“They will try to fix me,” she whispered to her reflection. “Let them.”

In advanced stages, the contamination blossoms. Literally. Flesh peels back to reveal not bone, but mycelium or crystalline shards. The queen’s lungs exhale spores that whisper treason. Her tears become acidic. She no longer sleeps; she gestates. The body repurposes her organs into hives for parasitic entities. At this point, the queen is still conscious, trapped inside a sarcophagus of her own mutating cells.