Twilight didn't know how long she slept, but once she awoke, it was dark again. She stood in the doors and breathed deeply, for the first time actually enjoying the crisp northern air. She looked across the street, where the ground was gently rising, reaching a snow-covered forest in the distance.She could also see a granite massif towering over the city, looming like a dark sentinel.
Nothing seemed out of place in the courtyard, everything was placed in an orderly way. The only thing out of place was the oblong shape resting in the corner of the yard. It was covered with grey canvas and dotted with dark spots were blood soaked thorough. The surface material was already covered with frost.
Twilight moved along the ashen path, and went inside the opposite building. Once inside, she was greeted by a small hallway, lined with stone slabs. There were several doors there, but which one should she pick? On which of them should she knock? Suddenly, she heard the sound of hoofsteps. She turned around and saw Armauer, coming down the stairs.
"Welcome, I see that you’ve gotten up?"
"I'm sorry, I think I overslept..."
"That's okay. After such a journey you should rest... We proceeded with the autopsy with Dostoyevsky in the morning."
"And the results?"
“Indeed, it was unusual infiltration in the liver. We put the sample in alcohol, we can watch it later. In the meantime, I wanted to invite you inside.” Hansen pushed the solid, oak doors equipped with several iron locks.
They entered a large, two-storey-high room. To the right there were several doors leading to a series of what must have been smaller rooms. Patients were wandering, some of them were sitting at a table, reading, or listening to an older mare, who was apparently reading ‘Solaris’. She even saw a single filly. The hall was encircled by a small gallery with even more doors leading to other rooms.
"At this moment there are eighty patients here." Said the host. "Some of them are no longer able to move, those are placed at the bottom, in the basements. Besides us, we have another five ponies caring of them."
"Is it enough?”
"The biggest problems we have are with the frequent dressing changes. We’re trying to provide entertainment for the patients, at least the bare minimum needed to counter apathy, but most of them are illiterate."
“Illiterate?” she repeated with a perplexed expression.
“Well, this region isn’t as well ‘educated’ as Central Equestria.” Hansen answered.
Patients, hearing voices at the door turned slowly in their direction, looking at the two with melancholy in their eyes. Twilight involuntarily shuddered, seeing growths, swelling and sores on their faces. Hansen led her out into the hallway.
"It is hard to get used to." He sighed. "Though the worst part for me is the knowledge that they... that they all are basically dead. They’re still walking, still thinking, but in fact they don’t exist anymore. Since the very beginning of this leprosarium research was being conducted in hopes of creating some kind of cure... "
"And still you had no such luck?"
Hansen did not answer for a moment.
"Dostoyevsky didn’t lose hope. You see this foal, there at this table? " Hansen pointed in the mentioned direction with his hoof.
Twilight saw her. It was a cute, earth pony filly, still without a cutie mark. She was one of the few truly smiling infected here, and the fact that her face wasn’t paralyzed only made it sweeter. And all the more tragic.
"Primrose." said Hansen after a while. "According to research the young should be much less affected by leprosy ... ‘Should’ being the key word. But the worst part of all this is what she could achieve if it was not for leprosy. She doesn’t even have a cutie mark, and now she may have to die before she even gets it. She could live for so many years, to find lots of friends, she could even achieve something truly wonderful in her life. And now? Now, all of her existence comes down to the fact that she will be waiting for leprosy to spread into the next parts of her body and ultimately for her death. It will be a painful death, assuming that the lepra will strike the organs first, and not nerves. I don’t even pretend to have hope, I know that even if we did find a cure for leprosy, they’ll all be dead for months already. They, and dozens of ponies with same fate... "
"How can you be so sure?” Twilight asked, trembling a bit from Hansen’s words. “I thought that the discovery of leprosy bacteria gave us an opportunity to finally struck down this disease. Maybe we’re missing something? Maybe we’ll find the cure in a few days? Why the lack of hope?”
“We had hope for four thousand years now, and after all this time the only thing we know is how our enemy exactly looks like.” Hansen facial expression turned into a grim one. “You know what? Canterlot University wants to name this plague after me. ‘Hansen’s disease’. Just great. They are already afraid of me, and now ponies will cry after hearing my name.”
Twilight didn’t have an answer to that.
They went to a small laboratory. Dostoyevsky was sitting near the microscope and he was thoughtfully examining something through the eyepiece.
“How’s the histopathology?” Hansen asked.
The old doctor nodded slowly. He changed the crystal with the preparate to another. For a while he was recording his observations in a notebook.
“They are everywhere. In the kidney, the liver. Guts almost clean. You were right, it hit the centratus part of the body.”
“Excuse me, but could you explain that to me?” Twilight asked.
“Of course, Miss.” Dostoyevsky smiled. “The aegrotate who died suffered from some forma of...
“There are no variations.” Hansen protested. “This is all caused by the same bacteria.”
The old man nodded, grudgingly admitting he was right.
“He suffered from a relatively rare forma of leprosy. Usually we're dealing with leprosy’s full-blown form. On the body of the patient patches of skin insensitive to pain appear, forming lumps, cestibitus, then non-healing wounds. Sometimes the morbus strikes inside.”
The elder pony took the jar with a kidney immersed in a slightly yallowy isopropyl alcohol.
“Please look at this. Leprae striked this organ resorting to trace nerve fibers. The tissue was partially decomposed. Leprae usually sleeps in a pony for several months to unexpectedly break out within a few weeks, giving a full-blown form of the disease. As the first offendebare are nerves, the patients don’t feel any pain. Most of the time.”
“But yesterday...”
“As I said before, with this poor pony the situation was slightly different. The leprosy damaged his internal organs. The pain was a result of the calcium oxalate and urea intoxication. Please, use the microscope.” Dostoyevsky encouraged her.
Twilight approached and looked through the eyepiece. She saw a readied piece of tissue, probably from the spinal nerve. Before she arrived in Flankfurt, she read dozens of books about medicine, and thankfully that allowed her to actually know what was looking at. In many places she saw small, dark, bar-like creations. They were moving lazily. She saw them for the first time in her life. “So that’s what I’m fighting with...” Twilight thought silently.
“This is our enemy.” Hansen explained.
“They are still alive?”
“Isolated, they can live even up to two days after the death of the host. They can be killed by karbol, alcohol or high temperature. We have tried several different substances and we have tested their vitality...” the unicorn doctor answered.
“From what I heard, the scientists of Canterlot University, when they heard about your discovery, tried to repeat your observations, but they weren’t successful at this.” Twilight said
Dostoyevsky smiled acidly.
“Did they admit which part of our methodo they ignored? From your face, Miss, I see that you don’t know anything about it. We just bathe our specimin in the solution, with a small part of ink. This is our dear Amauer’s discovery...”
Hansen smiled embarrassed, but in his eyes Twilight spotted pride.
“I made this discovery accidentally.” he admitted.
“The coloration of the specimins was declared as the non-scientific method. They just banned the method at Canterlot University” Twilight noted.
“Indeed, we heard about it. But if it works... For us, we pendo benefits of this method rather than the possibility of being called frauds.” Dostoyevsky smiled.
Twilight looked through the eyepiece of the microscope once more. The bacteria moved a bit slower.
“How long is their lifespan outside a living body?” she asked. “I mean the tissue samples.”
“From seven to eight days. I suppose however, that in favorable conditions they can survive longer.” Hansen answered.
“Did you spot their multiplication?”
“Unfortunately, no. Maybe they can’t do that when the patient is dead or...”
“...They are doing it so tarde that we can’t spot that.” Dostoyevsky ended. “Considering the fact how long their incubation period is, it’s certainly possible.”
Outside, the wind cackled grimmly.
“Tomorrow, we’re coming to Mareggen, the old district of this town.” Hansen informed.” You’ll have the opportunity to see this from the practical point of view.
Twilight only nodded.