Park Muhyeon lay with one cheek pressed to the floor, unmoving despite the small commotion around him. I stared at the hair tied at the back of my head and quietly got up from among the disheveled hostages. Then I wandered silently around the Second Undersea Base. The snake allowed me to move about while keeping its jaws clamped around my waist, and since I could pass through the objects and people around me without any restriction, it was fairly convenient. It was almost as if... I were dead.
I walked between the escape craft ports, the submarine ports, and the various restaurants of the Second Undersea Base. I went into a souvenir shop that wasn’t selling anything yet and browsed around, stared at the marine creatures trapped in the tanks of the deep-sea aquarium, and then entered Café Black Pearl and ordered coffee into empty air. Inside the exhibition hall for [The Sea, the Birth and Time of Great Life] were the other candidates, including Elizabeth, and David as well, but I had no good memories of that exhibition hall, so I quickly left.
While passing through a wall by chance, I noticed that a small-scale exhibition was being held in a corner of the Second Undersea Base. It was an ocean-related exhibition titled [The Dark Sea, a Space of Death]. If there is life, then there must also be death. The moment I stepped into the exhibition, a large red warning appeared in five languages.
[Notice: This exhibition hall contains numerous materials related to maritime incidents and accidents. We recommend that those who may feel discomfort or have trauma regarding such exhibition content refrain from entering. Instead, you may enjoy viewing the other exhibits. Thank you.]
I read the warning several times, then looked at the head of the snake biting into my lower abdomen and at the backs of the hostages lying in the central plaza, before entering the exhibition hall without hesitation. Inside [The Dark Sea, a Space of Death], statistics and various photographs of maritime accidents that had occurred all over the world up until last year were on display. Simple collisions with other vessels, capsizing due to collisions with other vessels, sinking, fires at sea, disappearances and deaths, grounding on reefs, engine damage and entanglement in floating debris, flooding of various vessels and damage to steering systems... There was no end to it. There are quite a lot of different kinds of maritime accidents. If an undersea base collapses, where would that be included?
When I approached the nearest screen with the snake, a video began to play. Letters flashed, stating that an average of approximately 3,000 maritime accidents occurred each year, with about 100 to 200 people killed or missing annually, and then it showed the recent tragedies that had taken place in the North Pacific.
A graph showing the dates and times when maritime accidents occurred most frequently rose up from beneath the sea to the surface. Where did they get this data? Did the International Maritime Organization provide it? I had thought maritime accidents would happen most often on pitch-black nights, but unexpectedly, they occurred most frequently during the day. Well, I suppose. It’s daytime now too.
I slowly passed by, taking in statistics on how often maritime accidents occurred by vessel type, weather conditions, sea conditions, and age group. In the next exhibit, pirates in the distance approached noisily by boat while firing machine guns. It was a three-dimensional video so realistic that I wondered if it might be real. The pirates took me, the visitor, hostage and demanded a ransom of around 300 million won from my country and family. As if annoyed by the sudden image of pirates thrusting machine guns beside its face, the huge snake subtly shook its head. I didn’t feel much about the pirates threatening me with guns, but I was startled when I heard the amount.
Three hundred million... Good heavens. Mom. Mujin. I’ll just live here with the pirates from now on. Give up on me. Don’t do anything strange trying to scrape together the money.
On the screen, an explanation was being given about the latest trends in ship terrorism and piracy, while most developed countries refused to negotiate with terrorists and rejected dialogue with pirates. Families gathered ransom money among themselves, delivered it through brokers, and got the hostages back—or were swindled out of even that money by vicious brokers. Sometimes pirates who received the money properly would change their minds and raise the ransom even higher. Unlucky hostages were left to live with the pirates indefinitely. Above my head, one year, two years, three years passed by every second, and my appearance reflected on the screen grew more and more similar to the pirates. Hahaha.
Beside the face of a despicable pirate, causes such as extreme poverty, persistent unemployment, lack of government control, unfair distribution of marine resources, and ongoing territorial disputes were displayed, while the names of the most famous pirates and armed groups streamed past. Beside the snake’s head, the exemplary actions a hostage should take when kidnapped by pirates were being displayed in order.