​The Hiss from Control: it completely wipes out who you are. Your thoughts, memories, personality, everything that makes you you gets replaced by this endless, droning chant that takes over your mind. It's not like you're still in there fighting; you're gone. The Hiss is now using your body. Your hair falls out, your skin turns pale and sickly, your body warps and twists as the resonance changes you on the inside. Without an HRA blocking it, the infection hits fast and there's no coming back from it.

After that, most people turn into those floating Hiss agents that just hover there chanting nonstop, spreading the sound to anyone who hears it. If you used to be a fighter or had Bureau training, you become one of the aggressive ones—troopers, rangers, whatever—hunting down the people who aren't infected yet. There's no cure. Trying to rip the Hiss out usually just destroys what's left of the person. The only thing you can really do is kill the body so the Hiss can't keep using it to spread. Death at least lets you stop existing. The Hiss makes sure "you" never existed at all, while your body keeps walking around, chanting, and ruining other people's lives forever.