Alright. The events in the dream and what’s happening now don’t match up completely. But why do injuries from the dream affect people in reality? Then shouldn’t I also be rolling around with a stomachache? The great white shark tore into my stomach this way and that. Imagining it, my stomach—which didn’t even hurt—started to feel like it did, so I rubbed my lower belly. Gang Sujeong carefully observed the child and asked.
“It’s not your child, is it, sir?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Where did you find him?”
“He was sleeping in Room 80, Baekho-dong.”
Gang Sujeong frowned at that and said.
“Isn’t that room vacant?”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Is that so? Hmm. Sleeping soundly in a situation like this.”
I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and struggled not to say Henry’s name.
“I think someone probably drugged him to keep him asleep.”
“He couldn’t have come on our helicopter. Did the Americans put him on theirs? If so, why leave him in Baekho-dong instead of their own Hyeonmu-dong? Hey! Nikolai! Is this kid one of yours?”
Nikolai had been talking with his team, but when his team leader lifted his chin, he strode over from afar. After glancing at Henry’s face, he spoke to Gang Sujeong as if dumbfounded.
“Look at his face. There’s not an ounce of Slavic spirit. Does he look like someone who grew up running across frozen Russian steppes and breathing air that tears at your lungs?”
“How would I know that? All white people look the same to me.”
Nikolai made a pitying expression and said.
“This kid isn’t Russian no matter how you look at him. Ask those bastards who live in warmer places, not us. Ah, right. Have you guys seen Dmitri and Irina from our team?”
Gang Sujeong shook her head. Nikolai looked at me, and I hastily shook my head too.
At Gang Sujeong’s answer, Nikolai let out a short sigh and went back to his team. Gang Sujeong checked the child’s pulse, opened his eyelids, and rummaged through his pockets. Finding nothing, she scratched her cheek and took a picture of Henry’s face with her tablet.
Then Gang Sujeong began writing a post on the undersea base’s bulletin board with her tablet. When the title started with *To the fucking bastard who lost their kid*, I, who had been peeking at the post from the side, gaped with my mouth hanging wide open.
[I don’t know if your parents raised you to be this big a piece of shit, but the child abandoned in Room 80 of Baekho-dong would have become a drowned corpse thanks to your idiotic actions if not for some good person’s kindness. If you had even a fingernail’s worth of brain in your thick skull, you wouldn’t have illegally brought a child under ten to an adults-only undersea base and drugged him unconscious. Don’t think this kindness will continue. In the current situation, I’m too busy trying to keep my own ass alive. If you don’t come get this kid right now, you goddamn fucking bastard, I’ll find you and beat you half to death with my own hands.]
Even as she wrote sentences that were more than half profanity without the slightest change in expression, Gang Sujeong paused. After skipping a line in her post, she added a sentence in a gentle tone. Having finished with *[If anyone knows the child’s parents, please leave a comment on this post. Thank you.]*, Gang Sujeong attached the child’s photo and uploaded it.
I pondered for a moment. In the dream, Henry was definitely the child of Nevaeh and Leonard, but I didn’t even know those two, and since the dream and the current situation might differ, I was hesitant to speak rashly. What if in reality he wasn’t their child?
People were gathered only with their own teams. In the dream, hadn’t everyone who came to the escape vessels gathered to talk together? But back then, Sin Haeryang, the leader of Engineer Team A, had evacuated by escape vessel. ……Come to think of it, in the dream, weren’t those who evacuated by escape vessel as good as dead? The moment I thought that Sin Haeryang, Baek Aeyeong, and Seo Jihyeok—all of whom had evacuated—were dead, goosebumps rose all over my body. ……It was just a dream. Surely not. That couldn’t be. Reality flows differently. That couldn’t happen. ……Right?
If I revealed that in the dream I had discovered that someone intentionally sabotaged the escape vessels at the 4th Undersea Base, who would believe me? If I said that among the other engineer team members in the dream, some had smuggled in weapons and a shootout broke out, would they believe me? If I said that at Undersea Bases 1, 2, and 3, gun-wielding fanatics were holding people hostage, would they accept it? If I said the undersea cable car crashed and someone died after being torn apart by a shark, would anyone believe me? They’d probably call me crazy. When should I say it?
The bag I was wearing against my chest suddenly squirmed. I hastily opened it slightly to check on the cat and the snake. Though suddenly confined in a narrow bag, the cat was calm. It didn’t even cry out. Do cats like tight spaces? You’d have to have raised animals to know. The snake inside the small pocket also raised its head, perhaps uncomfortable, but barely moved. Ah, these good little creatures.
Walking through that chest-deep, ice-cold water in the narrow corridor had made me wonder. Was saving animals in this situation even sensible? The thought that it might be better to escape alone had crossed my mind dozens of times even while staying still. Each time, I told myself that if I abandoned them, I would definitely regret my choice. If I returned alive alone, every cat and snake I met would remind me of those drowned in seawater. Because I’m that kind of person. Locking eyes with the cat, I zipped up my bag and watched the people talking amongst themselves about the situation.
Nikita, who had been talking with his team, arched his back deeply like a cat, stretched his body out long, and spoke to Gang Sujeong, who was talking with I Jihyeon.
“Everyone’s making a fuss over an earthquake. The base probably just took on some water.”
Then he yawned wide enough to split his mouth. Gang Sujeong laughed and poked Nikita in the waist with her finger as he stretched his arms out wide.
“Ah, then you guys stay here. We’re leaving.”
“You guys try fixing that thing.”
Nikita, who seemed close to Gang Sujeong and was still drunk, giggled and rubbed his side where she’d poked him. Then Nikolai pointed at the escape vessels that looked broken and spoke to Gang Sujeong. He waved his hand toward the several escape vessels with ominously flashing red lights. Gang Sujeong shook her head at red-faced Nikolai and said.
“I don’t have any equipment or anything. You do it. ……How much did you fucking drink?”
“I couldn’t even put on underwear when I came out.”
I didn’t want to know. ……Well, at least he’d found pants. The Russians still reeked of alcohol. The Engineer Team A members were at least wearing black suits, but everyone else looked like complete vagrants. My clothes were soaked through from top to bottom, but the others were also a mess—their lower bodies were wet from evacuating, and they’d rushed out in a hurry to avoid seawater. Viktor was wearing only pants, his upper body completely baring his muscles. Sofia was only wearing a thin T-shirt and shorts. And those were soaked through too. Had she fallen into the water once?
The Russians were all barefoot. It must have been hard to find their shoes. All their belongings, shoes included, were floating in the water. Nikita wrung out his wet pant cuffs by hand, cursed, and rolled them up. Watching him, I too took off my shoes and squeezed the water out of my socks. Then, reluctantly, I put my socks back on, rolled up my sticky pant legs, and made them into shorts.
Yu Geumi looked at Sofia, took off the long-sleeved cardigan she was wearing, and handed it over hurriedly. Sofia refused at first. Then Yu Geumi looked at Sofia, who was shivering, and added.
“You look so cold.”
Sofia looked at Yu Geumi’s long-sleeved T-shirt and long jeans, accepted the cardigan, and said.
“Thanks. I’ll wear it.”
Sofia trembled and quickly put on the cardigan. I too took out a towel I had stashed in the bag on my back and silently handed it to Sofia, whose hair was completely soaked. Sofia gave me a quick nod, took the towel, and only wiped away enough water dripping from her hair before passing the towel to Viktor. Viktor immediately passed it on to Vladimir, who, without using it, threw it at Nikolai, who was making a fuss. Nikolai roughly scrubbed his wet face and hair with the towel and said.
“What should we do, Team Leader? Rather than fixing this to go up, shouldn’t we go to another sector? I still see two of you, Team Leader.”
“……Let’s move to Hyeonmu-dong. If the miners couldn’t get into the base, there should be escape vessels left.”
Gang Sujeong, I Jihyeon, and Jeong Sanghyeon had slightly differing opinions. They had been arguing about using the central elevator—Jeong Sanghyeon was the one insisting on it, and I Jihyeon was the one opposing it. I Jihyeon spoke calmly.
“Sanghyeon. The elevators can’t function normally under this level of impact. If the elevator stops midway, we’ll be trapped. There’s no answer but to pray.”
“Then what are we going to do if we go to another sector and there are no escape vessels?!”
I Jihyeon listened to Jeong Sanghyeon, thought for a few seconds, and said.
“Then we have to find another way out. We could go to Cheongnyong-dong and board a submersible. Or move to another sector. We won’t know anything just from talking here. According to the current system records, not a single escape vessel has been launched, but in reality, there aren’t any left, are there? The elevators are all listed as stopped, but they might be operating normally.”
“What if we can’t get out!”
“If we can’t get out, we all die together. Our Sanghyeon won’t be lonely, right?”
Gang Sujeong smiled kindly and patted Jeong Sanghyeon’s back. Jeong Sanghyeon seethed, and perhaps having nothing more to say, sat down on the floor in irritation. For some reason, he seemed to be trying to redirect the frustration of being in this situation into anger toward his team members. He must hate being here. Who wouldn’t?
I ran my tongue over the inside of my mouth, tasted nothing but salt, and took out a strawberry candy from my bag, popping it in. My wet clothes clung to my body, and I felt the sudden void left by my stamina draining away. I too sat down on the floor. Yu Geumi, who had been talking with Nikita, approached me. I hastily fished around in my bag, pulled out several candies, handed them to the people around me, and held one out to Yu Geumi as well.