“Muhyeon.”
I don't know how long I had sat between Yugeumi and Seo Jihyeok. Someone shook my shoulder, and only then did I raise my head. It was so dark I couldn't see a thing, and I had to shake my head before I could see who was in front of me. Baek Aeyeong was standing there. Baek Aeyeong was covered in blood from head to toe. I tried to say something, but no words came out.
“Ugh…… ugh…… ugh…… ughk.”
“Get up. We have to go.”
At first, I couldn't get up right away. I fell over once, and only after crawling across the floor, swallowing my tears and snot, did I stand on two legs with the help of Baek Aeyeong's hands and arms. The rifle Seo Jihyeok gave me was incredibly heavy. (I only learned this was a rifle after hearing it from Baek Aeyeong.) I couldn't tell if it was because I could barely stand and walk, or if it was originally this heavy. My body felt completely drained. I felt like I could collapse on any floor right then and sleep for about ten hours straight.
If I hadn't slung the gun over my shoulder with a strap, the person I was now would never have been able to carry it. The gun I had used until now was a handgun I held with both hands, but if it had been this one, it would have been too heavy to even fire.
The body of Baek Aeyeong walking ahead was densely covered in blood, front and back. Furthermore, it wasn't the same gun Baek Aeyeong had held before. If the rifle strap had been black before, the rifle now slung over their shoulder was blue. Whether the gun was custom or not, its color was close to blue, like the aquamarine jewel we had passed earlier. So you could paint the exterior of a gun like that too. Baek Aeyeong wouldn't have had the time to paint a gun, so it seemed like a weapon taken from someone else. Holding a gun identical to mine, Baek Aeyeong walked between the displayed jewels like a leopard prowling through a savanna jungle. It was a stride that showed no consideration for how heavy the gun might be.
Every time Baek Aeyeong took a step, drops of blood fell to the ground with a soft plop. If this bleeding was Baek Aeyeong's own blood, there was no way they could still be alive. At that thought, I began to doubt whether I was truly alive either. Stumbling like a newborn calf, I struggled not to lose sight of the figure ahead and asked Baek Aeyeong.
“Are you hurt?”
Baek Aeyeong shook their head firmly. Then they wiped what had splattered across their forehead and cheeks with the back of their hand and answered.
“This isn't my blood.”
Even if Baek Aeyeong had told me all this blood was theirs from injuries, and that both they and I were already dead, I would have nodded and believed it. I nodded blankly, a ringing sound echoing in my ears. Everything in front of me was blurry, so I rubbed my eyes several times with my dirty hand.
“What about Shin Haeryang?”
“The gunfire you hear right now is Team Leader shooting. He's waiting for us.”
Us. Shin Haeryang was probably waiting for four people.
Only after several seconds did I realize I had come right up to the exhibition hall exit. And the one pressed against the exit door, firing outward, was Shin Haeryang. As we approached, Shin Haeryang turned his head and looked at Baek Aeyeong and me coming up behind him.
I could feel Shin Haeryang's eyes scanning Baek Aeyeong, then me running behind, and then behind me. Two seconds later, he immediately turned his head back toward the front, where the gunshots were coming from. …He had noticed. He had realized. The fact that only Baek Aeyeong and I had come was enough for him to figure out the entire situation.
Baek Aeyeong and I slipped in behind Shin Haeryang. Baek Aeyeong checked the condition of my gun and told me to just aim and shoot. Ah. Seo Jihyeok had said that too. The moment Shin Haeryang fully brought his body inside the door, I heard the sound of bullets striking the door in his place. Perhaps because this was an underwater base, the door was not an ordinary wooden door. They were all heavy iron doors with a thickness about the size of a thumb. I wondered if this door was waterproof too.
I thought Shin Haeryang would blame me the moment he was in a situation where he could talk. I thought he might yell that I was completely useless and might even shoot me. I hadn't been able to bring both of them. But what Shin Haeryang said was nothing of the sort.
“We can't use the submersibles. They said they destroyed them all.”
“Team Leader. They said they stopped all the elevators at the Second Underwater Base.”
I thought he would ask where Yugeumi and Seo Jihyeok were, but Shin Haeryang didn't ask about them at all. He didn't ask how they died or why they died either. He only spoke about the current situation. Since this was the Second Underwater Base, he meant they had stopped all the elevators on this floor? The thought that I didn't know where this information had come from crossed my mind, and only after a few seconds did I understand that he had obtained it from the enemy. No, but did he have time to talk with the enemy in the middle of that gunfight? I asked Shin Haeryang blankly.
“Then is there no way to get to the First Underwater Base?”
“As mentioned before, the cable car is the most likely option. They said they moved all these jewels through the cable car.”
“Oh. Team Leader has a look on his face like he doesn't like the cable car.”
“I hate cable cars. Muhyeon. Are you injured anywhere?”
Shin Haeryang said this while changing magazines, without looking at me. Baek Aeyeong was checking a knife tied to their left thigh (Where had they gotten that?) and their spare magazines. We had never obtained such things, so they had likely been taken from others. It didn't seem like he was asking about my legs bruised from climbing stairs, my palms, forearms, and knees scraped raw from crawling, my index finger numb from pulling the trigger, or my shock-addled brain that felt like a broken blender refusing to spin, so I just shook my head blankly.
“I'm not hurt.”
“If it's true that there are about twenty-two cultists deployed on this floor, there should be at most four or five in the central plaza right now.”
“Why?”
“Because all the hostages lying in the central plaza resisted the cultists.”
As soon as I heard that, I imagined over ten people who had been lying prone simultaneously rising at the sound of the shootout in the exhibition hall and rushing the armed cultists with their bare hands. Then the screams and sobs I had heard occasionally weren't just in my head, but had been actual sounds coming from outside the exhibition hall. Then what about Kim Gayoung, Henry, and Jennifer? My head swam. Feeling dizzy, I closed my eyes for a moment and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I grabbed my throbbing head and asked.
“Were any of the hostages still alive?”
“I don't know.”
It didn't take long to realize that was a lie. Most likely, the central plaza was littered with corpses. Then I suddenly realized. Shin Haeryang hated wasting time. When we were climbing the stairs, he had been the one urging us on right after Baek Aeyeong, making us climb four thousand steps. Yet in the middle of a shootout, he was answering my questions and asking about my condition—how strange. Was there really time for such a leisurely conversation while we were shooting and taking cover?
“Why…… why aren't we going to where the cable car is, and instead staying here?”
“We're waiting.”
“For what?”
At my question, Baek Aeyeong smiled for the first time since coming up to the Second Underwater Base. Looking into Baek Aeyeong's eyes, I felt like I had dunked my head in ice water.
“They'll think Team Leader Shin is dead and come here to check.”
How would they know Shin Haeryang was dead? Because he stopped shooting? Ah. Shin Haeryang had stopped firing to act like he was dying from their bullets. But what if they threw a bomb or something at where we were hiding? At my question, Baek Aeyeong shook their head. Grenades in an underwater base? They said you'd have a better chance of survival detonating a grenade inside a plane, and hearing that, I felt a strange sensation.
Survival? Were those cult bastards doing this while thinking about survival? If they intended to live forever, then committing a hijacking like this made no sense to begin with. I had no idea why those crazy bastards were doing this. They claimed they would live eternal lives, yet they were dying to fingernail-sized bullets. I wanted to die knowing the reason, even if I died. I didn't want to die without knowing why.
‘We are those who live with the immortal shark! We survive any danger and hardship!’
‘I don't really know either, but to perform the Ritual of the Infinite Day, there need to be many people in the building, and it seems some people must die. They used to use fish, but for the Infinite Day, it has to be people.’
‘But this infinite life thing is a bit strange too. They say they live forever? How long do you have to live to be eternal? Lifespan is determined before time. Even the Earth has a set lifespan.’
Why had they destroyed the submersibles at the Second Underwater Base? Then wouldn't the cultists here have a hard time escaping too? Would the cultists deployed here restart the stopped elevators and go up to the First Underwater Base? Or would they all take the cable car to the sea surface, like they had with the jewels? Come to think of it, what about the believers deployed at the Third Underwater Base? Even if we had moved through the hidden stairs, how would they get to the surface? It would be better to deploy all the believers at least to the First Underwater Base. Why had they placed cultists at the Third Underwater Base and the Second Underwater Base too? If I were the cult leader, I would deploy believers at the First Underwater Base and around Daehando Island, kill everyone coming up in the elevators, and open fire on submersibles or escape craft surfacing on the water.
Why had they made it difficult even for their own followers to escape?
‘Assume they are going to kill everyone.’
Suddenly, everything went dark before my eyes. For a moment, I thought the stress had blinded me, or that I had been shot. Only when someone grabbed my wrist did I realize the power had gone out.
Once the power was out, I really couldn't see anything. But in the darkness, someone suddenly grasped my wrist lightly, and I was startled. I nearly jumped in place, swinging my arm, but they lightly hooked my leg, pushed my shoulder as I lost my balance, caught me as I was falling, and laid me down on the floor. Only when my back touched the floor did I realize I was lying down, and I heard Baek Aeyeong's voice low beside me.
“You startled me. I almost got hit in the face.”
“I'm sorry. I was too surprised.”
Suddenly, a voice came from behind my right side. It was Shin Haeryang's voice, so close that I was startled.
“We're going to crawl forward. Even if you hear gunshots, even if the person next to you stops, you must keep crawling.”
“Yes.”
Shin Haeryang kept making a rustling sound and then wrapped something around my wrist. Then I heard him wrapping it around somewhere else. Only when I touched my wrist did I realize it was a parachute cord. It seemed Shin Haeryang had unraveled the parachute cord wrapped around his forearm to connect us together. Ah. Right. If three people crawled in the darkness, we might lose each other, so that's why he was doing this. It was a wise method.