As soon as I exited the room with the cat, I saw someone burst out—probably because of the alarm. It was Vladimir, staggering drunkenly as he came out of Room 65.
The man saw the water rising to his calves and pressed something on his wrist pad. All the doors opened at once, and the alarm that had been screeching *wheeeeeeeeng* was now blaring *bwong-bwong-bwong-bwong*. I thought my eardrums would burst. Hadn't Vladimir said he was the leader of the Russian engineering team? A woman emerged from the room Vladimir had just left, tying her blonde hair.
“What’s going on? Ugh…… fucking hell.”
Seeing the water up to her calves, the woman spat out a stream of Russian curses. Vladimir shouted at her.
“Nikita! Go straight to the escape pod!”
The moment Vladimir finished speaking, that woman named Nikita grabbed the wrist of Yugeumi beside me and ran, and Yugeumi started running along in a daze. Since the floor was completely flooded, they couldn't pick up speed, and as the receding figure slowly moved away, it shouted “Muhyeon!” toward me. I waved my hand, telling them to go on ahead. Then, as I glanced into Room 66, Vladimir was looking at Room 67.
“Aren’t you going, Vladimir?”
“Our guys all passed out drunk. They won’t wake up even if I kick them.”
In Room 67, just as he’d said, a man smelling of alcohol was asleep despite the deafening alarm. The moment Vladimir rushed in, he slapped the man’s cheek with a palm as big as a pot lid. Watching from outside, I wondered if his molars had been knocked out, but the man’s head spun around twice before he finally woke.
“Nikolai! You stupid bastard, wake up!”
With Russian curses echoing behind me, I found someone lying in bed in Room 68. Before entering, the nameplate by the door caught my eye: Sofia. She was asleep with her top off. I shouted Sofia’s name in front of the door. Of course, no one sleeping through this alarm was going to wake up. I picked up the blanket lying on the floor, threw it over her body, and yanked the pillow from under her head.
“Sofia!”
Seeing Sofia sit up with half-closed eyes, I ran to Room 69. In Room 69, a man who looked to be about two meters tall was sleeping naked without even a blanket, and vodka bottles were rolling around the bed. I read the nameplate by the door. Viktor Vasil…… Was it *yev* or *lev*?
I picked up a ballpoint pen rolling around on the desk beside the bed, clicked the back once to extend the tip, then scratched hard down the sole of his bare foot. His body jerked and twitched, then he raised his head. His face was crimson from drunkenness.
“Wake up! Hurry!”
Vladimir had gone all the way to Room 72, but there was no one. Just as I was about to run to Room 73, someone grabbed my shoulder from behind. His grip was so strong I nearly fell over.
“Dentist! You need to get to the escape pod.”
Seawater was rising to my thighs. Only then did I realize my whole body was shivering. The water was freezing. Was seawater always this cold? It had been warm when splashing around at the beach. I looked at Room 74 and pointed with my fingers in both directions.
“I haven’t checked them all yet!”
“Then check them all and die!”
With that, Vladimir began splashing not toward the stairs beside Room 80, but toward the central staircase beside Room 40. The remaining Russians followed him toward the central staircase. Was this the best option? I hadn’t been able to check Rooms 1 through 37 at all. To check all the way to 80, there were still 6 rooms left.
Each room was about 2.5 meters. The water was thigh-deep, so I would have to walk at least 21 meters there and back. Something wriggled against my back. Startled for a moment, I realized it was the cat in my bag moving.
……If I hadn’t checked them, I couldn’t have saved them anyway. If I had decided to do this, I had to be fast. I ran in the opposite direction from them. *I won’t be late. I won’t be late!* I screamed inwardly as I splashed through, checking the open Rooms 74 and 75. Empty. In Room 76, I found a long snake. What kind of crazy bastard keeps something like this?!
Without even time to think, I grabbed the snake with my bare hand, shoved it into my bag between the candies and chocolate bars, and zipped it up. Rooms 78 and 79 seemed empty. I staggered and splashed all the way to Room 80. Now it was hard even to walk. *Please, let there be no one. Please, let it be empty.*
A boy was sleeping in Room 80. It was insane. He hadn’t woken up even though the alarm was blaring *bwong-bwong-bwong-bwong*. Even as my brain felt like it was shutting down, I diligently gathered the medicine bottles on the table that doubled as a desk and stuffed them into the bag with the cat, then slung the bag with the snake across my chest. Then I hoisted the boy onto my back.
Until I reached Room 76, my mind was completely blank. Nothing came to me except the thought that I had to walk fast. I followed the path others had already taken, steadying myself against the wall. The water that had been at my thighs surged up to my waist in an instant.
Walking through the water was incredibly difficult. It felt like I had to kick the water with each step to move. Around my stomach, the cat wriggled occasionally, and the sleeping child didn’t stir even though his feet were completely submerged in seawater. Splashing past Room 74, Room 73, I constantly muttered to myself that I was almost there, that there wasn’t far to go. *I mustn’t be swept away by fear. If I’m swept away by fear, it’s over. I can get out. Stay calm.*
……I mustn’t fall. If I fall, it’s over. Walk quickly. But I mustn’t fall. I supported the child’s bottom, which was sliding down my back, with my arm, and bit the strap of the bag containing the snake that kept trying to sink into the water. My ears felt like they would go numb from the *bwong-bwong-bwong-bwong* of the alarm.
Coming out after checking Room 80, I finally realized where the water was coming from—it was pouring down like a waterfall from the stairs right next to Room 80. Did that Russian team leader know that and deliberately head for the central staircase? Was the central staircase beside Room 40 safe? It must be safe; that’s why they went that way.
Damn it. What if the central staircase *isn’t* safe? I’m already more than halfway there trying to reach it. And why the hell do the bastards at this undersea base keep pets when they’re not allowed? And what’s with the kid?
Unauthorized personnel couldn’t be at the undersea base. In particular, minors couldn’t even enter the Fourth Undersea Base. The boy on my back, who looked about seven, didn’t seem like essential personnel for this undersea base. Why the hell is there a kid here?!
I cursed my head off and barely made it to the central staircase beside Room 40, but the water was already rising above my waist. I was out of breath from walking through the water.
Gasping, I climbed the stairs and nearly slipped twice; each time, I grabbed the stair railing with one hand and hung on for dear life. With one arm supporting the child’s bottom, a bag in my mouth, and one hand gripping the stairs, it was maddening trying to climb. Once I climbed out of the water, something was blocking the stairs.
I saw that the stairs themselves were blocked by a door that prevented going any higher. So the stairs could be sealed from the middle like that. They’d blocked it off because the quarters were flooding. To keep the water from reaching the escape pod port and the other sections. The moment that thought hit me, my vision went dark. I clambered up the stairs and pounded on the door with my whole body, screaming.
“Open the door! There’s someone here! I’m telling you, there’s someone here!”
The water had already chased me up the stairs. Even standing on the top step, the water touching the tops of my feet was now rising to my ankles. The thought that I was going to die flooded over me.
“You bastards! Did you lock the door and run away to save yourselves?! There’s someone here! Open the door! Open it, quick!”
A sob burst out of me.
“Open the door! Did you run away like that just to save yourselves?! How can people do this?! Open the door! You bastards! There’s someone here! Save me!”
I’d screamed so much that now I could barely see. I thought I was in the middle of screaming when a sound came from outside the door, and at the same time, a hand reached in.
A huge hand reached through the door, dragged me in as if lifting me, and threw me into a corner. Only after I crashed sideways to the floor did I realize it was a man named Viktor, with a physique over two meters tall. He closed the door again before the water following me up the stairs could rise in. Viktor locked the door and then completely destroyed the panel beside it. I asked in a daze.
“Didn’t you board the escape pod?”
“Dunno.”
With that, he lifted the child collapsed beside me with one hand and hoisted him onto his back. Then he began walking toward the escape pod.
Only then did I realize this man had returned from the escape pod port back to the quarters for me. Even though a child who looked six or seven had gotten off my back, I felt as light as if I’d set down a steel rod. Only then did I realize my water-soaked clothes were pressing down on my body like weights.
Whether the adrenaline racing through me was wearing off or not, every step was a struggle. I hurriedly wiped my face, ruined with tears and snot, with my sleeve. Suppressing the urge to throw away everything soaked in seawater, I walked toward the escape pod port.