills that affect the lungs had been the primary concern of those with lung trouble. Emphysema and black lung had been mostly eliminated by various technological advances, and most considered those who coated their lungs in Sylodust for their highs to be victims of their own stupidity.
Then the sludge came. Here and there... and slowly a cough became quite a terrifying thing. Colds, pneumonia, allergies and all the rest are still out there. Sylodust still destroys, but now every doctor, an every bystander has to wonder if a cough means two weaks of irritating missery or an early grave. At first the fears were muted. The disease had only showed up here and there. One or two mysterious deaths and disturbing autopsies.
Then one or two became ten. Which became twenty. Which became hundreds. Which is now well into the thousands and, world wild, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and all efforts to halt it have done nothing at all.
Cultural Reception
Most people have become uneasily resigned to the Sludge. Hospitals have turned all Sludge victims away. There is nothing they can do for them except make them comfortable and that takes space they don't have from cases they can treat. Various Hospices have moved in to fill the vacancies. The Government has enacted several regulations on those that know they have the sludge, mandating quarantines, registrations, and other so called preventative measures. The only impact, unlike with the quarantine of the victims of the Pathi Virus, has been to create rundown, abandoned portions of most major cities populated almost exclusively with sludge victims and others too derelict to move on... The edges of these districts are a ripe territory for the gangs that have become more and more prevalent. And still the Sludge spreads and every cough is treated with uneasy suspicion.
Type
Physiological
Origin
Alien
Cycle
Chronic, Acquired
Rarity
Common
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