Tomás squinted at the image. The mass didn’t look round like a typical tumor. It had segmented ridges, looking almost like a tightly coiled fist, or worse, a fetal position that wasn’t human. “You said it’s damaging her organs.”
“It’s doing more than that. It’s consuming them,” Cassandra said grimly. “It is absorbing her nutrients at a rate that is physically impossible. Her muscle tissue is wasting away because this… this parasite is hogging every milligram of glucose and oxygen. And there’s something else. Look at the density readings.”
She brought up a second digital scan on a nearby monitor. “The outer shell of the mass is calcifying. It’s hardening into a protective carapace. Like an egg, or a cocoon. And the internal temperature of her core is spiking to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Her body is trying to burn it out with a fever, but it’s not working. The heat is only accelerating the growth.”
