Medicine in a time of Mist

Welcome to the world of Poisonous Mist! One day, Earth is suddenly covered in a mysterious Mist. As a result, billions of people die and the handful of survivors awakens with strange powers. As monsters start killing them, Anne-Line, a scientist, tries to make sense of what's happening and to prevent what's left of France from becoming a dystopian society. Come read about her struggle!
Introduction to the story | Anne-Line Decroix | Mist | Novel upcoming

Table of Contents

Report: Medicine in a Time of Mist

Author: Marie-Françoise DecroixDate: 45 days post-Mist — Confidentiality: Public
Objective
Explain how medicine has changed post-Mist and the impact for us.
  Background
Medicine is one of the few modern "technologies" that have continued to work properly after the apparition of the Mist. However, all of our drugs and therapies do not work against Mist-related injuries. For this, we need a new technology. And for once the Mist provided.

Mist ability

"Healers": They are individuals with Mist abilities related to healing, which allows them to send their own Mist inside the body of their patient and will them to get better. This process is more efficient when visualising the biological mechanisms by which the body can do this. Luckily, most of our healers were already healthcare practitioners pre-Mist and so have a deep knowledge of the human body and diseases.

 

Consequences: Thanks to this, we can fight back against all diseases, either caused by our own body (e.g., cancers or degenerative diseases) or by viruses. Bacteria and parasites are more tricky enemies, as while their numbers were also cut down by the Mist and by the lower density of human population in our post-Mist world, surviving specimens have also proven able to manipulate Mist to their advantage.
  Yet, individuals with strong will have not so far developed any post-Mist diseases, and many have even healed from their pre-Mist chronic ailment. This is also the mechanism by which most of us who have survived First Mist Exposure have found our body slowly rejuvenating into our mid-twenties optimum.

The unlucky few

Healing ability limitations: Unfortunately, Mist healing only works if the healer has stronger Mist and will than their patient. This is also the case for injuries caused by Mist monsters, and horrifyingly, monsters have a pretty strong will.
  Impact: The individuals with strong Mist and will—those we have come to call "powerful"—cannot be treated by healers weaker than them, which is everyone currently with a healing ability. Unless the powerful have themselves some scrap of healing ability, healing is now very complicated for them.

 

What can the powerful do? They entirely rely on their own will to get better and in their belief in their own superiority over Mist monsters and disease. However, we all retain human limitations, and our brain is not so easily convince that a deadly injury can disappear just by simply wish it away.
  What powerful individuals are good at when injured is stubbornly clinging to life and refusing to die, forcing their blood to stay in their body and to keep circulating and their organs to keep working. Thanks to this, most of our defence forces now sports unbleeding open wounds that have remained unchanged in the months since the Mist has appeared except for suddenly bursting blood as soon as they get tired or use too much Mist.

Conclusion

We are still working on helping the powerful develop a start of a healing ability, as this seems to be the only possible solution to their predicament. Beyond these few individuals, however, knowing how to do this is something that will benefit all of us and be our strongest help in the fight against the Mist. So if you have any healing Mist ability at all no matter how small, please make yourself known to Lille's medical centre and help us understand how it works for you!



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