one hundred years of solitudeby gabriel garcía márquez an epidemic brought into the buendía household and the town of macondo by rebeca; the adopted daughter of josé arcadio buendía and úrsula iguarán. this plague, originally coming from the northern indian kingdoms in la guajira (colombia), is identified by the symptoms of wide-open, glowing eyes like those of a cat, and the impossibility of sleeping. those infected (in the novel consisting of the entire town of macondo) feel no tiredness or sleepiness whatsoever and hence can work all day and night. however, as time advances, those infected begin to lose all their memories and knowledge of the world; ultimately leaving them in a state in which they have forgotten the names and uses of all things and their own identities. the plague is generally seen as one of the most prominent demonstrations of magical realism in garcía márquez's literary works. the pulse cell by stephen king a powerful virus that lies dormant inside mobile phones and which requires a powerful signal to set off. the exact unleashers are unknown, but are implied to be a terrorist group due to numerous theories in the novel. the virus is implied to have been released just after september 11th, and lain dormant in cell phones ever since. once the right signal is transmitted and leaked into incoming phone calls, the caller's brain cells immediately disintegrate and they are unable to recognize friend from foe; they are even unable to recognize other people infected with the virus. inevitably, the infected callers become psychotic and start killing each other, the chaos of which lasts approximately two days before the infected callers have become "stable" enough to cooperate and recognize each other. queen's lady plague six of crows duology by leigh bardugo the queen's lady plague refers to an outbreak of firepox in ketterdam about seven years before the events of six of crows. it was named after a ship, the queen's lady, which was believed to have brought the disease to the city. when an outbreak occurred, the plague sirens sounded to signal all citizens to return to their homes, and the officers of the stadwatch to report to their designated stations around the city. only the sickboats, bodymen, and mediks were allowed to move freely about the city during an outbreak. raison strain books of history chronicles by ted dekker originally starting off as a vaccine created by monique raison, it was mutated into a deadly virus that succeeded in killing off most of humanity. in the future, its counterpart was the horde disease. ratititis roald dahl's boy a fictional disease invented by roald dahl's friend thwaites during their schooldays in llandaff. thwaites made this up to amuse roald and the other friends, but he says his dad told him about the disease, which is apparently contracted from eating liquorice bootlaces. thwaites says that the bootlaces actually have rat's blood rather than licquorice, and they are done this way by rat-catchers bringing their rats to the sweet factory where they pound the rats into a paste, then mash it up to form licquorice bootlaces. thwaites told roald and his friends never to eat them, because if they did, a rat's tail would burst out of their buttocks and their teeth would turn into fangs. only roald and his friends saw the joke; thwaites took it with deadpan humour. red deaththe red death masque of the red death by edgar allan poe"the masque of the red death"by edgar allan poe victims bleed from their pores before eventually dying. most likely a viral hemorrhagic fever. ripleythe ripley dreamcatcherby stephen king an alien parasitoid macrovirus. the adult aliens resemble deformed potato beings with legs, while the younger aliens—nicknamed "shit-weasels" because they can be created in a host organism's stomach and escape by eating their host's body between the stomach and anus– are legless, smaller versions of the adult alien. both adult and young aliens have a mouth consisting of a slit on the underside of the head that goes down the length of the worm. the lips separate to reveal hundreds of teeth that can bite through steel. rock disease jojo's bizarre adventure: jojolion a heredity disease passed down by generation-to-generation in the higashikata family. the disease slowly changes person into rock, starting at the age of ten. there is no known medical cure for the disease. sakutia dc comics sakutia, also known as green fever, is an extremely rare lethal viral disease found primarily in the african region of lamumba. the virus attaches itself to the affected's dna, enabling the host body to instinctively rewrite their own genetic code. typically, a host relies upon primitive instinct when affecting such a change, rendering them capable of shapeshifting into a wide variety of forms (usually animals). those affected with sakutia experience one other noticeable side effect: their hair and skin turn permanently green in hue. salt plague spiritwalker trilogyby kate elliott disease that feeds on the salt in its host's body. the host eventually loses their humanity and becomes violently hungry, seeking the salty blood of others. the plague is spread by its victim's bites. scarlet plague scarlet plague by jack londonthe scarlet plagueby jack london this 1912 novella, also known as the scarlet death, is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction treating the world after civilization has been destroyed by this fictional disease. sanguine festivussanguine festivus the backrooms sanguine festivus is spread via the bodily fluids of an infected entering one’s bloodstream, most often via inflicted wounds or digestion of contaminated food. as soon as transmission occurs, the individual who contracts it will start showing symptoms within roughly 8–12 hours. these symptoms first come in the form of muscle cramps, light-headedness, cold flashes, and jolts of pain throughout the body. approximately 24 hours after the first signs of symptoms, the disease makes its way to the afflicted’s liver and starts to heavily dilute the body’s blood and manipulate the flow of proteins throughout their anatomy. here, the afflicted in question will experience regular aching and stiffness, discoloration of the skin and veins, gnawing pain in the forearms and jaw, and bleeding from the palms caused by the abnormal growth of bone matter protruding from within the hands. at this point, the disease can still be purged from the body and the afflicted saved, with many antibiotics and even bloodletting shown to be effective means of treatment. after 2-3 days have passed since initial contamination, with no treatment administered, the disease will have taken over the afflicted’s heart and completely diluted the blood, rendering the infected beyond help. a telltale sign of this is heavy discoloration of the skin in the chest area, turning a dark and sickly grey-red especially above the heart. within hours of reaching this stage, the disease will find its way to the brain and begin tampering with the pituitary gland, releasing overwhelming amounts of hormones such as dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline throughout the body to sedate the infected. this will result in them becoming ecstatic and aggressive, and they will begin to encourage behaviors of seeking out others and acting erratically towards them, often grabbing hold of or even outright attacking others. given the abnormal bone-like protrusions in the palms of their hands, this can often result in others being injured, intentionally or not -- and further contamination occurring. from here, the infected person’s condition will only continue to deteriorate. the liver will stop filtering blood, and jaundice will develop, turning the affected person's skin a dull yellow and darkening surface veins as diseased blood reaches every part of the body. more abnormal bone growths will start to appear around the eyes and mouth, growing increasingly irritating to the infected and driving them to itch and tear at their face, very often resulting in a pattern of wounds resemblant of a gory, exaggerated permanent smile and slit-like patches of torn skin and flesh both above and below the eye sockets. several months into infection, these growths will only cause more damage, with those along the mouth and jaw growing to resemble a second row of teeth, jagged and misshapen in such a way that they force the mouth constantly agape and protrude from the eye sockets to eventually pierce the eyeball, causing extreme vision damage and blindness. once jaundice has set in and the infected’s behavior has become too chaotic to control, they typically only survive for another 2–3 years before succumbing to the illness. sevai and vedet always coming homealways coming homeby ursula k le guin genetic diseases of people and animals in the postapocalyptic setting of always coming home, caused by the leftover chemical and radiation pollution. vedet involves personality disorders and dementia; sevai usually leads to blindness and other sensory loss, along with degeneration of muscle control. both diseases are painful, crippling, incurable, and fatal. severity of onset and the length of the course of the illness vary: major damage leads to non-viability in the womb (with a quarter of all children in the valley being stillborn due to sevai); minor damage might not show up until old age and lead to death in a decade. shame the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxyby douglas adams mentioned as being "still a terminal disease in some parts of the galaxy," this disease seems rife amongst the population of betelgeuse 5, the fifth planet of the sun betelgeuse. it killed off the father of ford prefect when he was so ashamed that ford could not say his birth name, "ix", and this embarrassed ford and resulted in him being mocked during school. shiva rainbow sixby tom clancy a genetically modified version of ebola created to help a group of eco-terrorists to annihilate mankind. the sickness/imperial bioweapons project i71a/project: blackwing death troopers, red harvest a virus artificially created by the sith lord darth drear thousands of years ago in order to achieve immortality. centuries later, darth scabrous successfully completed drear's unfinished work, but accidentally modified it into a semi-sentient hive mind that creates zombies. the sith academy on odacin-fauster was wiped out by the plague. thousands of years later, darth vader commissioned the empire's bioweapons division to recreate the virus. upon completion, the virus was loaded onto the star destroyer vector for transport to a testing site. en route, the tanks leaked and the destroyer's crew was zombified. the virus is characterized by grey goo. snow crash snow crashby neal stephenson a dangerous drug that is both a computer virus capable of infecting the brains of unwary hackers in the metaverse and a mind-altering virus distributed by a network of pentecostal churches via its infrastructure and belief system. both forms cause glossolalia, and the computer virus form appears as a snowy pattern of pixels. solanum virus world war z/the zombie survival guide by max brooks a virus that has existed since the beginning of human history, which is highly contagious through bodily fluids such as blood. solanum symptoms include dementia, paralysis in the extremities, and discoloration of the wound, which increase as the virus replicates itself. the virus is centered on the brain, and destroys the cells of the brain and replaces them with the virus. in doing so, the infected individuals are declared clinically dead. the virus takes around sixteen hours to replicate, although it varies from individual to individual. once solanum has fully replicated, the victim awakes from the coma, with an unquenchable desire for human flesh. the victim also exhibits typical zombie-like behavior such as psychotic behavior and mindless rage, and can only be killed by destruction of the brain. space plague alisa selezneva booksby kir bulychov a lethal, extremely contagious virus responsible for destroying numerous inhabited planets. difficult to combat due to the virus being very good in mimicry, as well as capable of forming a hive mind that could direct its own mutations. earth had narrowly averted destruction in the mid-21st century thanks to the ship carrying two infected being quarantined on pluto. spattergroit harry potter and the order of the phoenix and harry potter and the deathly hallows a disease that covers the victim in purple pustules and renders them unable to speak. it may be a type of fungus, as ron weasley says that the effect of being unable to speak occurs "once the fungus has spread