The doctors had no idea what was going on.

 

In a typical year, Lyme disease wasn't all that uncommon; that's why there are so many public health interventions around ticks and tick bites. The neuropsychiatric symptoms of hallucinations, paranoia, and strange behaviour were exceedingly rare, usually only when Lyme disease had been undiagnosed and untreated for years.

 

This year was different, though. For some reason, tick populations skyrocketed, as did cases of Lyme disease. Moreover, nearly half of all cases exhibited strange behaviour consistent with the previously rare neuropsychiatric symptoms of advanced Lyme disease. Even more worrisome was the fact that this strange new form of Lyme disease was transmissible between humans, rather than only via tick bites.

 

One doctor reported entering their waiting room to find six Lyme disease patients waiting for their appointments, all repeating the word "obey" in unison. When they asked each patient about it during their appointment, the patients had no memory of doing so.

 

Whatever was happening, ticks were multiplying, and this new virus was taking control over people's minds. To what end, nobody knew.

And there were no signs of it stopping any time soon.