Waura Indians wrestle during this year's “quarup”, a ritual held over several days to honour in death a person of great importance to them, in Xingu National Park, Mato Grosso State, Brazil August 25, 2013. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

A man carries his dog as he prays during Vesak Day, an annual celebration of Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death, at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon temple in Ayutthaya, Thailand, May 10, 2017. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

An inmate with a tattoo of Santa Muerte (The Saint of Death) reacts in the Topo Chico prison, during a media tour, in Monterrey, Mexico, February 17, 2016. The director of a prison in northeast Mexico where 49 people died in a riot this week was accused of murder and detained, along with two others, a state prosecutor said on Saturday. (Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

Medics carry an injured at the explosion site in the busy center of Turkish capital, Ankara, Turkey, Sunday, March 13, 2016. The explosion is believed to have been caused by a car bomb that went off close to bus stops. News reports say the large explosion in the capital has caused several deaths and many casualties. (Photo by AP Photo)

Women comfort each other as they mourn over the death of a family member who was killed in a bomb blast, at a local hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, March, 27, 2016. A bomb blast in a park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has killed tens of people and wounded scores, a health official said. (Photo by K.M. Chuadary/AP Photo)

People look at a skeleton couple kissing installation dubbed “Till Death Do Us Part” during a Valentine's Day event in Bucharest, Romania, Tuesday, February 13, 2024. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

Vinaya Vijay, right, and Vijay Parthasarathy wade through water at Badwater Basin, Thursday, February 22, 2024, in Death Valley National Park, Calif. The basin, normally a salt flat, has filled from rain over the past few months. (Photo by John Locher/AP Photo)

The civilised world lies on its knees, a sickness wracking its body. The affliction causes a necrotising of tissues so perfectly uniform in distribution that victims take on the appearance of corpses long before death occurs due to organ failure or secondary infections. ...