The apathy effect will persist if a shard is embedded directly in a person. Characters can accidentally get shards stuck into them in any number of ways. Getting it out of someone else and stuck in yourself, stepping on it or falling down and having it get stuck into you, someone maliciously sticking it there if they're wanting to feed the Lonely. The effect fades with time/distance for those without a shard stuck in them. Players are welcome to flavor the exact duration/distance as they'd like.