London 1889 a sickness spreads through the streets, un unnamed malady that seems to take the rich and the poor without discrimination, wasting them away in slow agony as their body is consumed by it. This infection seems not to come from a miasma of the air, not from the blood or from sins of the flesh. It has no host and takes of the old and the young alike, leaving hollow bodies with blackened veins, mouths bloodied with thick sputum and skin almost covered in a waxy sheen.
No corner of the city is safe, the mystery of who and where it strikes next leaves the citizens in fear, people no longer walk the streets at night, save for those who make a living under the cover of darkness, thieves and whores do so knowing the risk they take for it only spreads in darkness, as if it comes from the very shadows themselves. But life goes on even in the darkness, the aristocracy and monied of the city attend lavish parties, the poor work in the factories and down at the docs, markets bustle in the day though people look at each other with fearful glances.
When the bodies are found they aren't left with their loved ones to be buried in the proper way, mass graves exist outside the city, places where those wasted by the sickness pile up. Yet the appraising eye might find pattern in the madness, the affliction is circling, gathering in places, following those who walk a different life, who touch their own darkness. Everything seems to lead back to one single place, the Demi-Monde .... will you survive ..... The Affliction ?
