Rabies. By the time you realise you have it, it’s too late

Cockroaches, toilets, and waking up to find my mom dead.

The Flesh Eating Disease.

Here’s too many words:

Fear is an evolutionary advantageous response, so much so that we now have anxiety disorders and phobias. However, the other side of fear’s coin is fascination, where fear of something can inspire someone to learn more about the subject in order to avoid it.

So, the Flesh Eating Disease or Necrotizing Fasciitis is a bacterial infection of the flesh. There is no one kind of bacteria that causes it, multiple classes of bacteria have been found to be responsible. This means bacteria that cause the flesh eating disease can be anywhere and are everywhere.

However! Most of the time a body fights off those bacteria before they can form colonies in flesh. When they do, it’s not the bacteria that eat the flesh but rather the toxins they produce that cause cell death, and once they take hold the infection can be rapid. It’s considered a surgical emergency.

People/animals with a weakened immune system are at a higher risk, but otherwise healthy people can get it, too. So, wash your hands and clean your cuts, because the Flesh Eating Disease could be in you right now.

Not my greatest fear, but something I don’t mentioned: empty chairs are creepy. My brain insists on believing someone is sitting in them and I just can’t see them. This scene from the X-Files plays on this feeling well, as do some productions of Macbeth, but otherwise not something that’s often invoked.