Ouroboros Disease

Transmission & Vectors

Individuals afflicted with Ouroboros are capable of passing it to unafflicted individuals by discussing theology or capital gains. In doing so, the mental memetic trigger of Ouroboros is passed to the victim. Within six months, the victim will begin to exhibit symptoms of Ouroboros.

Causes

Ouroboros has been traced to a singular individual: Thomas Macready, a squirrel Terimorph, who manifested the disease during the Cold-Loun Disaster in 1765. 
Long story short, Thomas Macready and several representatives of the Cold-Loun logging company were trapped in the deep woods that populate the Hiloak mountain region. Despite attempts to locate the executives, no search proved successful. Eventually, Thomas Macready stumbled free of the woods, having devoured all of the flesh on his right forearm; despite the impossibility of this, he suffered no pain or infection, and explained that he hadn't been able to stop once he started.
Thomas Macready killed himself within the calendar year.

Symptoms

Ouroboros Disease has a singular main symptom that can take up to six months to emerge once an individual is infected.
At first, the disease manifests as a twinge in the belly or an ache in the jaw, but all who have suffered the disease report the same symptom:
the desire to eat their own fur and flesh, starting with their hands. Once the symptom kicks in, the individual becomes gradually more consumed with the compulsion. For a month or so after initial urges manifest, the subject is able to fight away the desire, but as more time passes, the urge becomes so fervent in the brain that the sufferer cannot turn it away any farther.
Those who succumb to the disease have been observed eating their internal organs through split abdomens.
Furthermore, Ouroboros disease does not actually stop the sufferer from being able to manipulate the mutilated parts of the body. Those who have stripped arms of bone are still able to use their arms, for example.

Treatment

Once Ouroboros begins to manifest, there is no cure.

Prognosis

1-6 months after initial exposure to the vocalized vector: an individual begins to feel aches in their belly, limbs, and jaw.
1 week-4 weeks after symptoms manifest initially: subject is able to ignore the desire and may not be aware of what the ache in the body even entails.
4 weeks post-manifestation to 3 months post-manifestation: the subject begins to have vivid dreams in which they devour themselves, beginning with the flesh and fur of the arms and moving up the body. Upon waking, the subject struggles to avoid eating their own flesh; infected individuals have been observed proclaiming that it is agony not to eat their own flesh. According to interviews with sufferers of the condition, their jaw muscles spasm continuously and their body feels as if they are on fire when they refuse to eat of their own flesh.
13 weeks post-manifestation: if the subject has managed to prevent the eating of flesh, they are no longer able to. Even restrained subjects have broken their limbs to be able to devour their skin, fur, and musculature.
14+ weeks: subject becomes obsessed with the process and cannot be stopped.
20 weeks: the subject is often reduced to a skeleton with a furred head. Once they eat their own stomachs and digestive tracts, the remaining flesh is assumed to be absorbed into the bones themselves once placed into the mouth.
25 weeks: the subject's body tumbles to ash.

Prevention

Avoiding the conversations that transmit the vector-- though, if an individual recognizes what is happening, they can plug their ears or physically leave the conversation.

Epidemiology

Vocally transmitted.
Approximately 100 Terimorphs are afflicted with Ouroboros disease in a calendar year. Luckily, once the compulsions manifest themselves, the sufferer has no real method of communicating the infected phrases to those around them.

Cultural Reception

Ouroboros Disease is believed to be a myth in many parts of the world. Sufferers are often mercifully killed once the disease manifests itself, and their deaths are covered up by global communities or local populations.

Type

Magical

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare

Affected Species

• Terimorphs