10 scariest plagues from sci-fi and fantasy

4. The Blindness from See

The next fictional plague to plague our thoughts is the blindness pandemic of Apple TV’s See. The premise behind See is that during the 21st Century, humanity was overcome by a global pandemic that wiped out all but 2 million people. Those who survived were left bereft of their sense of sight.

While the show itself is more about how society has returned to tribalism following the events of the plague, the idea that a disease could afflict the entirety of the world and rob humans of one of their core senses is still a discomforting idea to wrangle with. How would society change? What would become less important and what would become crucial? And what exactly is it about the virus that took people’s sense of sight but also their ability to pass the gift of vision on to their children?

However, unlike many of the other stories on this list, See offers us a glimmer of hope. The show revolves around the first children born with an unimpeded sense of sight in over 200 years. So if the plague that killed most of the world and left the rest unable to see was awful, at the very least it appears to be one that humankind can bounce back from.