Zombified survivors

A zombiefied survivor, standing with its back to TSV's house.

## Description

The Harvested are former survivors of the apocalypse, who have most likely fallen victim to the Strobe Lights.

These individuals are shown to go through roughly two "phases" before they become fully hostile. Their objectives seem to be to attack other survivors, find their locations, or enter shelters to convert others - or even just kill them.

They will often stay 'dormant' in one place for hours on end, until they are disturbed. They seem to be highly sensitive to sound, and will prefer to track down the louder of the sounds, even if they know of a persons location already. For example, in a video TSV posted to twitter, one of these individuals is shown to at least be vaguely aware of his location, hanging around the door to the room he's hiding in, but is drawn away by the sound of a car approaching.

Animals have also been mentioned to be effected by the same thing humans are, as mentioned in a story Nat had received from a survivor, mentioning a wild boar experiencing the same thing as the human 'zombies,' and having been stood completely still until it noticed said survivor, at which point it immediately began attacking.

## Contamination/Infection

People are known to become 'harvested' via a multitude of ways. Tucker mentions someone he had been traveling with, Flynn, was turned via a red strobe light. It's also implied through various tweets, such as Nat talking about her mother, that looking directly the Red Strobes will turn a person very quickly.

Another way is via contaminated water, commonly referred to as darkwater. Drinking this darkwater is known to cause hallucinations, paranoia, and a disruption of speech patterns or typing. Similarly to the phases brought on by red strobes, this process is sped up the more darkwater an individual drinks. As described by We The People, the effects are similar to that of mercury or lead poisoning, affecting one both physically and neurologically over time. They claim that once this process starts, it cannot be stopped, and starts the second someone consumes darkwater.

Another way of infection is possibly via injury. This method is faster than just drinking darkwater, but slower than red strobes. This is evident when TSV gets his arm broken by harvested survivors, and shortly after experience more extreme symptoms, along with physical changes to his body at the location of the injury. He begins becoming extremely paranoid, similarly to how he was when he was drinking darkwater in his home, but along with this, begins hallucinating Danyon with him - despite Danyon having left months before. Along with this, his arm is shown to have dark veins that are almost bulging from his arm, and it's implied that they begin from the break, spreading outwards.

It *is* possible to delay the effects, or to somewhat "undo" them, as TSV is shown to recover from the experience and become more level-headed and grounded, but it's not clear as to how exactly he's done it.

## Phases

### **Phase 1**

Survivors, upon drinking darkwater, will become highly paranoid and will often hallucinate. The more they drink, the less coherent they become, and will often repeat words or phrases. They will also begin seemingly having trouble with spelling, or putting thoughts together, and will often become distrustful of people or jump to dangerous conclusions.

Though it's not clear if this is a universal symptom, it's implied that veins darkening and bulging is an inevitability the farther on it goes, and is only sped up in TSV's case due to his injury. This will also often be joined with darkened fingernails, and an odd black substance that will usually leak from somewhere on their body, often from under fingernails. This is presumably to aid in infecting other people, if this liquid gets into injuries and open wounds.

This phase is often somewhat, if not entirely skipped by people who had looked into a red strobe light.

### **Phase 2**

At this point, survivors will often become more aggressive towards other people, snapping and yelling at them. They will often show signs of insanity, speaking unintelligibly and repeating phrases more often. They will also often talk about the sun, and claim the sun has reappeared. More severe hallucinations are also common during this phase. Oftentimes during the early stages of this phase, past trauma can resurface, causing distress and heightening the persons more erratic and aggressive behaviour.

This is shown with TSV, who tweets from inside his home about seeing Danyon with him. He has at this point become more aggressive to the audience, frustrated by them saying that Danyon is gone, and how they cant see him when he tries taking a picture.

In later stages, individuals will eventually lose their ability to speak, and lose rational brain function. They will often become extremely hostile towards non-infected individuals. They are often seen standing in place for long periods of time, only becoming active at the sight of a survivor or at loud, sudden sounds.

They are shown to still contain basic brain functions, having a sense of object permanence and general thought, as they will usually linger around houses or cars - places where people had often been. They're known to attempt to enter buildings that they know a survivor is in, as seen with an infected individual knocking on windows and doors to get to TSV, and later, banging their head on the window to try and break it. They seem to lose all sense of self preservation, in this case.

At this point, they are also shown to have almost inhuman strength, often able to break into locked houses and severely injure people. They are also able to break bone, as seen when TSV gets his arm broken by one when trying to get into a car.

There is currently no known cure for people who are infected.

## Trivia

* It's implied that Tucker has experienced early stages of infection first-hand, as he often is the sort of "voice of reason" for TSV when he becomes almost too far gone. Tucker has also seen the later stages many times, and mentions it with Flynn, someone he had travelled with early on, and who he is implied to have killed after Flynn became infected.
* In a tweet posted by Nat, a survivor had the theory that the infected individuals are attached to each other via a hivemind of some kind, as the forest he and his girlfriend had been staying in was overrun by infected individuals after their encounter with an infected boar.