A gigantic snake hung motionless in the air, looking down from above. It did not flick out its tongue, nor did it suddenly come close and bite. With a head the size of a fifty-story apartment building, the snake simply stared in silence, and it felt extremely strange.
Judging by the lack of wings, it seemed like it crawled around, but how had I never known a snake of this size was moving about? Since when had it been watching me? If it had meant to eat me, it must have had countless chances by now, so why hadn’t it? Why did it look exactly like the snake that had gone into my backpack?
The snake that had been still began to open its mouth very slowly. Did it want to eat something? A snake that big—it felt as though no matter where I fled, into the sea or onto land, I would inevitably be caught.
If it had meant to eat me, it would have done so already. For a little while, I watched the snake’s mouth open. Since it was the one that had been in my backpack, maybe it wouldn’t bite me? Did snakes even know gratitude? While I was thinking such things, the snake bit into my side with the speed of a flash of light.
A choking sound escaped my throat on its own, but surprisingly, it did not hurt much. With me still in its jaws, the snake passed straight through the sandy beach and descended into Daehando. The snake and I, bitten in the side, were dragged underground in complete defiance of the laws of physics.
I watched all the elevators that vertically cut through Daehando, the materials, the electric wires and communication lines, and the tangled pipes, until at last Undersea Base 1 came into view.
At Undersea Base 1, Meiji, who was working alone at the café, looked around, then took advantage of the moment when there were no believers and flung off her apron. She shouted Riko’s name over and over, then, choking up, began running toward the diving area without looking back. As she ran frantically, her slightly loose left slipper came off, and she fell to the floor. Meiji! I called out to her, but she did not seem to hear me.
Meiji, who had been groaning, sprang to her feet, kicked off even her right slipper, and ran at full speed.
As I watched that small back, before I knew it, I had entered the Garden of the Hesperides with my side still caught in the snake’s jaws.
There, countless believers of the Infinite Church were huddled around the altar. As if even those from Undersea Bases 2 and 3 and Daehando had all come here, about forty people were gathered around a fountain where black water spouted in a circle. Inside a large ceramic bowl, pitch-black water presumed to be coffee, countless flowers, my finger, and a gigantic diamond had been offered up.
In that place, I saw familiar Infinite Church believers, including Elizabeth, the injured Jamal, Ronald, Dylan, and Roaker. Holding or rubbing the jewels they wore, they recited absurd prayers asking to be sent into the past. They prayed, saying things like, “We head into the past in order to live,” and “an infinite, eternal life without pain,” then used cups that seemed to have been used to bring coffee from Café Taiga to scoop a little water from the altar and pass it around to the believers.
Before long, the Infinite Church believers were each holding a cup of coffee with a few impurities added, as if they were at a company dinner. The believers were weeping as they spoke the wishes they wanted granted.
Only David Knight stood far from the altar, holding a gun, half-concealed in a spot with a clear view of the garden entrance, watching the entrance as if he thought someone would come in. Then he looked at what the Infinite Church believers were doing with a contemptuous gaze before turning his head away with an expression of disgust.
With my side still in its jaws, the snake began to descend farther. In the elevator connected between Undersea Base 1 and Undersea Base 2, several people were trapped. They were probably people who worked at Undersea Base 2, and when the lights in the elevator suddenly went out, fear and despair flashed across their faces.
As we passed sideways through that elevator and went by, the continental slope on which Undersea Base 2 had been built came into view, along with the countless steel structures connected to fix Undersea Base 2 in place there. The steel structures occasionally made precarious creaking or grinding noises. The cable car looked terribly unstable.
When we passed through the outer wall of Undersea Base 2 and skimmed past the words written in the exhibition hall, [The Sea, the Birth and Time of Great Life], waves began to roll, perhaps because the sensors had reacted.
Inside the exhibition hall, where low music and the gentle sound of waves could be heard, hologram fish swam past me, and mermaids slapped their tails against the surface of the water, splashing it before fleeing.
When we entered the exhibition hall filled with jewels, some of the jewels inside had turned to ash as if melted by fire, while over a hundred were still intact. The place where the diamond should originally have been was empty, perhaps because it was at Undersea Base 1.
Sensing a presence beside me, I turned my head, and an android approached and said,
“Nice_to_meet_you. Traveler_journeying_through_the_sea_of_time. How_is_today’s_journey?”
I was being dragged here and there through the sea with my side bitten by a snake, but it seemed other people had not been able to see me until now. If anyone had, they would have screamed and fled at this bizarre sight. But this android was speaking as if it could see me. I opened my mouth, but I could not speak.
“If_you_come_this_way_I_will_begin_with_an_explanation_of_alexandrite. Today_this_exhibition_hall_is_very_quie—.”
When the snake moved, I had no choice but to be forcibly dragged through the wall of the exhibition hall, and outside, several hostages who had been tied up were wriggling as they tried to free their hands and feet. Among them were Jennifer, Haley, and Dana. Since there were no believers watching the hostages nearby, they had probably all gathered at the garden in Undersea Base 1.
Those who had hidden small tools such as lighters or concealed cutter knives were the first to free their arms and legs. Water began to leak, ever so slightly, from outside the doors of the elevator connected to Undersea Base 3, then flowed across the floor.
Those who freed themselves first tried to untie the people bound beside them, but one person tried to flee alone and ran toward the elevator in the corner. Ignoring the red letters that read DANGER, the alarm coming from the ceiling, and the small puddle that had formed in front of the elevator doors, he jabbed repeatedly at the elevator button. The elevator doors opened with a strange noise, and as if it had been waiting, seawater poured out like a waterfall.
The person drenched in seawater slid helplessly to the floor. As seawater continued to gush endlessly from that elevator, he hurriedly fled back toward the place where the hostages were tied, shouting wildly.
“Water’s leaking in! I said water’s leaking in! We’re all going to die! We’re all going to die!”
The hostages, some still bound and some freed, screamed in shock and ran all over the undersea base. Only the fish trapped in the deep-sea aquarium of Undersea Base 2 swam quietly through the water, watching the same water rise outside the tank as well. The snake continued downward.
Just as Kim Jaehee had said, Undersea Base 3 was submerged, but thanks to the lights that worked even underwater, the inside was not particularly dark. A wooden sign in the bakery that read [Man Can Live on Bread Alone] had been hanging on the wall, but it peeled away because of the water and drifted along the ceiling.
The shoes in the shoe store, the clothes, and the hats were the same. The cheap accessories in the accessory shop still caught the light and shone underwater. Drowned bodies floated here and there in the water, moving like chairs or desks.
The situation at Undersea Base 4 was similar to that of Undersea Base 3. My room and Baekho-dong were already completely submerged in seawater, and even the water was motionless. When we passed Jungang-dong and went to Cheongryong-dong, there were a few people alive there. Thanks to some brave person having locked the door leading into the lodging area from the outside, the interior of Cheongryong-dong had not flooded badly beyond water rising to their ankles.
Several people gathered in the hallway were crying that they were all dead now, or praying, while others had gone into their rooms and were spending their time in their own ways. The situation at the Jujak-dong research centers was similar. Some had escaped in escape vessels, but there were also people who had not, and they were either turning against one another or cooperating in order to survive.
After descending all the way to Undersea Base 4, the snake began swimming into the dark sea with my side still in its jaws. Just where was this snake going, and what did it want to show me?
The place where the snake arrived was Undersea Base 4 again. I thought the snake had circled once around the sea near Undersea Base 4 and returned to the original place. But the state of Undersea Base 4 was slightly different.
Someone was screaming for help loudly enough to make Baekho-dong shake. Tumanako was kicking the door to Room 8 to open it, even as water rose against it, but because of the water pressure, the door would not open, and he could not get out. The hallway was already filled with water almost to the ceiling, and there was no one around.
“Help me! I said help me! There’s someone here! There’s a person here! Help me!”
Tumanako screamed and kicked the door with all his might. I shouted toward Tumanako, but no words came out. When the snake moved its body slightly without a sound, Cheongryong-dong appeared in an instant. There, Li Wei, injured in the shoulder, aimed at the Cheongryong-dong elevator, but when the elevator was blocked several times by the body of the Azure Dragon, he lowered his gun and spat curses at the bloodstained elevator doors.
As the snake rose upward, I saw myself and my former companions climbing like ants up the stairs connected from Undersea Base 3 to Undersea Base 2.
Baek Aeyoung was climbing the dark stairs first, pushing or kicking aside garbage, broken and snapped steel beams, chunks of concrete, and small stones, sending them falling below. A few steps behind Baek Aeyoung, Yugeum, who was chasing after her, sat with her back against the filthy wall, panting, then wrote letters on the wall with a long stone. 1,000 steps.
“Ugh. I’m exhausted. How are we supposed to climb this?”
Yugeum looked at Baek Aeyoung climbing above and us climbing from below, wiped her snot and tears with the back of her hand, and began climbing the stairs again.
Ten steps below Yugeum, I, Seo Jihyeok, and Shin Haeryang were climbing the stairs with our arms around one another’s shoulders. The ridiculous thing was that, among the three of us, I looked to be in the worst condition. Even though one of us had been shot in the knee. With my mouth open as if I were about to spit out my tongue, I was supporting Seo Jihyeok and panting as I climbed the stairs, like a donkey on the verge of death carrying a load with the last of its strength.
When the snake approached the three of them, I opened my mouth toward myself, who was walking, and moved it silently. Here! Look this way! I’m here! I’m right here!
Park Muhyeon, who had been climbing the stairs, turned his head toward the empty darkness and missed his footing. The two people climbing with him also fell onto the stairs at the same time. I heard my own voice apologizing, saying I was sorry.