Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29015383-20160926093727/@comment-28266772-20160928135923

Yup that's pretty much what the pons does. It would facilitate a near complete paralysis of the body as you mentioned. It might be worth also looking at real life experiences of those afflicted with the botfly (shudders at the image). I don't know what symptoms they experience other than mind numbing fucking terror.

Huh... actually I've just done some googling. I know that the cochlea leads into the medial geniculate nucleus which then feeds the auditory information up to the rest of the brain (think of it as a junction box for sound). But I'd forgotten than the medial geniculate nucleus is right next door to the pons. It's not at all unfeasible to think that something could enter the ear, follow the cochlea nerve to the midbrain, and then slither down to the pons to cause paralysis. So yeah the journey makes sense and I don't think my original point holds up under scrutiny.

One idea on how to address the issue of sound in the ear is have the insect cause temporary deafness perhaps (via a poison maybe?). Or maybe the insect drowns out the noise by creating really loud tinnitus which lasts for a few minutes while it goes through the noisy bits?

Also you'll find this has a very similar tone to my other collab story Lamprey Spider. An important thing to bear in mind about the collab is that variation in tone is perfectly acceptable. The story can be funny, dark, grotesque, existentialist - anything you want. Again I don't want to push but I do want you to know that the flexibility of this project means you can approach it any way you want.