A specific type of bacteria were caught under a man’s fingernails and eventually found themselves inside his bloodstream through a scratch on his skin. They moved down the organism and into its bowel, where they established a colony and started growing.
There they thrived for many generations, feeding off their involuntary host with care. He never knew they were there.
Their actions were subtle, setting up shop inside him quietly, using up resources in such a way that the economy of their surroundings was not disturbed. It was a great arrangement, which would have lasted a long time if it weren’t for some rabid kin of theirs – super-crazy bugs who couldn’t control their appetite.
Managing to get inside the bloodstream through an open wound later in the year, these newcomers spread inside the organism, doing as they pleased, with no respect for their host, their kin, or anything else in their path. They let rip, eating away at everything with such rage that the man ended up with an infection, which quickly degenerated to a life-threatening disease. The situation was so bad that he was put on a cocktail of medication, including a number of extra-strong antibiotics. He survived, but by the end of the treatment all the bacteria inside him, catastrophic and symbiotic alike, had been destroyed.
That would have been the end of that, and the man would have lived a long and productive life – bar a few digestive complications for six months – but a few years later he came across some ultra-nasty bacteria – bugs so vicious and temperamental that the movie Aliens could have been made about them; so aggressive and durable that nothing could kill them. They entered the man’s bloodstream during his stay at a six star holiday resort – irony’s a b*tch! – and all hell broke loose. They went to work on the organism right away, sending the man to the hospital in critical condition. They were able to withstant every strain of antibiotics and every treatment the doctors could throw at them, spreading themselves from organ to organ and tissue to cell, fanning the infection and raising the fever.
A few days later, their host was dead – and so were they.
Suicidal little f***ers!
Editor’s Note: What is the Moral of this story?
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