It was some kind of fungus, but we didn't find that out until half the world had choked on it. We didn't even know where it hid in the body before migrating to the lungs until a group of brave bastards documented their final few months.
They took samples from as much of their bodies as possible but the air around them was so heavily contaminated that by the time we got there to retrieve their work, it was covered in spores. Strangely enough the one sample with the most spores in it were strands of their hair.
Much like lice, the spores attached themselves to the base of the hair follicles, gradually germinating against the warmth of the scalp. It spurred us to ask other infected people to monitor their hair growth, scent - anything could be something as far as we knew.
We meant well when we told the remaining world what we'd discovered but it just spurred them all into cutting their hair and shaving their heads practically to the bone and only spread the fungus further in all the loose hair that drifted through the wind. It took a while to notice it but the hair didn't drift wherever the wind blew... it aimed.
That was when we found out that the spores weren't quite as plant-like as we assumed them to be. Each and every one had their own pulse and moved as an individual but they all had the same goal - kill the nerves along the scalp, dig in and shed the outer casing, use the closest blood vessels to get to the lungs and blossom in the moist, warm air.
As soon as the coughing starts, the person is declared dead and expected to isolate themselves as far from other people as possible to minimise the impact of the spores migration from their corpse. In a way it looks beautiful - to see that great cloud of dust emerge from their parted mouths as they breathe their last breath.
Unfortunately, if you're close enough to see it then you've probably been breathing it in.
They took samples from as much of their bodies as possible but the air around them was so heavily contaminated that by the time we got there to retrieve their work, it was covered in spores. Strangely enough the one sample with the most spores in it were strands of their hair.
Much like lice, the spores attached themselves to the base of the hair follicles, gradually germinating against the warmth of the scalp. It spurred us to ask other infected people to monitor their hair growth, scent - anything could be something as far as we knew.
We meant well when we told the remaining world what we'd discovered but it just spurred them all into cutting their hair and shaving their heads practically to the bone and only spread the fungus further in all the loose hair that drifted through the wind. It took a while to notice it but the hair didn't drift wherever the wind blew... it aimed.
That was when we found out that the spores weren't quite as plant-like as we assumed them to be. Each and every one had their own pulse and moved as an individual but they all had the same goal - kill the nerves along the scalp, dig in and shed the outer casing, use the closest blood vessels to get to the lungs and blossom in the moist, warm air.
As soon as the coughing starts, the person is declared dead and expected to isolate themselves as far from other people as possible to minimise the impact of the spores migration from their corpse. In a way it looks beautiful - to see that great cloud of dust emerge from their parted mouths as they breathe their last breath.
Unfortunately, if you're close enough to see it then you've probably been breathing it in.
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