The elevator door opened with a bizarre groan and stopped as if it had caught on something midway. It was stuck after having opened just slightly wider than a handspan. Several believers pressed against it, trying to force it open with sheer strength, but it refused to open fully like usual.
The Muhan Church believers must have thought it was a simple mechanical failure when they saw the elevator coming up from the 4th Seabed Base stop and go unresponsive at the 2nd Seabed Base. Peeking through the small gap into the elevator interior and discovering us, the Muhan believers aimed their guns and spoke.
“Everyone inside, get out. Or we’ll shoot you dead right here.”
The door of the central elevator was thicker than my arm was long. If you wanted to build an elevator that traveled back and forth at 3,000 meters under the sea, it probably couldn’t withstand the water pressure unless it was that thick. Perhaps because the door was so thick and the gap so narrow, the interior of the car didn’t seem to be properly visible from the terrorists’ line of sight.
We only heard repeated shouting—someone telling others to go to another floor and call any engineer, and shouts directed at us to get out. Hailey and Dana, who had been standing right in front of the elevator door, froze in place at the terrorists’ voices.
Was there a reason they weren’t shooting the passengers dead outside the elevator right this instant? ...Did they need to use this elevator for the rest of the day, and didn’t want to paint the inside of the car with blood?
It was a gap so narrow that a person couldn’t easily get out. Could someone really squeeze through such a cramped space? It seemed the terrorists shouting thoughtlessly for us to get out harbored the same doubt.
After exchanging words like “You try going in,” the smallest and most scrawny male believer among them tried to enter the elevator. However, perhaps because of his build and belly fat, he got wedged sideways between the doors and couldn’t move. As he floundered, stuck in the gap, the other male believers cursed and forcibly pulled the man out.
The elevator door itself was so heavy that two terrorists tried to force the gap wider, but their faces merely turned bright red and it wouldn’t open any further. The Muhan Church believers pressed their guns toward us and commanded us to get out somehow, even through that narrow crack. ...It was nothing short of a comedy.
Good thing they couldn’t get in. Why had the elevator door opened like that and stopped? Was it because Baek Aeyeong had tampered with the opening mechanism above the door? Even if they threatened us with guns, did they really think the people in here would say “Yes, yes” and file out through that narrow gap? If the gap suddenly narrowed, it would be incredibly dangerous.
At the 2nd Seabed Base, four or five masked believers in hats aimed their guns and kept threatening us, and strangely, Hailey obediently complied. She pushed her body into the narrow gap between the elevator’s thick, massive doors—a gap less than two handspans wide. ...So she could barely make it through. Hailey walked sideways like a crab to pass through the elevator door. The gap was so narrow that while the back of her head touched the door on the opposite side, her nose was nearly brushing the door panel facing her.
Throughout the process of exiting the elevator, Hailey didn’t even ask questions like what they would do to her if she got out, or if they would really kill her. I thought of the curses and threats she had spat without hesitation toward Baek Aeyeong. However, Hailey didn’t utter a single word of complaint to the Muhan Church believers. She sealed her lips and shuffled sideways like a crab through the uncomfortable, suffocatingly narrow gap, out of the elevator.
Following the Muhan Church believers’ orders, Hailey lay face down on the dirty floor without resistance. As Hailey leaned back with her arms behind her to make it easier to tie her up, I could see through the door gap as the Muhan believers bound her limbs with ease. Something swelled and seemed ready to burst inside me. Then one of the Muhan believers looked into the elevator interior and shouted.
“Next!”
One of the Muhan believers looked at Dana, who was near the elevator, and screamed at her not to dawdle and to come out quickly. Dana, who had jumped in surprise, quickly raised both arms beside her ears, approached the elevator door, and pushed her body through the narrow gap just like Hailey. From afar, I saw Hailey, with all her limbs tied, being kicked and rolling toward a corner where the hostages were gathered.
“Plant your faces in the floor! Move and I’ll shoot you dead on the spot! Don’t provoke me! If you even breathe a little too loud, my fluttering heart will shoot wildly! If you want to become heroes by mustering courage you’ve never shown before, feel free to try! But I’ll tie up that bastard and the ones next to him and use them all as fertilizer for the greenhouse at the 1st Seabed Base!”
The hostages lying face down in the distance weren’t visible from inside the elevator, probably due to the angle. Instead, only the voice of some believer shouting loudly could be heard intermittently. It was a voice I’d heard somewhere. Could that be Joseph? Jennifer, who had been watching Hailey becoming a hostage and hearing the threatening believer’s voice, cried out to me in surprise.
“They’re tying them up.”
“What?”
“They’re keeping the hostages tied up! They won’t kill them right away! They’re keeping them alive and tying them up!”
“What? What do you mean?”
I didn’t know why Jennifer was pleased. Jennifer spoke to me in a voice filled with elation.
“They must want something! That’s why they’re tying them up! It’s not like those Nateam bastards who indiscriminately shoot everyone they meet! They’re keeping them tied up like that to use them someday! I guess the terrorists think they’ve reduced the number of hostages enough to manage them! It’ll be safer to get caught by the terrorists! They’ll try to keep us as hostages and negotiate!”
Dana was passing through the door gap even more smoothly than Hailey. Having barely gotten out of the elevator, Dana was very politely begging the terrorists to let her live. She kept repeating that she wouldn’t do anything, so there was no need to tie her up, and that she would pretend she hadn’t seen anything, so couldn’t they just leave her alone in a corner. Jennifer muttered as she looked at the narrow gap the two had already gone through.
“We have to get out through there.”
It seemed Jennifer was somehow mistaken. Nowhere in this seabed base was safe.
“...Those people never wanted anything from outside forces to begin with. There won’t be any hostage negotiations like you’re thinking, Jennifer.”
“Then why would they do this? A closed-off place where people living in the most advanced country in the world are gathered in droves. Come to think of it, it’s a place terrorists would love. Seeing Dana getting tied up like that means they don’t plan to kill us immediately! Otherwise, there’d be no need to go through the trouble of tying us up.”
“Even so, these bastards aren’t planning to keep the hostages alive for long.”
Jennifer didn’t seem to be hearing what I was saying.
“You’ve been shot, Jennifer. You need medical attention immediately. Those people won’t offer any help. You’re better off staying here.”
I thought of Baek Aeyeong, who had been shot in the chest. People who didn’t keep their promises even to saviors wouldn’t treat hostages. Jennifer’s eyes swept over the elevator, blood splattered everywhere, then she looked at me sitting on the floor with my left hand raised over my chest, and Baek Aeyeong leaning against the wall with arms crossed, before her gaze returned to her own leg.
“Are you kidding? We got hurt because we were here! And what can we do cooped up in this broken elevator? Even if we go up, terrorists will be waiting on Daehan Island! It’s better to gather with the other hostages like that in a group and seize an opportunity!”
Jennifer’s words gave me a sense of déjà vu so dizzying it made my head spin. She mustn’t be allowed to go. Through the door gap, Muhan believers were poking Dana with their gun barrels, asking what nonsense she was talking about, as they tied her limbs. I heard Dana’s voice asking why she was being tied up when she hadn’t done anything. Another Muhan believer stuck only his arm through the gap, aimed the gun muzzle at us, and shouted to come out.
Neither I nor Baek Aeyeong moved from our spots. At my torso thickness, I probably couldn’t fit through that gap anyway. You guys can come get us yourselves. Maybe losing my fingers had made me bolder, but I didn’t even feel like moving.
Baek Aeyeong looked pitifully at the terrorist who couldn’t even get inside the elevator and was just shouting. Only Jennifer was flustered by the Muhan believer’s shouting. Jennifer looked at me telling her again that she shouldn’t go, then asked Baek Aeyeong.
“Baek. You’re not going out?”
Baek Aeyeong spoke to Jennifer.
“You said you’d come with me. You said we’d fight together.”
“It’s not that I won’t fight. We have to wait for a better opportunity. Not now.”
When Jennifer looked at Baek Aeyeong desperately, Baek Aeyeong met her gaze and shouted.
“If you want to go that badly, then go!”
At that, Jennifer grabbed the handle installed on the elevator wall and let out a terrible groan as she rose from her spot. Clenching her teeth, Jennifer hobbled across the wide elevator. Bloodstains that hadn’t yet dried were stamped several times on the floor. As Jennifer tried to push her body through the narrow elevator door gap to get out, Baek Aeyeong made an expression like she was about to vomit up her guts, watching the departing figure. Then she asked me, who remained, in a weak voice.
“Mr. Muhyeon, do you want to get out with them too?”
“...I’ll stay here. I won’t leave Ms. Aeyeong’s side for the rest of the day.”
Jennifer was having the hardest time getting out between the elevator doors. She was taller and better built than Hailey or Dana, plus she was injured in the leg, so it was taking her twice as long to get out. The Muhan believers outside cursed and urged her to come out quickly. Baek Aeyeong watched the scene, then pressed the interior panel of the elevator.
[Going up.]
The voice repeating “Going up” sounded several times, but the elevator didn’t move. It seemed operation was impossible probably because the car door was still slightly open. Nevertheless, the elevator voice repeating the same words made people restless and anxious.
Terrified, Jennifer struggled to squeeze through the elevator door gap. To the Muhan believers outside, she was little more than an obstacle between the 2nd Seabed Base and the elevator. They grabbed her and yanked her out. Seeing this, Baek Aeyeong simply shot the door mechanism attached above the elevator door with her gun.
Bang!
I don’t know what she broke, but the elevator door suddenly tried to close. Seeing this, one of the Muhan believers tried to wedge the gun he was carrying into the gap of the closing elevator door.
The door had to close for the elevator to move.
I pulled out the rubber mallet at my waist and threw it between the elevator doors. I’d aimed it at the Muhan believer’s chest, and whether it was because it posed a threat or because he was trying to dodge the mallet, the gun failed to make it between the elevator doors.
The elevator door, which had been making dangerous sounds, slammed shut with a thud. As the stopped elevator began ascending toward the 1st Seabed Base, Baek Aeyeong sat down on the elevator floor for the first time, planting her rear. It was just the two of us again.
My backpack had been thrown onto the floor, so I took out a towel and also fished out a few candies. Excluding the peach-flavored ones, I handed her several sugar-free candies, and Baek Aeyeong stared at them before unwrapping three at once and pushing them into her mouth. I rubbed my face with the towel, cleaning up the mess of tears and sweat. Baek Aeyeong, her face exhausted, mumbled and asked.
“Want me to unwrap the candy for you?”
“I’m fine.”
I bit the wrapper with my canine and tore the plastic open, then put the candy in my mouth. I rolled it around with my tongue, but it had no taste at all. Baek Aeyeong clicked the candy against her teeth as she rolled it around, then smiled for a moment as if remembering something from before and spoke.
“Our team leader told me to immediately inform him if the other team’s leader approached me, so I did think it was strange.”
“I see.”
“Sulan told me the reason Hailey’s personality is like that—do you know?”
“I don’t really know.”
“She doesn’t have to watch anyone’s mood while living here. She has the power to openly say she hates something if she hates it. Even if Hailey shouted that she finds Asians without Canadian citizenship so repulsive she could die, who in this seabed base would say anything? And people who want to immigrate say all sorts of bullshit to humor her, claiming they’ll abandon their own countries anyway. Koreans are lazy. Japanese people are unintelligent. Chinese people live by catching and eating cockroaches. I heard she asked Zixuan to catch the cockroaches in her room, and they ended up throwing punches at each other. ...It was funny when Sulan told me the story because it wasn’t my problem.”