He told us that everyone had died outside. That the forest is contaminated. If we go out, we die too.
The investigator felt he was no longer breathing normally.
Did you believe him too?
Lia laughed short.
An empty laugh.
We were kids.
In the first few months, the teacher had kept them hidden using fear.
Then he used hunger.
He was beating anyone trying to run.
He told them the families had abandoned them.
That no one is looking for them.
Some children had died in the early years due to illness and lack of medication.
As time went on, those who were left began to live there as in a separate world.
No calendars.
No school.
Without the notion of time.
And the part that most terrified the investigators came after.
The professor had died almost ten years ago.
But no one had left.
Roman asked slowly:
Why?
Lia raised her eyes to him.
The eyes of a man destroyed too much darkness.
“Because after a while… I didn’t know if the outside world really existed.
Underground children were born.
Children’s children’s children.
Some people never saw the sky.
A twelve-year-old girl started screaming when she felt the rain on her skin for the first time.
A boy fainted when he saw the traffic in Brasov.
Doctors and psychologists were working non-stop.
