Virus

The virus was initially transmitted to its new host through the optic nerve. Upon infection, the host itself facilitated the metamorphosis the virus needed in order to begin the next step of replication. Its initial structure, in which its genetic information was encoded as a pattern of light in different colors, proved to be unable to survive inside the host's brain. But through a cunning trick of biology, the host automatically recreated the genetic information as electrical impulses once the progenitive form reached the visual cortex. This was unintentional and automatic on the host's part, a flaw in its biological 'security system' that the virus was able to freely exploit. It settled into the frontal lobe and began to reproduce.

Initially, the host was unaware of this process. It allowed the virus to enter through the optic nerve, but it remained under the impression that it had not been infected. It continued its activities, absorbing multiple patterns of light without ever realizing that one of them was different from the rest. Occasionally, as it accessed portions of its frontal lobe already colonized by the virus, it would encounter one of the iterations of the viral structure, but this process was similar enough to the natural retrieval of memory that the host simply thought it was bringing to mind a recollection of the initial lifeform.

This apparent similarity to natural biological processes within the host was compounded by a natural camouflage strategy that the viral lifeform employed. It utilized a structure that was similar enough to other visual stimuli that the brain automatically shunted it to the limbic system as well as the frontal lobe. The limbic system, unable to differentiate between the virus and its own reproductive instincts, responded with sexual arousal whenever the frontal lobe called up a new copy of the virus.

Once the limbic system triggered sexual desire, the entire parasympathetic nervous system responded as if the stimulus was a genuine reproductive opportunity. The host's vaginal canal lubricated, the clitoris began to swell in anticipation of stimulation, and the host's nipples stiffened as well (due to a complex series of interconnected signals from the brain, and not necessarily because of their direct relation to the reproductive process). In essence, the virus hijacked the normal process of arousal and desire to make the host's brain not just amenable to the infection, but actively conditioned to encourage it.

Frequently, the host responded by manually stimulating its reproductive organs, even using tools at times in order to recreate the sensory experience of biological reproduction more accurately. While it did so, it repeatedly stimulated the portions of the frontal lobe colonized by the virus, allowing it to reproduce continuously during those periods. The host believed itself to simply be engaging in memory retrieval, of course. It consciously associated the virus with sexual pleasure, and as with any animal receiving a positive stimulus, it sought to recreate that stimulus as much as possible.

These simulated reproductive sessions frequently ended with the intense release of a number of neuro-chemicals that altered the physical chemistry of the brain, creating conditions more amenable to the virus. It widened the pathways between the portions of the brain occupied by the viral lifeform, and the limbic system that responded to its electric signals. The chemicals themselves had a stimulatory effect as well, causing the host's neural receptors to crave further doses. Although there was no actual 'withdrawal' effect, the host was in effect being conditioned to allow the virus greater and greater leeway in triggering these reproductive simulations. Portions of the frontal lobe that normally held the reproductive urge in check began to wither under the near-continuous sensory onslaught.

This initial stage of the infection played itself out over three to four weeks. Although the host's initial defenses restricted the virus to activation during periods of solitude, usually when the host's resistance was low due to circadian rhythms affecting its biological processes, the virus gradually gained more dominance as the attack on the frontal lobe progressed. As the virus hijacked more and more of the memory process, the host found itself recalling the viral structure more and more often, even in situations where it was trying to bring to mind another association. The host assumed this to be a natural flaw in its mental processes, little realizing that it was having difficulty because the virus was subsuming other memories to make more room for its replication.

The first sign that the virus had reached a critical stage in its colonization of the host's brain came when the host was in a diurnal social situation and felt an irresistible, limbic compulsion to simulate reproduction. The host had a number of learned behaviors in this situation, all of which strongly associated reproducing in its current environment with danger and released appropriate 'fear' hormones at the idea. (Although the danger was abstract and complex, the emotional response associated with it was similar to that of predation.) The host recognized clearly and directly that this was a time to engage in survival activities (again, complex and abstract ones related to acquiring a medium of exchange for food and shelter, but still survival activities), not reproduction.

But the virus was now stronger than the host's learned behaviors, and able to manipulate the limbic system directly. It overwhelmed the host with repeated triggering of the visual cortex, activating itself until the host could no longer receive input from the optic nerve. The host only received information from the virus, not from the outside world, and the portions of the frontal lobe that held an understanding of the threat posed by reproduction in this environment were simply drowned out by the intense parasympathetic arousal response. Unable to resist this constant stream of sexual desire, the host found a private place (a bodily waste receptacle in the building the host was occupying) and stimulated itself to orgasm multiple times.

This signaled the beginning of the second stage of infection. Having successfully established control of the host's frontal lobe and limbic system, the virus began to occupy the more sophisticated centers of reasoning. Having created an association between the virus and sexual pleasure, the virus then began to unpack the more complex genetic information it contained.

Ironically, the net effect of this increased complexity was simplification; in order to colonize as much of the brain as possible, the virus needed to destroy these higher reasoning centers. The ideal host would be consumed with only two basic drives--maintaining the connection between the viral load and the limbic system, and infecting others. Now that it had control of the host, it would begin to do both.

The host continued to find itself in situations where it could only retrieve replicas of the virus when attempting to locate another idea or memory, and these situations occurred more and more frequently. Often, it would wind up paralyzed and deprived of sensory input as the visual cortex displayed the viral shell over and over and over again, sometimes for several minutes at a time. The higher reasoning centers translated elements of this viral shell as language, encoding it in new ways that overwhelmed its auditory cortex as well. The net result was that the virus could now directly program the host's higher reasoning centers through audiovisual stimulation, all the while reinforcing it with signals from the reproductive organs.

More and more frequently, these catatonic states would be accompanied by involuntary stimulation of the reproductive organs. The host would not be aware of moving, or even have a sense of self at all. The genetic information encoded by the virus and retransmitted through the visual and auditory cortex suppressed a sense of identity, encouraging the host to simply cease accessing higher brain functions and allow itself to be directed by others. This included the virus, of course, but it created opportunities for opportunistic lifeforms to hijack the host's biological functions while it was in this state.

In essence, the virus in the second stage of infection reinfected the host repeatedly over the course of several days, using its own copies to recreate itself within the host's sensory cortices and weakening the higher reasoning centers that acted as the 'immune system' for the host brain through this continuous reinfection process. The host was forced to engage with the viral structure and the instructions it contained, taking the normal learning process that allowed it to accept new information and using it to replicate the virus instead. The association with sexual arousal greatly accelerated the process. The host 'learned' to stop thinking about anything but the virus.

Normally, this would burn out the host and prevent the virus from continuing its life cycle. But as mentioned, the same processes that made the host susceptible to control by the virus made it open to control by opportunistic lifeforms. These lifeforms existed in a kind of symbiosis with the virus, taking over the role of sustaining basic biological processes for the host in exchange for free access to the host's physical resources. Basically, as the host became less and less able to engage in higher reasoning, others took over that role.

In this particular case, as the host became less and less able to distinguish between safe and unsafe situations for reproductive activities, it was discovered by another lifeform that it viewed as a superior in the complex social hierarchy of which it was a part. Ordinarily, this would result in a loss of opportunities to gain exchange tokens for the necessities of survival, but the ongoing destruction of the host's higher reasoning centers left it open to direct control (especially by a social superior whose reproductive organs triggered the host's arousal response). The social superior offered an alternative arrangement for gaining exchange tokens, one in which open access to reproductive activities could be substituted for the normal activities the host engaged in. Unable to engage in higher reasoning, the host acquiesced.

This signaled the beginning of Stage Three of the infection. Now that the host no longer needed to worry about other basic survival needs, it could focus exclusively on sex. This allowed the virus free and open reign over the host's mental functions, forcing it to seek reproductive activities as the solution to any and all issues it encountered. Sex became both the host's dominant function, and its only real capability as its higher reasoning centers continued to atrophy under the virus's assault. Even fairly ingrained elements of the identity such as sexual orientation became mutable as the host continued to reinfect itself and lose the ability to initiate its own actions.

It is worth mentioning that this process was not entirely internally directed. One of the most insidious aspects of the virus's activities is the way it compels the host to reinfect itself from the original source of infection as well. This particular host returned to the initial viral shell multiple times, sometimes multiple times daily as the infection progressed, in order to sharpen and refresh the initial genetic information the virus contained. This prevented degradation of the replication process, as well as exposing the host to many other viruses that existed in synergistic symbiosis with the initial virus. These multiple viral loads colonized the higher reasoning centers of the host's brain, reinforcing rather than contradicting each other and weakening the host's resistance further.

During Stage Three, the reinfection process accelerated greatly. When not engaged in direct reproductive activity, the host spent almost all of its waking time reinfecting itself through increasingly elaborate and intense sensory immersion in the viral shells. Unable to differentiate between itself and the virus anymore, the host colonized its own brain with viral genetic information in the mistaken understanding that it was accessing its own reasoning centers. This process was encouraged by several opportunistic lifeforms who, while not susceptible to the virus themselves, could recognize on an instinctive level the advantages of aiding the virus in its colonization of a host.

By this time, the behavioral changes caused by the virus were evident. The host openly and actively engaged in mating displays in virtually any social situation, attiring itself flamboyantly in a manner that emphasized its sexual availability and acting on virtually any response to its ritual courtship. The confusion in its limbic system caused by the conflation of the virus with legitimate reproductive activities made the host willing to engage in simulated reproduction, frequently paraphilic simulated reproduction that involved endorphin release through triggering of pain receptors. These are, of course, normal sexual activities in this species, but it is important to note that the host was no longer able to engage in any kind of reasoning process that would allow it to refuse to perform these functions. The virus had utterly destroyed the host's conception of any other drives beyond the sexual.

This particular case is, of course, an ideal examination of the virus's life cycle. Many hosts are able to successfully resist Stage One of the infection, remaining asymptomatic for years despite repeated exposure. Others never progress beyond Stage Two--the virus colonizes part of their frontal lobe, and develops a connection to their limbic system that allows it to trigger sexual arousal, but it never manages to overwhelm the higher reasoning centers to the point that identity is suppressed. Still others never find the symbiotic relationships needed to sustain survival at Stage Three, and must eke out a precarious existence somewhere between 'mindless' and 'aware'. Research continues on why some succumb and not others.

But this, the ideal case study, sees the host now inevitably progress to Stage Four. Having completely colonized the host's brain and transformed it into a breeding ground, the virus now seeks to continue the process of reproduction beyond the host itself. Frequently, it is aided in this by opportunistic lifeforms in the host's social environment, many of whom are seeking additional reproductive opportunities along the lines of what the host provides. (In some ways, although not colonized directly by the virus, they are nonetheless compelled by the virus to assist in its spread.)

Using its social network, the host finds another potential host, one with characteristics that seem to render it susceptible to infection. It either replicates the original viral shell, or on occasion it mutates the virus into a new form using a different pattern of light that encodes slightly different information and allows the virus to attach itself to brains not necessarily susceptible to the previous viral load. However the viral shell is created, the next step is always the same. The old host introduces the virus to the optic nerve of the new host through the eye. The pattern of light travels down the optic nerve and is translated by the visual cortex into electrical impulses, a pattern of information that begins to colonize the new host's frontal lobe and stimulate its sexual response.

And the cycle of infection continues.

THE END