Monday, April 16, 2012

N is for Nacrolin

For the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I'm posting alphabetically on things related to Shayla's world from my (unpublished) novel, Ghosts of Innocence...

I talked earlier about drugs, which feature heavily in Ghosts of Innocence. One in particular stands out for pure nastiness. Nacrolin.

This is Shayla's weapon of choice for the final part of her revenge.

Nacrolin is extremely rare, and rarely used, even - or especially - by assassins. Assassins already have a powerful arsenal of chemicals to kill quickly and silently, to incapacitate, to induce robot-like compliance ...

The only reason to use nacrolin is as the harshest of punishments.

Nacrolin attacks the nervous system. It induces paralysis within seconds and then gets down to its real work. While the victim is helpless but fully aware, the drug eats away at the nerves, starting at the extremities. The dying nerve cells go into hyperdrive, sending wave upon wave of pain signals, torturing the victim beyond endurance, until the necrotic process reaches the brain stem bringing the release of death.

It is a slow death. The smaller the dose, the slower the process. A carefully-judged dose can keep a victim in torment for days.

There is no antidote.

14 comments:

J Andrew Jansen said...

Ugh. That's horrible. The curious part of me wonders what the minimum dose would be to induce the initial paralysis. What is the smallest working dose?

Strictly from an academic and writer curiosity standpoint, mind you.

--j--

Anonymous said...

Barbaric

unikorna said...

I highly admire your diligent attention to the last detail. Your book must be astonishing. I've only caught glimpses of it, but it's quite intriguing what I've read so far. I also like very much your drawings, I was hoping maybe you'd delight us with some more drawings related to Shayla and her outstanding assassin abilities :).

bazza said...

Yuk! Narcolin sounds worse than Marmite! I hope it's entirely a figment of your fevered imagination?
Click here for Bazza’s Blog ‘To Discover Ice’

Unknown said...

I believe I'll try not to draw the attention of assassins. Nacrolin is a disturbing way to come to one's end.

Lucy

Kimberlee Turley said...

That last line is the best part of the whole thing: there is no antidote.

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

BRRRR, a bone-chilling description of what I can only hope is a figment of your sadistic imagination.

Melodie said...

That is one scary drug. It reminds me of the one Michelle's Pfieffer's character took in What Lies Beneath - she's paralyzed to the eyes as the tub fills with water. *shiver*

Lindsey R. Loucks said...

Remind me to never piss off Shayla! ;)

Cindy said...

Yikes, that Nacrolin is brutal stuff.

Botanist said...

I see I've hit a chord here...mwahahahaha...

Yes, nacrolin is pure nastiness. Fortunately, yes, it's a figment of my twisted imagination.

J: There obviously has to be a minimum useful dose, but I didn't give too much thought to that. I guess below a certain threshold it wouldn't kill, but you'd likely wish it would.

Bazza: LOL! I happen to like Marmite :)

Stella Telleria said...

I don't know how you do this A to Z challenge with such cool words from your story. I would've ended up with nose hair or something! LOL! This is great!

Unknown said...

Very cool post. I love that your theme is your novel! It sounds interesting. I'll be back to read the rest of the words.

Michelle :)
www.michelle-pickett.com/blog

Botanist said...

Stella: Nose hair came a close second :D

Michelle: For some reason the theme seemed kinda obvious to me. Probably because I'm in the thick of edits and this was a way to keep me in the mood. Glad you like it.

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