As I looked toward the sunlit patch above my head, I saw Riko rising to the surface. He had inflated his BCD vest to its fullest and hung there limply. Shin Haeryang followed right after Riko. Once Shin Haeryang had reached the surface, he was silent for a while, perhaps taking off his helmet, before the radio came through again.
“The boats and yachts moored along the shore have all been burned, and smoke is rising from the helipad as well. It seems the terrorists tried to eliminate every possible means of escape so no one could flee Daehan Island.”
Shin Haeryang must not know what’s happening outside. Given the location of the First Undersea Base, we were positioned offshore, some distance away from Daehan Island, but even from here it seemed you could catch glimpses of the smoke rising from the island. With a small, longing hope, I asked Shin Haeryang,
“Do you see any of the people who left on the escape craft?”
“The escape craft, submersibles, and industrial diving zones were placed apart so they wouldn’t overlap, so I can’t confirm anything with the naked eye right now.”
True enough. It would be a disaster if an escape craft rose toward the surface and, however rarely, collided with a submersible or divers. Now that I thought about it, they must have spaced them out to prevent accidents.
“I see. I’m sorry for suddenly taking your necklace.”
I quickly said it because I was afraid Shin Haeryang might come back down in this situation, claiming he needed to retrieve his necklace.
“You saw what just happened, but I don’t think we can go to the surface while wearing jewelry. I don’t know why, but it seems like the jewels are keeping us from leaving the sea.”
Kim Jaehee was examining Shin Haeryang’s lapis lazuli necklace, and she looked as though she was enjoying being blocked by some kind of invisible barrier from reaching the surface. It was the complete opposite of her team leader when he’d realized he couldn’t escape as he pleased in a situation where the air he could breathe freely was limited. After hearing my transmission, Shin Haeryang answered quickly in a cold voice.
“Muhyeon. I advise you to throw away my necklace and come up to the surface. We can’t lose a person over that necklace. And check whether you have any jewels on you, like I did. If you do, give them up and get out of the water.”
……Do I have anything that could be called jewelry on me? I put on the diving suit with nothing else. Just in case, I tried swimming upward again, but it was still impossible.
“I tried, but it won’t work. I don’t know why I can’t get out. I’m not wearing any jewelry like you were, Haeryang. I’ll tell Jaehee to get out first.”
Since I couldn’t get out myself, I spoke to Kim Jaehee to at least send out my buddy, who never listened to me.
“Jaehee. When you have a chance, you need to get out immediately. This is that chance. You have to get out now if you want to escape.”
“Why should I get out?”
“What?”
Kim Jaehee seemed fascinated by the necklace, turning it over and touching it this way and that, then gripping it in her hand and shaking it as she said in a voice filled with rapture,
“When one of the few genuine articles in the world is right here, why would I leave? I’m not leaving this place.”
“Kim Jaehee!”
Shin Haeryang, listening over the radio from the surface, called his team member’s name as if his insides were bursting. If you weren’t going to leave, why did you come all the way here with us! Shin Haeryang’s shout came through the radio. He had a point.
“Then why did you come this far?”
“I came because the Savior was here. I no longer have any intention of leaving this undersea base. We just witnessed a miracle. It feels like it’s telling us not to leave, doesn’t it? And you want me to go out alone? Then what are you planning to do, Savior? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of going to Apep alone? Abandoning me, your buddy? Do you even know how to take off scuba gear?”
“I’ll go alone. To be honest, I don’t know how to take off scuba gear, but they must have made it so it can somehow be removed with one hand. I’ll handle it. If I can’t, I’ll just carry the scuba gear around. Give me that stolen Apep remote and go up to the surface.”
Shin Haeryang exchanged a few more words with Riko at the surface, then spoke to us over the radio.
“……Both of you, stay calm and remain right where you are. I’m coming back down.”
From the sound of Shin Haeryang’s voice, he seemed ready to knock out his own team member, Kim Jaehee, if necessary, and drag her out of the sea by force. Here was one person refusing to leave even though the chance to escape from this hellish place was right in front of her. And another who had escaped perfectly well was saying he’d come back down. Were both of them joking around in front of someone who couldn’t escape?
“Haeryang. Don’t dive back down! Instead, go to Daehan Island with Riko, find your team members, and come up with a way to escape! I’ll try persuading Jaehee again. Tell the whole world there are people being held in this undersea base because of a cult and ask them to hurry with the rescue. Haaah.”
Far in the distance, a shark was leisurely swimming this way. Its presence was so overwhelming that my gaze went to it on its own. It appeared so suddenly that I forgot what I had been saying over the radio.
When subtropical fish passed by us, I had found them fascinating, even cute, but the moment I saw a shark, I couldn’t get my head straight. The great white shark that had bitten my side was much larger than the shark approaching us. This one coming toward us was a kind I’d never seen before, and though it was far smaller than the great white, my body went rigid and I couldn’t move.
Kim Jaehee must have seen the approaching shark too, because she stopped fiddling with the necklace in her gloved hand and said to me,
“It’s a sand tiger shark. Seeing one is like plucking a star from the sky. We’re lucky. If I had a camera, I would’ve taken some pictures with it. ……Do you dislike sharks?”
Kim Jaehee was looking at the approaching shark as if she’d won the lottery. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be a small great white. The sand tiger shark came near us, then passed by my side. Unable to tear my eyes away from the way it moved, I watched it swim around us.
Why the hell is it swimming around here? Of all the vast ocean out there. Seo Jihyuk’s voice came to mind, telling me to punch a shark if it attacked. How was that even possible? I’d rather fight a bear. Frozen in terror, unable to answer her question, I stayed stiff as Kim Jaehee watched me, then asked again,
“Should I chase the shark away for you?”
I panted for breath and barely managed to answer. A loud warning beep rang out, saying Diver 3’s heart rate was high and his breathing had become rapid.
“Haaah. Haaah. Haaah. ……Yes.”
“Would you like Team Leader Shin to get out of the seawater?”
“Haaah. Hah. Yes. ……And while you’re at it, you should get out too, Jaehee.”
“You really are greedy. But a faithful believer is meant to obey even the unreasonable demands of their savior. Here. Hold this.”
Kim Jaehee placed Shin Haeryang’s necklace in my hand. At that moment, everything in the sea that had been binding Kim Jaehee disappeared. Freely kicking the seawater with her fins, Kim Jaehee rose upward. She ignored her team leader, who had begun diving again and was descending, and passed right by him. Shin Haeryang had gone up quickly, but he was slow coming down. Was it because he’d dropped his weight belt?
Shin Haeryang asked Kim Jaehee over the radio if she was going to exit the water, but Kim Jaehee did not answer. Up there was Riko, who had inflated his BCD vest to the fullest and was resting while drifting far away, leaving his body to the waves and currents.
What is she trying to do? Kim Jaehee touched her own thigh, then lightly brushed the area around Riko’s calf. At that, blood burst from Riko’s calf, and for a very brief moment, the seawater around him turned red. What is she doing? My brain couldn’t understand what was happening before my eyes.
Through the reflected sunlight shining beneath the surface, I barely realized there was a knife in Kim Jaehee’s hand. The moment I saw it, I began to understand what Kim Jaehee had just done. All of this had happened less than two minutes after I answered her. Kim Jaehee put the diving knife back in place on her thigh as if nothing had happened, then swam back down toward me.
Riko’s hand, still at the surface, came down into the water as if something felt strange and moved toward the shallow cut on his calf. Then he touched the torn part of his wetsuit around his calf with his hand. His hand moved as if that spot suddenly stung, but he had no idea why it hurt and itched.
I saw the shark that had been circling us relatively calmly turn its head immediately. Did it smell the blood? It felt like my breath stopped. I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
“Watch out! The shark is coming! Riko’s calf is bleeding! Jaehee did it!”
When I pointed at Riko and screamed over the radio at the top of my lungs, Shin Haeryang, who had been coming this way, immediately shifted toward Riko. Then he grabbed one of the guns he had been carrying over his shoulder like luggage. The shark made a wide circle and approached Riko. I felt like I was going to faint. Even if you fired a gun underwater, even if it was a rifle, it would be useless unless you were within close range, less than three meters.
Kim Jaehee, the one who had created this whole mess, was holding me from behind and swimming downward. Over the radio, she seemed to be saying that there was no point staying here and that we should go back to Apep, but her words weren’t reaching my ears properly. Her voice sounded too far away, like a muffled buzzing. The shock to my mind was so great that dizziness swept over me and my vision nearly went black.
I groped at Kim Jaehee’s thigh as she dragged me from behind. The moment I pulled out the diving knife she was wearing, I stabbed the area around Kim Jaehee’s thigh. From far away, Shin Haeryang’s voice and noises I couldn’t tell were gunshots or something else sounded faintly through the water.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! An endless, repetitive noise rang in my ears. It seemed one diver’s vital signs were in very bad condition. Someone was speaking over the radio, but the noise was so loud that I couldn’t hear the transmission properly. My breath rose all the way to my throat. Thank god I was wearing a helmet. Even if I was crying, other people wouldn’t be able to see it well.
When I came to my senses, I was inside Apep, and Kim Jaehee was locking the wall between the open sea and Apep, which had opened through the button on her wrist. The wall came down from above, and the moment it completely erased the sea from view, there was a bang as if something had collided with it.
Looking at the knife shallowly embedded in her thigh, Kim Jaehee let out something like an “Ow, ow,” over the radio. Then she manipulated the remote button hanging from her wrist and drained the seawater that had filled Apep’s interior.
As the water packed inside Apep gradually receded over time, it felt like a black cave. The lower the seawater level fell, the more impossible it became to endure the weight of the scuba diving gear. Unable to withstand the thirty kilograms, I slowly sank down onto the floor. Kim Jaehee pulled out the knife shallowly embedded in her thigh.