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| “ | ...scientists have discovered something in the mist. Something...alive. | „ |
| ~ David describing first contact with the aliens. |
The aliens are the overarching antagonists of the short horror story Infested. They are an unnamed, enigmatic alien species that attempted to invade Earth from asteroids, but were quickly killed by Earth's atmosphere. Regardless, the sheer paranoia from the aliens' presumed ability to infect humans led to mass violence and panic that long outlasted the invaders.
Overview[]
The aliens were never seen nor described beyond being living things, implying they are recognizably lifeforms by human standards. They are a very hardy species, capable of surviving a trip through space within asteroids, and survive impacts that had enough power to level cities. Most importantly, their native atmosphere is drastically different from Earth, as the aliens die in contact with Earth's air, only able to survive in an unidentified alien mist expelled from their asteroids. Strangely, humans do not appear to be affected by this mist, as no human was reported to have died from exposure.
It is unknown what the aliens look like, as they could be anything from microbes to complex organisms. However, the original story noted reports of mutilated human bodies, implying the latter.
In the SFM adaptation, it was implied that the aliens truly did have the ability to infect or otherwise take control of humans, but only within the range of their mist.
History[]
At some point, the aliens drifted through space in asteroids, which soon found their way to Earth. Striking as meteors, many of the alien pods struck cities, killing several hundred humans. Shortly after landing, the meteors released clouds of alien mist that washed over a large zone around the landing sites, many humans breathing it in.
When the news started covering the disaster, scientists quickly discovered the presence of the aliens. At the time, the aliens began to slaughter and mutilate humans within the range of their mist, the reports of the carnage quickly cropping up across human media.
Paranoia quickly set in among the populace as frantic humans linked the invasion reports and the mist that people breathed in to a number of strange stories of suspects resisting arrest and attempting to bite officers, sparking a craze that the aliens were infecting humans with some sort of zombie virus, stoked further by religious leaders declaring it to be the apocalypse. This led to mass violence and riots as the increasingly hysterical public fought back against the "infested," people being lynched in the streets just for being sick, and many others committing mass suicide.
Sometime during the chaos, a man (named David in 2IdiotGermans' adaptation) wrote a small chronicle of the invasion, and revealed that in truth, the invasion had ended rather quickly- the aliens died from exposure to Earth's atmosphere outside their mist. David then sadly noted that there never were any "infested," but the public was too caught up in fear to pay attention to scientists revealing the end of the threat.
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- Infested was given an SFM adaptation by 2IdiotGermans, who notably created the Serverblight and adapted The Spy. In the SFM, the previously unnamed protagonist was renamed David, and there was some more evidence of the aliens being truly able to infect humans, such showing a man moving in unnatural ways approaching two barricaded humans after reportedly biting one of them. This is further supported by said infected man appearing to be surrounded by the mist, which would allow the aliens to survive. Regardless, the conclusion of the story is the same, and presumably, the infection could not spread to humans who weren't exposed to the mist.
- Furthermore, 2IdiotGermans released a teaser poster depicting a SWAT unit firing at two apparently infected humans shambling at him, further implying that there truly was an infection at first- just enough to stoke the flames of mass paranoia, akin to how some conspiracy theories have a hint of truth buried under them to fool the uninformed.