strangers : walltown
The Drosodrove vacuivoxe calloure
prefix
droso
suffix
drove
IPA
/ˈdroʊzəˌdɹoʊv/
ID
01836
value
1:0
I.Q.
72,020
height
0'0.4"
length
5'4"
weight
1.5 lbs
ext. temp.
int. temp.
-277°F
variance
14%
title
the Blackouts
derelict
type
emblematic
rank
king
choleric
division
interstice
division, ▞▟▘
▝▖▖▝▟▟▟
stability
98.988%
prevalence
1.7%
constancy
7.08%
lifespan
2-3 years
A fifteenth or sixteenth generation substrain of the drosodroni, the drosodrove could be quickly distinguished by its tarry, plastic body. Unlike a great many of the unreleased strains, there remains a wealth of material on the drosodrove, which forms the basis for what is now known about its life cycle and effects.
In a derivation of its parent strain's effect, it compelled its victims to seek isolation (with the mesmerized prey even resorting to violence to ensure solitude), combined with the "you can't fight it" stunning effect that led to the sensitive's eventual self-cannibalization of the lips, cheeks, and fingertips of the dominant hand during the starvation period of the encounter. The drosodrove's synthetic skin added a suffocating element to its hypnotizing effect, as well, with most victims ingesting some amount of the stranger's toxic body in the hours before death.
As its generation required very specific environmental conditions (all windows covered in tarp, barbed wire along the gutters, and the piled-up wrappers from disposable body bags heavy in heaps), the drosodrove was at first thought of as a rare strain.
This changed rapidly after the Vain King Louis incident, which created, almost overnight, the conditions necessary to generate the drosodrove in sudden abundance. Aiding its flourish were the sick and displaced crowds that had taken the street in the hopes of escaping their forced transfer to what would soon become the first mattress camps. As the refugees scattered their seperate ways and grabbed whatever black, shiny plastic they could find in order to both protect and disguise their face and hands, it is inevitable that those sensitives among them would have had no choice but to fall an accidental victim to the drosodrove as their human hands yanked it from the trash bag piles that formed the strain's home.
total generated
3,738
direct sub-strains
37
sensitives encountered
179
sensitives killed
133
total killed in flood
2,408
now remaining
0
Oh, yeah, this one, I... I don't really know. It's not that it's, it's... it's not... I don't dislike it. But when you consider what was happening in the news, it was in really bad taste. We certainly weren't aware of what was going on, not the full extent, but...there were so many signs right in front of us. You can always say that hindsight's twenty-twenty... but, still... the subject stares at a point just beyond where a window would be. I can't tell you how many times I'd skimmed the news headlines and thought to myself, isn't anyone going to do anything about that?
So when I look at this strain, and particularly some of the things that influenced its visual design...
Well, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard not to get caught up on the inner turmoil going on at the same time. And there are things there that still keep me up at night; breakdowns between departments, budget cuts. But in that black sheet, I mostly see the faces of all the people who got smothered, and the choked animals, and all that earth, sealed down with plastic.
the subject becomes lethargic, and awaits a new dose.