“We can name it after you,” he told her, and put his hand on her arm.
It was a cursory gesture, a noble example of a professional’s bedside manner. He wasn’t the kind of doctor that had on eyeglasses and a lab coat, no, he wore his shirtsleeves rolled almost to the elbow and was in great shape. The fact that she noticed his looks felt like a good sign, like she wasn’t dead yet. 
“There are really no treatment options?” she asked, fighting for a scrap of hope.

---

Her bones ached.
There was no other way to describe it. A deep and penetrating pain filled her every moment, an uncertain shake in every step. After her second collapse, that time at work, her colleague summoned an ambulance. The EMTs looked her over and took her to the nearest hospital.
“I’m just tired,” she would say, and the nurses would smile before ordering another test.
Are you pregnant? Any other symptoms? Loss of consciousness? Are you sexually active? Do you take drugs? How much alcohol do you drink? Could you be pregnant?
Questions, tests, samples, waiting, results with no answers. Rinse and repeat.
At long last, a specialist started asking the right questions.
“Have you been to South America recently?” 

---

She was not simply jet-lagged, he assured her. It went far beyond that.
Once her right tibia snapped on the way to her hospital suite’s toilet, cracking like a twig and spilling her onto the floor, she begun to believe him. She was more brittle by the day.
“But I’ve been home for weeks. Weeks!” she insisted.
“It — rather, THEY — have taken some time to hatch,” he said, as delicately as he could.
The sick-bowl that the nurse had provided her after the morphine had made her nauseous was on the bedside table, past a tangle of wires. She was glad it was within arm’s reach.
“You’re sure I’m not just pregnant?” she asked, forcing a laugh.
“I’m afraid not. Wrong kind of parasite. We’ve done imaging on most of your body, and it seems to be effecting your limbs most. Once they spread to your hipbones, likely the right lateral coxae — or ilium — first, it would be impossible for you to sit up.”
She held her head in her hands, praying she was imagining the scratching sound in her ears, hoping against hope it was just her ragged heartbeat.
“You said I could name it after me. Do I get any say in it?” she asked.
“Well, the technical term that I would put forward would be ‘osteophage’, which translates lit—“
“Yeah, I know. My brother is into Latin. So, I could make a suggestion for a name? I picked them up in a Peruvian dig site, maybe I should choose a Spanish name?”
“Perhaps.”
“Or something funny, like—“
A sharp pain lanced up her left leg a split-second before they heard the crackle. It was not like a breaking branch this time, it sounded like stepping on an autumn leaf. Her foot had been pointing skyward at rest, coated in the white hospital compression socks, but now it was lolling wildly to the left. A supporting bone had crumbled, its support structure and marrow devoured by unseen teeth. It was as though an invisible crowbar had smashed down against her foot, a ghost hobbling. Her blood pressure spiked and two nurses rushed in once they heard her screams mixed with the doctor’s calls for assistance. Three minutes later, the fresh dose of morphine had taken effect.
“Or go for a simple name,” she gasped. “Bone Termites.”

end.