The Interrogation

Leo's eyes opened to see a square room with white walls and a big glass on their right, which only showed their reflections. It was like a room where police interrogated the criminals in the movies. It took a moment to realize that he was tied on a chair and had handcuffs on. Next to him were Brian, Sergio, and Dr.Jeffrey, who had all just opened their eyes.

'Where are we?' Leo mumbled.

'Why are we in this state?' thundered Dr. Jeffrey, confused.

'What the hell happened?' asked Sergio.

At that moment, a man entered the room, tall and broad, his black hair perfectly combed, wearing spectacles. He was accompanied by another, who was younger than him, a little short, red hair, round-faced, and both were wearing white coats. They both sat in front of them.

'You might be wondering why we brought you here like this. Don't worry, you will not be harmed. Let me introduce myself. I'm Dr.Samuel Paine, the head scientist of the Culverwell Science and Research Lab. This is my assistant, Dr.Gordon Maziel.' The second man gave a cheery look. 'Now let's get straight to the point. What were you doing near that Pit?'

The question made Leo's stomach turn over. Who was this man? Why did he want to know about that Pit? He was a scientist, after all, maybe he would.

'We just found it. We were, er, testing how deep it is.' said Sergio confidently.

'You don't need to lie. We know everything...' he hesitated. 'We know about that Pit and what secrets it holds. You won't be researching it without reason. It's not much disclosed to the people. They're too haughty to notice it. But you four, how did you discover it?'

Leo wondered whether to tell them or not. 'You won't believe us if we tell you.' he stated.

'We will, ' Paine replied. 'I have learned to believe everything about that Pit now. As told you, we understand.'

After hearing it, the four started the story. It was like yesterday. Every scene flashed around their eyes. Actually, it was yesterday. When they finished, Leo expected the other two to mock them, but they didn't but exchanged very serious glances. Dr.Paine threw a shocking look at the glass.

'So you ended up here?' he said. They nodded. 'Why did you put your hand in it, Doctor? Didn't you think it was dangerous?' he asked.

'To be honest, I didn't fully believe them, Doctor. Until that moment.' replied Dr.Jeffrey.

'You were lucky.' snapped Maziel.

'But why are you so interested? Why are you interrogating us? How do you know about that Pit? And most importantly, why have you tired us up?' thundered Sergio.

The two scientists exchanged a deep look. Then Paine said,' We will tell you everything. Promise us you won't tell it, anyone. Anyone. You understand?'

They all nodded. By his concerned look, they realized that he was really, really serious.

'What I'm going to tell you is top-secret. Only selected people know it. Just us. Just the people of the Lab. Do you realize how serious this is then?'

They nodded once again.

'Untie them, Maziel.'

Maziel did so, smiling at them. Leo's' hands we're free now. Paine then began, ' Nearly 30 years ago, I found a small dig in the State Park. A young girl had slipped her leg inside it. After we helped her, her leg was...' he had a disgusted look. 'It was not in a very good state. It was frozen, or whatever, I can't describe. I brought my team of scientists later. It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen in my life. We started studying it. We still are, of course. We haven't found 10% of the Pit's capabilities. After a couple of months, we thought we had to take a risk. We decided to send in a person. We built suits which, we thought, were capable of handling whatever was inside the Pit. Only one person volunteered. His name was Enischy Versterk.

'He was a 25-year-old American soldier, who was the bravest person I have ever seen in my life. His father was American and his mother was Swiss. He was a neighbor, you know. His father was killed in the Gulf War, and her mother passed away from shock. So he joined the Army. He said he wanted to be as courageous and brave as his father. Anyway, he volunteered for the task, said he can take the risk for scientific purposes. So we trained him, but being an army guy, he was pretty fast. We gave him good luck, and he went in, with all the protections and equipment. We both braced ourselves. All went well for a few minutes. The suit we designed was working, and he was fine.

'But only for a few minutes. We heard him scream. We tried our best to take him out of there, we tried everything. It took some time, but he was out. He was frozen, deadly frozen. His suit was damaged, barely left even. We saw some blood through the eyes. It took some more time to take him out of the ice, but he was breathing, fortunately. We warmed him up and tested him, scanned his whole body.

'The results were very, very weird. His muscles had grown tougher, stronger, he grew in height, his cells were mutated, his brain too.' Sergio's face was in awe. 'We found that the mutation meant that his cells will age much slower than a normal person. For example, 30 years will age him for only 3 years.' Even more gasps. 'We tried to have him up, I didn't expect it to work, but it did. He waked up, shocked and confused, how will you feel if that happened to you?' 'Awesome.' Sergio replied in awe. Paine ignored him.

'We conducted tests, several of them, and we had the conclusions. He had become stronger, more intelligent, enhanced. But he hated it. Soon, he began to think that it was all our fault. I talked to him, but he was disappointed. He thought we treated him like a lab rat. But why could we have done? After a year of that accident, he ran away from the lab, and I realized the biggest mistake I have ever done in my life.'