Day 56 of the Outbreak
Munich Veterinary Pathology Institute – Sublevel B
The room smelled of antiseptic and damp fur on the stainless steel table lay the body of a house cat frozen mid-snarl, its muscles still tense, as if it had died trying to leap at something.
Dr. Mariel Kessler adjusted her gloves. Across from her, Dr. Yun Sol examined the internal scan.
"Owner said it stopped eating. Then it hissed at the family. Tried to claw their baby. Drooled black saliva for three hours before it collapsed."
"No record of rabies?" Mariel asked.
"Vaccinated. Cleared. No sign of common parasites either."
Mariel made her first incision.
What They Found
The internal organs were intact no necrosis, no ruptures. But something was… wrong.
"Here."
Yun pointed at the abdominal cavity.
Near the spine, coiled between muscle and intestinal walls, was a fleshy, bulb-like mass about the size of a walnut. It was encased in fibrous tissue, slightly veined, and faintly pulsating.
"What the hell is that?" Mariel whispered.
Yun bent closer. "Not a tumor. Not cancerous either. It's perfectly symmetrical."
He reached for the biopsy probe and inserted a core needle into the structure. A soft click, then the vial filled with a milky, almost opalescent fluid.
Under the microscope, it pulsed.
Not a heartbeat more like muscular contraction. A rhythm.
The Misinterpretation
Three hours later, they were back in the lab office reviewing the histology.
"Foreign structure," Mariel muttered. "High concentration of organic tissue, neurogenic lipids, and some vascular attachment points. It's alive, but it's not part of the host."
Yun nodded grimly. "It's a self-contained node. Looks like a parasite that anchors to the spinal or nervous system."
Mariel frowned. "We're not seeing replication no reproductive chains, no eggs."
"Maybe it doesn't need them. Maybe it travels as airborne micro-agents, infects the host through respiration, and builds this... thing... from the inside."
"So a parasite?" she asked.
Yun nodded. "A parasitic organism possibly a new class. Could explain the behavioral changes and even the neurological symptoms in some human cases."
The First Official Report
Later that evening, they uploaded a preliminary findings report to the ECDC shared pathology archive:
Subject: Autopsy of Domestic Feline – CRV-3 Suspected
Findings: Internal growth consistent with unknown parasitic lifeform. Structure is non-native, neurologically aligned with spinal root interface.
Speculated Mechanism:
Entry via airborne particles
Localized growth and interface
Parasite induces behavioral change in host
Pending further analysis.
They signed it.
They sealed the samples.
They left the lab.
The case was labeled for priority review.
The parasite theory would now drive international health policy.