Phase 1: The infected individual will not appear any different from normal, but the catastrophic hunger will already be evident. They will gorge incessantly, and it may appear they’ve suddenly developed a mania around eating, eschewing all other responsibilities so that they can feed.

Phase 2: The infected will appear fatter, and their skin will be more pallid, tinted towards green. At this stage their eyes will start appearing a green also, gradually growing brighter as the whites turn darker. The hunger, and thus their appetite, are increased from the first phase.

Phase 3: In this phase, most of the internal organs and bones will have already been converted into slime. They appear noticeably rotund and will be around a foot taller than in previous phases. Their skin will be a distinct shade of fleshy-green, and they’ll appear glossy and slimy to the touch; they can be likened to a water balloon. They are capable of consuming their own body weight in a day during this phase, and will begin eating anything, even things considered inedible, in aid of accelerating their growth to the next phase.

Phase 4: The infected person’s size will increase exponentially throughout this phase, as their internals and skin are entirely translucent slime by this point. Their build will be almost spherical, but they will still bear a resemblance to their old, fully human selves. In this phase they will feed primarily, eventually exclusively, by absorbing prey through their slime membranes, and will begin eating people regularly and easily.

Phase 5: This is when appetites start turning city-wide. The body will move much like a slug, as the legs will have long since absorbed into the main body. A phase 5 blob is extremely malleable and will summon tentacles with which to quickly catch and absorb prey. On top of this, they are capable of slipping underneath doorways and through open windows making hiding quite pointless. Starting in this phase, blobs will feed on blobs at a lower stage of infection, to add more slime biomass to their own. Also beginning here, blobs will merge with other blobs of their same phase and in doing so merge consciousness and begin forming a hive mind.

Phase 6: Blobs of this phase are city-eaters. Their primary method of feeding is to simply choose a direction and roll in it. Roads, buildings, cars, earth are all equally considered food as people are. Given the ease of feeding in this phase, tentacles become a much rarer implement but are still occasionally noted. Subjects in this phase resemble a gigantic water droplet. Fittingly enough, they can easily pour out of taps and showers. Mentally, they will be an amalgam of potentially dozens of former people by this point.

Phase 7: These blobs are planet eaters. They are entirely liquid by this point and will simply spread out and convert all they touch into slime, quickly merging with other phase 7 blobs to cover the entire planet in a matter of days, sometimes hours.

Phase 8: These blobs cover the entire planet in an endless ocean of slime. During this phase, it will begin stretching out and devouring any stellar bodies in close proximity. Once they are absorbed, the blob will begin gradually eating towards the core of the planet itself.

Phase 9: Once a phase 8 blob has exhausted the planet’s core and thus its main source of warmth, the surface will begin freezing, turning crystalline and brittle. Using absorbed gasses and heat from the atmosphere and core, it will begin projecting chunks of its frozen form into space as comets which, over the course of potentially millions of years, find their way to new worlds, melt in the atmosphere and spread spores with which to begin the infection cycle all over again.

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