As I ran toward the altar, several people were not fleeing in haste from this crisis, but offering prayers. Watching the believers’ actions, I was overcome by an indescribable feeling. Praying, in a situation where the ceiling was collapsing downward and the seawater pouring in like a waterfall had become a torrent sweeping away everything around us.
“Run away, now!”
“······Please save us. Please grant our wish.”
I shouted that the savior they believed in wasn’t here, that they should swim for their lives even now, but then I saw the promenade and the entrance I had walked with Kim Jaehui collapse and vanish below, and I shut my mouth.
The floor split apart with deafening cracks, and seawater crashed down to fill the fissures as if riding the gaps. The believers stopped their prayers at the ear-splitting roar, watched that sight, and began to pray even more desperately.
Due to the pressure difference between the building’s interior and exterior, fierce winds swept once through the gap between the cracked floor and shattered ceiling, swirling from top to bottom. Thin glass around us shattered, and unsecured light leaves and fallen branches rose on the wind, swaying about. Petals from the flower garden that, judging by the location, would be blooming at the edge of the Garden of the Hesperides flew all the way here. My arms and legs were scratched by rising glass shards, and my face stung as though it had been cut. The hat I was wearing flew off in the wind and was swept away by the current, soon plummeting toward the bottom of the abyss.
Not knowing when I would die. ······Yes. If praying was what they wanted to do at the end, they might as well do it to their heart’s content. My throat was so hoarse I could not scream anymore.
Around the broken altar, four believers sat crouched. Listening to the desperate wishes of the Muhan Church believers, I could not help but think that listening to the Crack! Crack! of concrete and steel breaking and falling toward our heads would be better for my mental health. Some wished for lost families back, and there were absurd wishes like reviving a ruined company or granting their nation the hegemony of the imperialist era. The gist of their wishes was to be sent to the past they desired. And immediately, right now.
When begging just to be saved was not enough, who would grant such wishes? They said the First Underwater Base was located at a depth of 50 meters; at six atmospheres, it was a place where even fish did not come. Who could hear prayers offered up in water like this?
The fountain water that had been falling incessantly from above like a curtain seemed to have broken due to the misaligned ceiling, and black water that fell from above filled the altar’s pure white basin, flowers floating about. It looked like someone had filled a bathtub and dissolved black bath salts in it. Watching the people begging to be saved and the buildings collapsing, places disappearing or being destroyed in real time, I suddenly thought that if anyone was curious what hell looked like, I would want to show them this place.
Sounds of water, crying, and tremendous roars ceaselessly surrounded us. Strangely, the trees and grass that were the masters of this Garden of the Hesperides uttered no screams even as they were crushed by the collapsing ceiling or swept away by seawater, falling endlessly below.
As I watched the ceiling opening to seawater grow wider and a huge stream of water fall through the hole in the floor, from afar a fish tank the size of a house came sliding along the current toward us. Inside the thick tank, fish swam about, oblivious.
On the outside of the tank glass, neat letters reading RESCUE were affixed together with the mark of a marine rescue organization. It seemed people from that organization had rescued injured creatures and placed them in that tank. The entire tank was swept away by the current, floated about, then silently disappeared into the hole pierced in the floor of the First Underwater Base. I prayed that the tank would quickly shatter so that the trapped creatures could at least return to the sea.
I had been so distracted by the giant tank that I only realized someone was approaching afterward. They seemed to be coming from the entrance opposite the one I had entered, running this way while luckily avoiding places that had collapsed or were collapsing. My heart pounded with worry that the ceiling might fall on their head or the floor might suddenly disappear beneath them. I shouted for them to run the opposite way, but I could not tell whether they could not hear or were ignoring me. As the distant figure drew closer, I first noticed the blue rifle sling. As she approached, my breath caught in my throat. Anna Garcia, was it?
Even as seawater poured down like a waterfall and the ceiling fell apart, the woman approached the altar slowly, as though the disasters unfolding beside her were none of her concern. Staring at the black water filling the basin, she took out a dried yellow flower from her bosom and tossed it in. Then, holding the green gemstone that had been dangling from her gun, she stood still for a moment as though time had stopped. Unlike the believers absorbed in prayer, when she felt my gaze watching her intently, she spoke.
“It’s an Elysian harmony. I grew it for five years, and it finally bloomed this time. I couldn’t bring a fresh flower, so I brought it dried.”
“Did you come to make a wish in this situation? ······Aren’t you scared?”
The building was collapsing in real time.
“Because death here would be instantaneous. Why aren’t you scared?”
“I am so scared that I have become calm instead.”
“Is that something you picked to eat?”
At Anna’s words, I lowered my gaze and saw that I was still clutching the orange tightly in one hand. Perhaps because I was gripping it so hard, I had lost feeling in my hand. My thumb had dug into the orange, and the pulp felt like I was touching flesh. Trying to forget the burst oranges, the blood pooling around my feet, and the citrus fragrance that had exploded forth, I answered.
“I received it as a gift. What wish did you make?”
“This and that.”
I found it amazing that I could hold a conversation with this Anna. I had thought of her as someone who shot and killed people indiscriminately for her own convenience, yet here she was speaking perfectly normally. Why was this person here? Were the people who had gone to Daehan Island safe?
“Shouldn’t you be on Daehan Island?”
“Exactly. I came late to see the altar and ended up seeing this spectacle.”
“······What happened to the people who escaped to Daehan Island on the escape pods from the underwater base?”
“Why are you curious about that?”
Anna glanced briefly at the praying believers around the altar, then looked at me and walked a little closer. I habitually lowered my head slightly to hide my face with my hat, only to realize my hat was gone.
“······An Asian man, height······around the mid-to-late 170s centimeters. Black hair, dark brown pupils. Ah. One is slightly blue. Did you have that eye’s color removed with surgery?”
“It happened by accident.”
“What is your name?”
Revealing my full name in this situation did not seem like it would change anything. She seemed to be asking because she already suspected who I was. Watching the floor split apart with cracks, I answered.
“I am Park Muhyeon.”
At those words, the people crying and praying beside the altar snapped their heads up, and all eight of their eyes fixed on me. Shivers ran down my spine. ······I had thought there would be nothing left to fear when on the verge of death. The prayers had already stopped.
“So it’s you. ······I see. You are the one who will gift us the past again. To think I could be so grateful. To think you would be right beside the altar in this situation.”
“There is nothing I can give you.”
Anna shook her head and silently picked up the handle of the sword leaning against the altar. The blade was shaped like the Green Dragon Crescent Blade that Guan Yu had supposedly used, but it was at least five times larger than a kitchen knife. Though it looked like it would weigh a ton, Anna lifted it with one hand and spoke in a gentle voice.
“They say this is inscribed with ‘Turn back time’ in Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Sumerian, and Egyptian.”
Anna, holding the sword that was the length of a man’s arm, raised the corner of her lips and grinned at me. Somehow it was scarier than when she had aimed a gun at me. It felt as though my soul was leaving my body.
“They wrote impossible nonsense. It cannot be done.”
“Are you Park Muhyeon?”
“Grant my wish first!”
“Come this way. It is dangerous.”
“Lady Elizabeth will become the savior! You are nothing but a fake!”
The believers around us clamored whatever they wanted to say.
“Yes! Lady Elizabeth is the savior, and I am not! There seems to have been some misunderstanding—agh!”
Anna rapidly closed the distance and wordlessly swung the sword in a great arc. To avoid the blade, I threw myself to the floor and rolled three times. As I quickly got up and staggered backward, Anna followed in a single step while gripping the sword.
“What was it now. They said you only need a little blood as an offering for the altar. I don’t really know how much ‘a little’ is.”
Crazy. What do you mean, a little. If I had been hit by that just now, my head would have been severed. I immediately turned and started running. There was almost nowhere to run. Anna pursued me skillfully, as though driving prey into a corner. Was there a reason she did not just shoot me with her gun? Feeling the hair at the nape of my neck fly off from Anna’s blade, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“I am not the savior! Aaagh! You crazy bastards!”
“I’m curious what would happen if I offered your blood to the altar, so I’d like to try at least once. It’s not like I have anything to lose in this situation anyway.”
So you have nothing to lose, but what about me? One believer pointed at me and spoke in a skeptical tone.
“He’s just an ordinary Asian! There is no way he is our savior!”
“But his name was written on the diamond. It might be him.”
“Jamal might have written that on his own! It is Lady Elizabeth!”
“Anna! Bring him here!”
Anna swung the sword wildly and charged at me. The complacent thought that a hit from that sword would certainly kill me and the thought that I did not want to be struck by it even if I died occurred simultaneously.
It would not have taken even a second for Kim Jaehui to die when the concrete ceiling collapsed. I am not sure if I should say this, but Kim Jaehui was lucky. Where is the instant-death concrete ceiling prepared for me! I felt as though I could hear Kim Jaehui’s laughter in my ears. There was no longer any space to dodge.
I asked softly, expecting Anna to refuse.
“Saving a life is about consistently practicing small actions. Not through absurd prayers or the blood of someone who has been unlucky all day!”
“We are going to die anyway, so why not let the believers use that body? I plan to live diligently and honestly until right before I die.”
“I intend to do the same.”
“How delightful to have something in common with the savior.”
And Anna swung the blade and leaped at me. With nowhere left to dodge, I threw myself straight into the seawater. I grabbed onto an uprooted magnolia tree and immediately slid into the rapids. When my back touched the seawater, it stung. I must have been narrowly cut. Even if Anna tried to attack again, the current was too fast. I had thought my mental fortitude was weak, but now it seemed I did not faint easily. Or perhaps I had already passed out and was watching this happen.
If I had been near Kim Jaehui, perhaps I would have been crushed to death together with that orange tree. Hanging from the tree by my upper body, I could see everything attached to the ceiling falling toward the floor. The altar and believers vanished in an instant. The concrete walls that had protected people from the raging sea mercilessly crushed everything around them.
Luckily, the tree I was hanging onto got caught entirely on a steel frame. Was this really good luck? Like the bottom of a pot being punched through, everything swept away by the surrounding water was falling down like a waterfall. The empty spaces were all filled with seawater. I had felt as though the cable car crashed all at once, but did concrete buildings take time to collapse? I slipped after being hit by the current and plunged into dark, cold water.
I woke up from the impact of falling out of bed.