An otherspace that turns its occupants into epideromancers.

I posted this on the UA mailing list a while ago, when someone brought up the topic of Otherspaces that transform their occupants into adepts. Thought I’d share the love.

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You can’t remember how you got here. It’s impossible to concentrate, your muscles feel weak. You wander the halls for some time, and you pass people dressed all in white. When you try to talk to them, you slur your words – and realise that your whole face is numb. The strangers in white tell you things like “you should go get some rest,” and “calm down, you’ll get well soon enough.”

Eventually, you notice the parasites. Tiny fibres, in various unnatural-looking colours: inside open sores, under your eyelids, blocking up your pores. Sometimes you catch the fibres moving around, but mostly they’re just there, making your body look creepy and wrong. You find a pair of tweezers and a mirror (there’s unattended medical equipment everywhere here), and you pull some of these fibres from around your eyes. Your vision clears and sharpens. You pull them out of your lips and off the surface of your tongue, and now you can speak clearly. The more parasites you pull out, the clearer your thoughts become, too. You’re not healthy yet (there’s still so many parasites inside you), but you definitely feel stronger than you did before.

This is when you start to notice how weird this place is. There are no windows or clocks, no television, no books, no outdoors. There are a few other patients here, each with similar symptoms to yours, and if you examine them closely, you’ll see that they have the fibres in their bodies too. If you get a good look at one of the doctors or nurses, you’ll find that they’re completely made of parasites. If you try to talk to anybody about any of this, they have no idea what you’re talking about. If you show the fibres to anybody, they tell you that they’re just hair or cotton or something.

Once they realise that you’re detoxing yourself, the doctors become concerned. They tell you you’re getting sicker, and they offer you pills (made of parasites), offer you injections (of parasites), offer to perform surgery on you (with their own tools, which are made of parasites). They never force you, but they seem so disappointed when you refuse, saying “don’t you want to be healthy again?” Of course, if you accept, you become weak and stupid and it’s back to square one.

The only effective treatment is self-administered. Fortunately there’s clean, unattended medical equipment everywhere, and the doctors always give you plenty of privacy. If you want to, you can cut your skin away and pull out whatever parasites you find inside. You’ll never get them all, but removing a few always makes you feel stronger, healthier. Eventually, you might just be strong enough to overpower the doctors and force your way out of here.

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IRL, many people have actually experienced something like this. Sufferers refer to it as ‘Morgellons disease.’ Doctors call it delusional parasitosis, and treat it using counselling and antipsychotic medication.

Unsuprisingly, Morgellons sufferers tend to self-medicate.