Śiukeźul (ɕukɛʑul)

Parasitic Occlusion

Warning, please read!

This article talks about a parasitic infection. There are no images, only text. The descriptions are not disturbing for me and I did not write them with the intent of triggering the reader. If you think it may disturb you, I advice you go away

The śiukeźul, or parasitic occlusion, is an infection plaguing Remnava, a Rojgraszian city.
Contaminated water carries the parasite, which sticks to the victim's stomach and starts filling it until the host cannot eat anymore and starves to death.
Several treatments have been tried through the years to fight the infection, but none has been consistently effective. Most people consider the śukeźul as a death sentence.
People live in constant fear of getting infected. However, their lack of knowledge and the social stigma they attach to it backfire greatly, to the point that their behaviours put them at higher risk of infection.

Causes

As they recently found out, the parasite contaminated a city's water well. Part of it was attached to the walls in large white patches, its colonies, but some agents detached from them and floated towards the surface. Water drawn from the well seemed healthy to the naked eye since the organism's colonies only become visible when big enough or attached to a wall.
Drinking contaminated water allows the parasite to enter the stomach and attach firmly to its walls, where it can start reproducing and consuming the food the host eats.
They speculate consuming infected meat can also lead to infection. However, it seems the parasite did not spread to the cattle (yet).

Symptoms and Prognosis

The disease starts with a few organisms floating in the water the soon-to-be host is drinking. The liquid may taste a little odd if the infectious agent concentration is high enough.
The parasite reaches the stomach and firmly attaches to it, waiting for food. Whenever the host eats now, it absorbs a part of the nutrients and uses them to reproduce. At this initial stage (one to three days, depending on how much more contaminated water the host drinks), symptoms include nausea, a slight fever and a vague sense of distress. As with many other medical conditions, this first phase is the most recoverable and easier to treat.
The parasitic colony grows and starts significantly reducing the space in the stomach. At this point, cramps are common, but the main symptom and problem is hunger. The host can eat only a little before feeling full, but the parasite will absorb that little, and the person is perpetually hungry. Patients have to constantly eat small quantities of food to get satiated.
In the end, after a couple of weeks at most, the parasite consumes more than the person can eat. Since the colony is hungry, it starts digesting the stomach itself, causing massive internal bleeding. At this point, death becomes a certainty.

Treatment

Several treatments have been tested. They act in two ways: trying to kill the parasite or to make the patient vomit it. Neither were consistently successful until recently with the new cure development.
People in Remnava are currently in the process of healing from the infection.

Cultural Reception

Look, there are only two ways to get infected by another person.
The first is to come in contact with their saliva shortly after they drank polluted water. If you are intimate enough to kiss, you will likely drink water from the same source, right? You should not worry about this.
The other is to consume their corpse. I don't want to say you can't eat corpses. Just stay away from the contaminated ones, ok?

— Doctors trying to spread some awareness about person-to-person infection.

People live in absolute fear of this parasite, given that contaminated water seems healthy. Especially in the beginning, infection was a synonym of a guaranteed, painful death, so fear was not unexpected.
However, since person-to-person infection is almost impossible, one would expect people to help each other. But in Dark Lands' cities, there is no such a thing as helping someone for free when they are healthy, let alone sick.
Most people outcast the sick, letting them rot out of sight instead of, at least, disposing of their corpses. This behaviour brought people to die in the open when rain can wash away the parasitic colonies from their dead bodies back in the water supplies.
Some alńe offered to help for a high price with magic, herbal concoction and other unorthodox method. The higher the budget, the better the cure.

Type

Parasitic

Origin

Natural

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Uncommon