The place the snake swam to was once again Room 38 of Baekho-dong, 4th Undersea Base. Inside the room, Park Muhyeon fell from the bed, woke up facedown on the floor with a nosebleed gushing out, then staggered to his feet, climbed back onto the bed, pulled the blanket over himself, and lay back down.
What are you doing? Get up and run out right now. It's dangerous here. You have to go somewhere safe.
After watching Park Muhyeon wake up in the room a few times, I realized his physical condition was gradually deteriorating. Lying on the bed, Park Muhyeon lay on his side, crying as tears streamed down in rivulets.
'Heuk...... Heu-eu-euk.'
It seemed like the first time he had cried like that since hearing that his spine was shattered and his lower body paralyzed. He had wailed his fill beneath the blanket, but he didn't move even when water entered the room. He simply watched the seawater rising, lightly soaking his feet dangling below the bed.
He roughly wiped his nosebleed with the back of his hand and the blanket, then touched the family photo on the desk with blood-stained fingers. There were four people in the family photo. My mother and I sat on an antique solid-wood chair. Behind the chair stood my younger brother and father.
I don't know what Park Muhyeon was thinking as he looked at the photo, but I remembered when that picture was taken. I hadn't thought much about family photos, but Mujin was different.
When my younger brother, then a middle schooler, visited a friend's house and saw the family photo hanging on their living room wall, I don't know what came over him, but he insisted we needed to take a family photo too. The kid usually wasn't stubborn, but once he set his mind to something, he never backed down, so for a whole week he pestered the family members in turns to take a family photo.
Before I knew it, a hefty sum had drained from my bank account, and the whole family, dressed up, was rolling my wheelchair across the threshold of the photo studio my brother had booked. I wore a suit, slicked my hair back with wax, and forced a smile, a spasm-like twitch tugging at the corner of my mouth.
Not long after, we received one large picture frame to hang on the living room wall, one palm-sized desk frame, and four credit-card-sized photos to carry in a wallet. Since the frame containing the family photo was hung on the living room wall, we never took another photo with all the family members present. Everyone in the picture was smiling. As if without a single worry in the world.
I hadn't known I would end up bringing that thing to the undersea base. But thinking that I would be living away from home for quite a long time, I had found myself packing it in my luggage. I don't know if Mujin was satisfied with the photo. Probably...... if we took a new one, I think it would be of three people standing.
Looking at the desk frame, Park Muhyeon burst into tears again. Then he placed the frame on his chest and stared endlessly at the ceiling. Park Muhyeon let out a sigh and spoke into the empty air.
'I don't want to do anything.'
The water entering the room had already passed his calves. After that, Park Muhyeon spent his time like an office worker enjoying the weekend in his room. He lay on his side on the bed, hugging the blanket and a Noeul doll. He hummed songs, rolled sugar-free candy around in his mouth, closed his eyes, and truly did nothing at all.
It was a life I had no memory of. I was like this? Watching this spectacle from the side was enough to drive the onlooker mad. Hey! The water is at your feet! Get up and run out! Get out of the room!
I shouted at myself, but Park Muhyeon simply sprawled on the bed like a doll without will. His utter listlessness made me anxious. I would have preferred if he grabbed everyone he met and screamed that he was getting out of the undersea base while sobbing. At least then he would look like he had the will to live.
Yet even as the water rose, he only cried and refused to do anything else. Judging by his actions, unlike the previous cycle, his mind seemed perfectly sound.
Once the water reached the bed, Park Muhyeon finally had no choice but to get up. If he kept lying down, water would enter his nose and mouth. The awakened Park Muhyeon didn't even pack his bag. He watched the family photo and the Noeul doll float and sink in the seawater, then sloshed barefoot toward the hallway.
The water in Baekho-dong had already risen to waist height. I, whose waist was caught in the snake's jaws at about the same height, chased after Park Muhyeon and shouted for him to leave the Baekho-dong residence immediately. However, Park Muhyeon instead walked down the hallway very slowly, his hand against the wall. He especially went into Room 28 and, without the room owner's permission, helped himself to banana milk and bagged snacks of every variety. ......Come to think of it, Kim Jaehui had given permission to eat them. I wonder in which cycle Kim Jaehui had said that. What he's doing now is basically just stealing.
Park Muhyeon emerged into the hallway from Kim Jaehui's room, his arms overflowing with snacks and drinks. Clutching Kim Jaehui's bag of potato chips and crunching away, he consumed the carbonated drinks Kim Jaehui had collected and Kim Jaehui's energy bars.
Judging by the amount he was eating, it seemed like he was consuming an entire day's worth of calories in one go...... I, looking like a ghost, tried to stop this idiotic act, but it was impossible.
Watching him walk around, it didn't seem like he was trying to rescue anyone or leave with someone. He strolled around water-filled Baekho-dong like someone who had stepped out of the house for a leisurely walk. He didn't seem to care that the water was rising past his waist. There was no one else in Baekho-dong.
Park Muhyeon entered each room and turned on every electronic device in sight. And he turned the volume up as loud as it would go. Some rooms blared music; others played movies or dramas. Actors exchanged lines, and songs from all sorts of countries could be heard.
Park Muhyeon kicked at the water in time with the song's beat as he walked. He also wrote his own name in huge letters on the hallway wall with a pen. It seemed he had lost his grip on sanity in a different way than the previous cycle. When a song he knew came on, Park Muhyeon sang along loudly, pushing through the cold water and splashing through the hallway. I'm going crazy. How embarrassing!
He was carrying around several chocolate milks and chocolate bars plundered from Kim Jaehui's room, but since every kind was different, he took a bite of each. And if it didn't suit his taste or was flavorless, he threw it away and tore open another. Then, only when he found something he liked did he chew it for a long time and swallow it.
'What is this?'
Park Muhyeon checked the name of the snack he had been eating thoughtlessly, then devoured it in an instant. Normally, if it were me, I wouldn't have wasted food like that. Nor would I have littered the shared hallway with trash. Watching my own miserable display, I let out a constant stream of sighs. Do whatever you want. Do whatever you want.
He walked so slowly while singing that by the time he reached Room 8, the water had risen past his waist up to his chest. Fortunately, no one was on the bunk bed in Room 8. Park Muhyeon placed one of the chocolate bars he had deemed tasty among the plundered food onto Tumanako's bed, then came back out into the hallway.
Park Muhyeon stared down the long hallway where the water had risen to his chest, washing his sticky hands in the seawater. I thought Park Muhyeon would escape through the stairs located next to Room 1. However, like someone who didn't particularly want to live, he walked back toward Room 2. His gait was so leisurely it felt like the watcher would burst with frustration. Hey! You need to get out now! What are you doing here!
Park Muhyeon shambled along as if out for a walk, but he couldn't even reach Room 80. Once the water passed his shoulders, his body began to float. He could no longer walk. Still, Park Muhyeon moved by flailing his arms as if swimming and pushing off the wall with his hand.
He wandered the interior of the Baekho-dong residence as if the near-zero-degree seawater were no problem at all, looking much like me when I occasionally took walks around the house on weekends. Once the water rose so high that he couldn't move at all, he was pushed by the current into a certain room. Park Muhyeon stepped up onto a desk fixed to the wall in that room, climbing high to almost touch the ceiling to avoid the water. Soon, the water rose to his chin.
Suddenly, the hallway grew rowdy. Long beams of flashlight light poured into the dark hallway, which only had minimal lighting. Voices calling for Park Muhyeon could be heard in the distance; it seemed the Muhan Church followers had entered the Baekho-dong residence.
Several people in diving suits were all heading toward Room 38, but Park Muhyeon was in Room 77. Park Muhyeon quietly watched the water level rise to his mouth and then cover his nose before closing his eyes. I asked myself, eyes closed: Why didn't you get out? Even if it was hard and miserable, why didn't you just leave? Does doing that relieve some stress? Does that count as having a fun weekend? I sneered at myself. And immediately regretted sneering.
The Muhan Church followers came out of Room 38 and searched each room as they approached. While the followers were checking Room 60, Park Muhyeon's head was completely submerged in the seawater. The snake released my waist and began to wait. Around the time the Muhan Church followers were searching Room 70, the snake gulped down Park Muhyeon in one bite. Then it bit my waist again.
The snake began to swim straight up vertically from the 4th Undersea Base. And before long, it brought me to the 1st Undersea Base. There, including the Garden of the Hesperides, the 1st Undersea Base was collapsing in real-time. People and trees alike, everything in the vicinity was swept away by the seawater and vanished.
Park Muhyeon, clutching an orange in one hand, ran this way and that, fleeing from the blade Anna swung. The floor collapsed with every step he took. Watching Anna chase Park Muhyeon rapidly from behind, I marveled inwardly. How does she swing a sword as big as her upper body so well?
Park Muhyeon, while fleeing, glanced between the collapsing floor and Anna rushing at him like a madwoman wielding her blade, then jumped down without hesitation. Park Muhyeon, whose back was lightly slashed by the blade Anna swung, fell onto a falling magnolia tree and slid downward.
As Anna looked down from above at Park Muhyeon slipping from her grasp, the snake looked on from Anna's side before swiftly swimming down below. I thought he would die from being cut by the blade, but since he didn't seem to be dying, the snake appeared to be going down after him.
The snake, which had entered the sea before Park Muhyeon, released my waist and waited with its mouth gaping wide. Park Muhyeon plummeted from above, still clutching the orange in one hand. The moment the cold seawater enveloped Park Muhyeon, the snake swallowed him in one bite as well.
I think I've seen this about eight times, but it's a truly bizarre sight every time. I thought the snake would bite my waist again and swim toward the next one. However, the snake stayed still before shaking its body as if it had eaten something indigestible. It writhed and thrashed, moving as if in pain. Did it finally get a stomachache after eating eight Park Muhyeons?