The people from Engineer Na’s team took Kim Jaehee and gradually moved farther away from Central-dong. The farther the signs of life around the central elevator receded, the more tension coursed through my entire body. Gooseflesh rose along my back, and my back and shoulders stiffened. The more I thought about having to use a tool against another person, the more my throat seemed to close up with tension.
By clinging to the ceiling and watching what was happening below, I came to realize that quite a few people I had never met before—or had only briefly crossed paths with—were making their way toward the central elevator. Thinking about it, this place was not merely where the four residential buildings connected. It was also where the restaurants, movie theaters, meeting rooms, various storage areas, and lounges were concentrated, as well as where the largest elevator was constantly in operation.
The central plaza in front of the central elevator was usually a crowded place. When disaster struck, people who instinctively thought first of the facilities they had always used approached the central elevator out of habit.
A man whose clothes were a mess with food—perhaps soup or broth had been spilled on him while he was eating at a restaurant—came toward the central plaza, endlessly spewing curses. But when he saw the armed people, he cursed at them and went elsewhere. A woman who came running toward the central plaza at tremendous speed saw the followers of the Infinite Church, skidded across the floor with a loud rush, stopped in her tracks, and then ran in the opposite direction at tremendous speed.
There were also people who had just come out after watching a 5D movie in Theater 3. One woman was walking over with a popcorn tub as large as her upper body tucked under her arm, eating handful after handful of popcorn. She was chatting with the person beside her, saying that when the screen displayed, [All personnel at Undersea Base 4, cease all duties and evacuate to the surface], she had thought it was just a scene from the movie. But after the two of them spotted the men standing in front of the central elevator with guns, they stopped for a moment, munched noisily on their popcorn, and then turned around. Still chewing popcorn, the two of them went back into Theater 3.
There was also a man who seemed to have fled frantically from the kitchen, his apron in tatters, burns on his body, and a spatula clutched in one hand. When he saw the automatic rifles carried by the followers of the Infinite Church, he looked down at the spatula in his hand a couple of times, threw it onto the floor, and ran in another direction. Even after that, some of the people heading toward the central plaza either fought with the armed followers of the Infinite Church or, rather than draw their attention, gave up on escaping through the central elevator and turned elsewhere.
Baek Aeyeong said they would attack the moment those people let their guard down, even for an instant, and she continuously told me to stay alert and prepare myself. Once we began attacking them, there would be only two possibilities: life or death. There was no middle ground. From the moment someone aimed a gun at you, never assume they would show you mercy. Don’t hesitate—bring the tool down on them. Don’t stop attacking until you judged that your opponent had been completely incapacitated. Even if they tried to run, don’t let them off. If they ran while carrying a gun, they could always come back and finish us off. Don’t believe anyone who said they were surrendering while still armed. You had to keep attacking until they fell and could no longer move. The only person who would protect you was me, and the only person who would protect me was you. Don’t let your guard down. Swing the tool again and again. It was all right even if you lacked strength. You just had to hit them repeatedly. The same went for a knife. Some people said they didn’t have enough strength in their arms, but if you weren’t strong, you could stab them repeatedly. Make them bleed. That way, surgery and recovery would be more difficult later. Think of your family’s faces. Don’t you have to go home?
Baek Aeyeong was telling me these things so that both of us could survive, but the more I listened, the more the burden threatened to drive me mad. …I had to attack someone with a tool. The urge to run away from here, like the man who had thrown down his spatula and fled, rose all the way to the top of my head. But if I ran away like that, Baek Aeyeong would have to face the terrorists alone. I wept inwardly as I gripped the axe handle and continued to wait.
That was when it happened. Someone came running from the direction of Cheongnyong-dong, screaming at the top of his lungs. It was a man’s voice. Along with a roar of “Aaaaaaaah!” his cries for help reverberated through Central-dong.
A man who appeared to have been shot was running toward the central plaza while clutching his bleeding forearm. Two followers of the Infinite Church, who had been waiting relatively peacefully in front of the elevator for their team to return from Baekho-dong, were startled. They hurriedly turned toward the approaching man and raised their guns.
The running man stopped in the central plaza and, clutching his arm as blood streamed from it, wailed that he needed to get to a hospital immediately. The followers guarding the elevator shouted at him to back away, veins standing out on their necks as they told him that the central elevator could not be used. They warned that they would shoot him otherwise, but the man screamed that he had to get to a hospital and charged at them.
Baek Aeyeong’s eyes widened when she saw that, and she gave me a signal: Now. Was she telling me to rush out now? I wanted to say, “Isn’t it dangerous to go out now? Shouldn’t we watch the situation a little longer?” But my body had already shot forward in response to Baek Aeyeong’s signal.
It felt as though time in the world had stretched out. Even though I ran forward, kicking off the floor with all my strength, everything around me seemed to slow down little by little. My heart was beating so hard that the pounding—thump, thump, thump, thump—rang loudly in my ears. I couldn’t properly comprehend that I was alive and running. My entire body was consumed by tension, and gooseflesh rose along my back and ears. My spine was cold, as though ice had been poured over it.
The followers of the Infinite Church cursed at the bleeding man, telling him to get lost, but when they realized that he was running at a fairly good speed, they began firing the guns they held. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Without even looking at the man who had rushed toward the elevator, I ran toward the follower closest to me. The followers of the Infinite Church failed to notice my approach. I had emerged from the left side of their field of vision, and the two of them were already busy dealing with the strange man who had suddenly run toward them while screaming.
The man nearest to me noticed something approaching rapidly from the left side of his vision and reflexively turned his head toward me. But by then, I had already reached striking distance.
I reflexively swung my right arm, the axe covered by its leather sheath, at the man. I didn’t even think about aiming for his head. The torso! When Baek Aeyeong had told me to grip the tool and swing it through the air, the movement I had practiced most often was gripping it in my right hand and bringing it down from above or swinging it horizontally. As a result of repeating that motion, I brought the axe down on the man’s left shoulder from above.
Perhaps because the axe was covered by the leather sheath, it only made a dull thud. It sounded like it hurt terribly. The follower of the Infinite Church, caught off guard by the unexpected attack, inhaled sharply from the pain of having his shoulder struck by a blunt mass of metal. “Kuhk!” Fortunately, the muzzle of the gun he had been aiming was pointed not at me but at the mysterious man who had suddenly charged in. I struck the same place several times in succession, frantically. Thud! Thud!
The follower of the Infinite Church I had attacked with the axe reflexively removed his left hand from the rifle he had been holding with both hands in order to block my continuing assault. Then he raised his left arm over his head to defend his left shoulder.
If he had been a slightly more experienced marksman, he might have blocked my axe with the metal gun he held, or kicked me in the torso and sent me flying. But perhaps he had spent far more years without a gun in his hands than with one. Overcome by pain, he focused first on defending against my axe with his left arm. I realized almost instinctively that the muzzle had now turned toward me. I grabbed the approaching barrel with my left hand and shoved it toward the left, then kicked the man’s knee. It was far from a proper kick, but even so, his knee buckled and he lost his balance.
I fell to the floor together with him. Screams and gunshots rang out in a chaotic cacophony. That one minute felt like a year, and at the same time, it felt as if time had stopped altogether. The noise and gunshots made me feel as though my eardrums were about to burst. Adrenaline flooded my veins, and the thump-thump-thump-thump-thump of my heart sounded almost identical to the rattling of bullets—bang, crack, rat-a-tat-tat—as they flew. Groans, breathing, gunshots, and screams seemed to echo in every direction, along with the smells of sweat and the sounds of sobbing.
When I came to my senses, Baek Aeyeong had already shot and killed another follower of the Infinite Church. She had also shot and killed the follower who had fallen with me. Baek Aeyeong took the guns from the dead and collected their magazines. Then she hauled me up from the floor with tremendous strength.
The strength drained from my legs, and I fell twice before Baek Aeyeong told me to stand up straight. Gritting my teeth, I somehow managed to rise while bracing myself against the wall. When I looked around, everyone else nearby had fallen to the floor. Only Baek Aeyeong and I remained standing in front of the elevator.
Baek Aeyeong positioned me behind her and swept the area around the central plaza with her muzzle. It seemed she was wary of being attacked by anyone hiding nearby the moment the followers of the Infinite Church went down. Without even looking at the central elevator’s button, Baek Aeyeong felt around and pressed it with her fingertip. The elevator, which had been stopped at Undersea Base 2, gave a sound indicating that it was coming down.
Through my hazy consciousness, I recognized the face of the man who had suddenly charged into the central plaza. He was Hong Tao of Engineer Na’s team. At that moment, one side of my vision abruptly darkened. The stress was so severe that I could barely see properly. As I staggered, Baek Aeyeong shouted at me.
“Pull yourself together! I told you we had to fight for our lives! Aren’t you getting out of here?! Are you going to keep rotting here until you die?!”
Baek Aeyeong forcibly slung the stolen rifle over my shoulder and arm, then made me keep watch over our surroundings. I must have been gripping the axe handle with tremendous force, because the hand that had abandoned the axe was trembling violently. I didn’t know when I had started crying, but only after wiping my tears and snot away with my forearm was I able to answer Baek Aeyeong.
“I’m getting out! Hngh! I’m getting out of here…”
“If anyone charges us, shoot them on the spot!”
Baek Aeyeong slapped me hard across the back with her palm. Smack! My finger, resting against the trigger, trembled violently. In truth, I didn’t know whether my hand still had enough strength left to pull the trigger even if someone did charge us. Tears streamed down my face, and I could barely see as I watched the central plaza, sniffling and standing guard. No one attacked us immediately.
Moreover, with the elevator taking time to arrive, I could feel my heart rate gradually slowing the longer I stood there with Baek Aeyeong, gun in hand. I calmly assessed my condition in my head. The battle had just ended. Perhaps because of the gunshots, I thought everyone would have fled in the opposite direction rather than come this way. Only people with enormous nerve, people lying in wait for an opportunity, would attack Baek Aeyeong and me now. I drew a deep breath, then exhaled, my breath filled with fear.
“…At first, just as you said, Aeyeong, I briefly thought that dying might be better than killing someone. It was so terrifying to attack people just to survive, and I’ve already died so many times.”
I wiped away the tears and snot running down my forearm again, then spoke through my tightening throat.
“I thought, after living so painfully and desperately all this time, why should I have to die here? I thought that just as other people’s lives are precious, my life is incredibly precious too. And I felt sorry toward the people who had protected me all this time for having such selfish thoughts. I miss my family so much.”
As I rambled on, looking around while holding the gun, Baek Aeyeong merely listened in silence.
“I also thought that I didn’t want to fall into the trap set by this mad group and die as a sacrifice.”