I lay sprawled on the floor like a turtle, my cheek pressed against it, unmoving. I didn’t want to twitch so much as a finger. I wanted to lie on the floor like this forever. The floor and I were already one body.
Only when my nosebleed had not only soaked my philtrum but dampened my lips and cheek did I finally get up, because I couldn’t put it off any longer. I plugged my nose with tissues and towels and wiped at my face. Then I sank weakly into a chair, pressing one hand to my forehead while pinching my nose with the other.
I wanted to do nothing, meet no one, and just rest quietly in my room. Even though I knew full well that I couldn’t, I still wanted to. Whenever I did nothing, the situation only got worse and worse. Soon seawater would come flooding into the room. The more time passed while I did nothing, the fewer choices I would have left.
I didn’t want to meet people, either. In a single day, I had seen far too many immoral acts, and there were more people than I’d expected who shattered common sense. On land, I could avoid people like that, but in this cramped underwater base, I couldn’t avoid anyone.
No matter how high the seawater rose, I wanted to spend the whole day lying in my room crying, thinking about why humans needed conscience and morality, and what exactly was wrong with bastards who acted like they didn’t have any. Or I wanted to watch any random drama or movie on my pad, escape reality, tremble with anxiety, and waste my precious time recklessly.
······Life was too hard. A person could make a bad choice when changing jobs.
When I thought of Anna charging at me with a knife, I could barely breathe. She was terrifying every time I met her. Just because I made one bad choice joining a company, did I really need to go through something this awful? The orange I had been holding had vanished, but Shin Haeryang’s lapis lazuli necklace that had been beneath it remained in my hand. It was enough to drive me insane.
Why had this jewel followed me? Was I really going to die and come back to life as many times as there were jewels in the exhibition hall? Even Jesus only died once, didn’t he? As far as I knew, Dionysus died and came back to life twice. If a person died and came back to life around a hundred times, could they really leave this place and live an ordinary life? If shocking events like this kept happening, would my brain be able to endure it?
······There was one loop I didn’t remember at all. What had happened? I had a feeling things so horrible had happened that I couldn’t even remember them, but personally, I didn’t want to see them. Let them remain like ash, unknown to anyone.
Water crept slowly into the room. I was staring blankly at the water touching the soles of my feet when I turned my gaze and saw the family photo. I loved them very much, but after living together for more than thirty years, I had also wanted to spend the short period of my work at the underwater base apart from them. That was why I had found a place that paid well and provided lodging, too. Who could have known something like this would happen? What if I never saw my family again?
······I shouldn’t think such negative thoughts. Last time, far more people escaped than I had expected. If there were hard and difficult days, then there ought to be a day when things worked out, too. The more people escaped, the more people there would be who knew I was trapped here, so wouldn’t just as many helping hands arrive to rescue me?
A cynical thought crossed my mind: maybe it would be faster if I acquired engineering skills, repaired a broken submersible by myself over half a day, and escaped into the open sea—or stole a gun, acquired killing skills, and killed every person hostile to me before leaving. But I knew both methods were impossible.
With the first method, there was no telling how many times I would drown. With the second, even if it were possible, I didn’t think I could live sanely after escaping. Guilt and regret would cling to me, then appear like nightmares on lonely nights and show me the things I had done.
The harder the situation became, the more I wanted to look only at the negative and hopeless side. Was I repeating something worthless? Had the people who went out to Daehan Road not survived safely, but died in an even more horrific way? Every time I thought things like that, I was crushed by anxiety and fear.
I clenched the jewel in my hand. Clumsily, I comforted myself. Still, you met plenty of kind and good people in this underwater base. There were lots of strange and crazy people, but among them, there were good people too. Those people were able to leave the underwater base successfully. Those good people don’t have to die over and over again in this dark sea. They’ll know you’re here. Just that alone—how much comfort that is in this situation.
Let’s think only about the positive and hopeful side. This time, I’ll be able to get out. I’ll get out and look at the sea from the shore. Without soaking my body in seawater. I’ll be together with good people.
I tried to forget the thought that, because so many people had escaped except for me, I was gradually being left alone in a building swarming with believers of the Church of Infinity. Just think about getting through today. Don’t think as far as tomorrow. Just today.
“Let’s do our best again today.”
Even after I rummaged thoroughly through my suitcase and the makeshift wardrobe, there were almost no black clothes. I had figured I would buy clothes after seeing roughly what the people at the underwater base wore, so aside from towels and socks, I hadn’t brought much.
I hadn’t brought that much luggage, so I couldn’t understand why my suitcase was so heavy. Among the black clothes, the only decent thing I had was one suit I had packed in case I ended up attending a funeral. After hesitating for three seconds, I put on the black suit pants and a shirt.
Into my backpack, I shoved the black suit jacket, an extra pair of pants and underwear just in case, one long-sleeved shirt, candies, several towels, emergency medicine, and the family photo. Even if I died again, I didn’t want to let this seawater submerge the family photo. I put on socks and shoes and was about to leave the room when Noeul’s doll suddenly caught my eye.
When my eyes met the orange whale’s, I felt guilty about leaving it behind. During this harsh base life, you were the one who helped me most closely, at least. ······If you’d been on land, children would have hugged you with their whole bodies and endured pain along with their tears. Unluckily, you ended up in an underwater base, eating nothing but dust. And being squeezed to bursting by people built like bears.
I was about to run out of the room, but after hesitating for a moment, I took out two towels, crammed Noeul’s doll inside, and closed the backpack.
As I walked down the corridor where the water had risen to the tops of my feet, I thought I had become a veteran at walking through a leaking underwater base. At first, I had been terrified, looking ahead and behind me, taking each step cautiously so I wouldn’t fall. Now there was none of that. I quickly set off the emergency alarm throughout all of Baekho-dong on my pad and walked down the corridor without even looking ahead. Taking in every room I passed with my eyes, I arrived at Room 23.
Inside Baek Ayeong’s room, whose door was open, books and clothes lying on the floor were floating in the water. Without hesitation, I strode toward the dressing table.
On the jewelry box placed atop the dressing table, the Korean words [Touch it and your wrist gets cut off] were written at the very top, and below that, it seemed to be written in English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, and Arabic as well.
I remembered Baek Ayeong saying I had to pull out the comb from the dressing table. But there wasn’t only one comb on the dressing table. In the container where she kept her combs, there were seven of them, all different sizes and shapes.
There were two round cylindrical brushes, one large and one small. There was one square, flat comb as big as my palm, another square and flat one about half the size of my palm, one comb that looked as huge as an axe, and two combs with small, fine teeth and extremely thin, long handles. No. ······A person only had one head—did she really need this many combs?
As someone who had solved everything about my hair with one comb, I stared in bewildered dismay at the seven combs before checking their materials first. She’d said the handle was metal.
Then I ran into another problem. One comb was mother-of-pearl, and several were wood or plastic, but there were three combs whose handles and bodies were entirely metal.
Could I pull out any random one? Baek Ayeong seemed like the kind of person who would gift a powerful electric shock to anyone who chose the wrong answer.
Suddenly, I remembered the way Baek Ayeong had tied up her hair. The brush with the round body looked like it would be used to curl hair, so I ruled it out. I also eliminated the small square comb whose entire body was metal.
By process of elimination, the one left at the end was the comb with an extremely thin and long handle. I wrapped the head of the comb in a towel and lifted it. As soon as I pulled the comb out of the container, the four perfectly functioning lights on the dressing table went out with a pop. I was startled by the sudden situation, but nothing happened to my body as I stood frozen, holding the comb.
“Hah······ah. Thank goodness.”
The water was already surging up past my ankles. I let out a sigh of relief and opened the jewelry box. And then I was even more shocked than when the lights had gone out.
Inside the jewelry box, square gold bars I had never seen before in my life were packed neatly throughout the entire box like Tetris blocks. There were also a handful of gold earrings, bracelets, rings, and necklaces. This wasn’t just one or two hundred million won. I was ignorant about gold, but even at a glance, it looked like it would easily exceed a billion won.
I had once seen videos of people sending underwater drones toward treasure ships that had run aground hundreds of years ago and toward cemeteries beneath the sea, wasting money and time in hopes of striking it rich. While watching those videos, I hadn’t understood why people searched for things like that. But after seeing Baek Ayeong’s jewelry box, I had the feeling that she would try to return to Underwater Base Four even if it took decades to find this.
Looking around the room, I found a small bag like a pencil case, the kind that could hold little items like cosmetics. I emptied its contents and shoved all the gold bars and jewels inside. My hands trembled every time I picked up a gold bar. What kind of dangerous work had she done at her age to gather this many jewels? The necklace chains were so thin that they were hard to grip with my fingers, so I practically scraped the bottom of the jewelry box with my nails until I had emptied it completely. Then I carefully zipped the pouch shut. Cramming it into my backpack along with Noeul, I left Baek Ayeong’s room.
By the time I picked up the ownerless pad in Shin Haeryang’s room, the water was already surging past my calves. I was splashing along, passing Room 10 as I tried to escape the corridor, when someone in the distance jumped into the water with a loud splash. They were too far away for me to see clearly, but as soon as I saw the shape of a person, I shouted.
“It’s too dangerous! Get up!”
“I have to go to my room!”