Why it never ends

Chapter 8 Pathology
"Hey, did you remove the bandages on your eyes?" The familiar female voice came from the end of the corridor. Hesta looked sideways and saw a tall young woman.

This was the first time Hesta saw Masaki Chiba after removing the bandage around his eyes.

She was wearing men's khaki overalls, a simple gray and white cotton shirt, and what appeared to be a light black turtleneck sweater underneath. On the bridge of Chiba's nose was a pair of rimless glasses with light yellow lenses It is pentagonal, and the gray eyes behind it look very sharp.

She has black hair in a high, short ponytail.A mouse-gray coat was draped over his arms, and a pair of black boots were on his feet.

This is 20-year-old Chiba Masaki.

Hesta stood up, "Miss Chiba?"

"This is the first 'meeting', please give me some advice." Chiba stretched out her hand to Hesta, and Hesta shook it lightly. She felt that the texture of Chiba's hand was very special.

"Let's go, I'll take you to the monastery." Chiba shook the car key in his hand, "I just picked up a new car today."

……

Chiba's new car is an old-fashioned wine-red convertible. She has modified the console in the car. She loves the design of the brass lever. She has replaced the windows, air conditioner and radio console with lever.

The car smelled of tobacco, and in the gap between the window and the console Hestad saw a half-smoked pack of ladies' cigarettes.

"You smoke?"

"Do you mind?" Chiba started the car, "I don't need to be in front of you."

"It doesn't matter."

Along the way, the two didn't speak again.Until they approached the boundary of Mount Severn, a group of people in white protective clothing stopped them.

These people wore the badges of the third district security team and set up roadblocks on the main road. Chiba showed his ID and these people let them go.

"Has the road been closed?" Hesta asked.

"Yes, there have been no new cases of chelation disease in the habitable area of ​​the third district for almost ten years, and the higher authorities attach great importance to this matter," Chiba replied, "In the future, the Severn Mountain area should be designated as a new area. The isolation area, unless necessary, prohibits entry and exit."

Hesta looked at the scenery outside the car window, they gradually became familiar from unfamiliar, Hesta felt a little hot in the eyes, this car is taking her to the place where she has lived for more than three years - where she is destined to fall into barren.

"arrive."

The car stopped near the top of the mountain, and Chiba and Hesta got off together.

From a distance, Hesta could see the blackened stone roof of the church.

The two walked side by side, and Qianye took the initiative to speak: "More than 20 children in the monastery have been sent to the public nursery, and someone will take care of them."

Hesta heard, but did not answer.

She walked along the stone corridor, through the collapsed church, and walked in the direction of the confinement room—the old second-story house was already completely dark, but still maintained its basic architectural structure.

Back in the confinement room again, the wooden door here had long been burned to ashes.Only one month has passed, and grass has grown in the cracks in the wall.

Hesta stepped over the stone threshold, and she saw three or four iron cages with strange shapes in front of her—their steel bars had been melted in the fire.

Hesta walked silently to the iron cage that locked Boheng in the first place. She knelt on the ground and stretched out her hand to reach under the iron cage.

In the ashes, she touched the piece of asbestos cloth that wrapped the clipping book of Boheng. Its surface was still damp with the rain of the past few days.

For a moment, Hesta's limbs became stiff—if Boheng escaped on his own, there was no reason why he couldn't take the book with him.

"What is this—" Qianye was about to ask, when she saw a few tears falling on the asbestos cloth one after another, and Hesta still turned her back to her, without turning around.

The girl opened the asbestos cloth, and the newspaper clipping inside still maintained its original shape, but the entire book had been carbonized. Whether it was the [-]th district news carefully cut out by Bo Heng, or the handwriting he left inside, it was no longer legible. .

Qianye didn't ask any more questions, "...I'll go down and smoke a cigarette."

"Wait, Miss Chiba," Hesta turned her head, her eyes were red, "do you understand the reason? About... this infection..."

"The specific report hasn't come out yet, we have to wait until next week." Qianye frowned slightly, "But I have a guess, do you listen?"

"Ah."

"We have detected some chelating bacteria spores in the jungle of Mount Cevern. Although the concentration is very low, inhalation will not cause disease... But at least it shows that before Dean Alma got sick, there were already spores in this area. Chelation activities. Does your dean have much contact with wild animals?"

Hesta was stunned for a moment, she lowered her head, and answered after a long time: "Sometimes there will be some injured animals...like chicks. If the dean encounters them...he will take care of them."

"It can't be birds, chelation disease only occurs in mammals." Chiba said, "I guess it's squirrels, mice and the like—there are quite a lot of them in this area."

Hesta looked at Chiba, "If Dean Erma is infected with chelation disease, she will feel it herself... right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"I don't understand..." Hesta murmured, "Then why... didn't she say anything?"

"Ha," Qianye raised her hand and scratched her head, "This can't be explained clearly in a few words..."

This sentence fell into Hesta's ears, and for a moment she felt a certain overlapping of fate.

She was quiet for a while, "Then Miss Qianye, would you like to have a detailed chat with me?"

"This...Of course." Chiba pointed out the door, "However, let's talk in the car, it looks like it's going to rain again."

"it is good."

From Chiba, Hesta heard the ins and outs of chelation for the first time.

This terrible infectious disease originates from a fungus that grows in the deep sea - multidentate complex bacteria, and its variant that grows on land is chelating bacteria.

The deep-sea multidentate coordination fungus is like a jellyfish, usually dormant in the waters below 200 meters, and only floats up to the shallow waters for activities during the breeding season.

The mycelium of multidentate coordination bacteria is generally no more than 5 mm, and 99.3% of the body is water. It was originally an ordinary type of fungal organisms on the seabed. However, in the dark and high-pressure underwater world, it is different from some The diflagellated organisms began a long endosymbiosis, and eventually evolved a class of parasitic vesicle worms.

These vesicular worms cannot live alone without the multidentate complex bacteria, and their survival and reproduction are completely dependent on these small, gravel-like fungi.

With the vesicle worms, these deep-sea fungi suddenly became ferocious.Gradually, multidentate complex bacteria began to be able to manipulate mammals hundreds of thousands of times larger than them—once mammals in the sea were infected, their bodies were completely reduced to a breeding ground for multidentate complex bacteria.During this time, animals will actively approach their own kind and release disease-causing spores to them.Once the animals' interiors have been eaten away, their remains balloon up and explode, sending the multidentate complex bacteria farther out into the water one last time.

For a long time, this was only a problem that troubled some marine scientists and animal protection organizations. Until 4412, near the Cook Islands in the Longtail Ocean, the first case of human fisherman infection appeared.

Initially, patients experience persistent low mood, lethargy, reluctance to perform tasks and social withdrawal, and severe insomnia—all classic symptoms of depression.So after seeing a doctor, the patient was quickly diagnosed with depression and started taking medicine, but it didn't work.

This symptom lasted for about a month, and the patient’s mood suddenly returned to normal. Not only that, he became outgoing and lively. However, people soon discovered the abnormality—his wife and children were killed first. The ax split the skulls of loved ones and hid their bodies in the closet.

As if possessed by a demon, he began to extend his claws to the neighbors, and was found evil when he tried to forcibly take away the neighbor's children.

After being exposed, the patient was tied up and captured by angry residents. People took off his gloves, only to find that the patient's arm below the elbow joint became as thick as a thigh and turned a frightening bright red.At the same time, his index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger have been firmly glued together, and he can only do some simple grasping movements through the cooperation of his thumb—this scene is just like a lobster's pincers.

"Chelation disease" hence the name.

(End of this chapter)