“People here do get trapped because of the doors from time to time. There was once a whole uproar when four people got stuck while playing mahjong, but there haven’t been many cases of five people getting trapped.”
“Why was it wise not to reveal their name?”
Yu Geum answered the question I’d blurted out without thinking.
“Once their identity is pinned down, you can’t know whether a rescuer will come or whether someone they’re on bad terms with will show up as a potential criminal. ……Good grief. The person trapped is a woman.”
Since Kim Gayoung was the one trapped, Yu Geum’s guess was right. But how had she known the person trapped was a woman? As Lee Jihyeon walked quickly, she said to me,
“Leave a comment. Tell her to get ready.”
“Is that all right? Won’t the people reading this post find out that someone is moving around the Vermilion Bird Wing?”
Normally, I never would have thought of something like that. But after seeing the way Kang Sujeong wrote, it was clear she was trying to avoid revealing where they were moving as much as possible, or even where the person she was writing to was.
“In this situation, is there anyone besides us who would go into the water and save that person anyway? Well, to other people reading it, it will make it look like two or more people are wandering around the Vermilion Bird Wing, but if someone was going to save her, they would have done it already. Tell her to be ready.”
I wrote a comment under the name RESCUE. [We’re on our way now. Get ready to leave the room and wait.] Lee Jihyeon stopped just as she was about to enter the escape craft port.
She stared silently at the water marks in front of the entrance leading to the escape craft port, then looked back at us and said in a low voice,
“There are engineers inside.”
“Huh? Yes. What?”
There are engineers inside? I see. But how did you know that? At my stupid response, Yu Geum’s brows twisted as well.
“You mean there are engineers in there who know someone is trapped in the quarters right next to the escape craft, but haven’t gone to save her?”
“How did you know there were engineers?”
At my question, Lee Jihyeon answered quickly.
“The wet prints on the floor are from the shoes engineers wear when working underwater. They must have been working on the outer wall and entered the Vermilion Bird Wing.”
The floor was covered here and there with the wet footprints of people who had run frantically from the flooded quarters, but over them were a few distinct shoe prints. Right. Now that I looked, Lee Jihyeon’s shoes were different from the sneakers we were wearing. Wait, this is different from the way the dream played out, isn’t it? Lee Jihyeon looked at me and Yu Geum with an expression that said she didn’t expect much, but was asking anyway.
“Do either of you have anything that could be used as a weapon?”
“No.”
“I don’t.”
“Couldn’t they just not know someone is trapped?”
“Engineers? Those guys handle almost all their work through pads.”
Was that so? Dental clinics weren’t like that. Besides, an undersea base message board? Before this, I hadn’t even known such a board existed. Lee Jihyeon looked reluctant to enter through the door right away. Hmm. It was probably because the engineer teams weren’t exactly on close terms with one another. Yu Geum looked at the thick, sturdy door of the escape craft port and asked,
“They might have taken an escape craft and left, right?”
“That would be the best-case scenario.”
“Jihyeon. Then wouldn’t it be better to rescue the trapped person first and come back here? It’s not as if the quarters are far anyway.”
“What if we come back and there’s no escape craft?”
At Lee Jihyeon’s question, I answered simply.
“Then we go to another wing. We’re going to save her anyway, aren’t we?”
Lee Jihyeon hesitated for about five seconds, then nodded. Seeing how she seemed to think time was gold, she resembled Shin Haeryang. ……Then was Lee Jihyeon also a retired soldier or a mercenary or something? I didn’t know. As Lee Jihyeon and Yu Geum walked ahead, I looked at their backs and made up my mind. If we were going to move together anyway, we had no choice but to trust each other. I began speaking slowly.
“Actually, I had a dream a few hours ago.”
“Yes.”
“I saw something similar to this in that dream.”
“How was it similar?”
After thinking for a moment about how to answer Yu Geum’s question, I hesitated, then said,
“The Vermilion Bird Wing of the undersea base got hit by a missile, people couldn’t escape on the escape craft and were dying, we were going to rescue someone together like this, cultists took over the undersea base—things like that.”
Lee Jihyeon, who had been walking without answering while keeping watch ahead, turned back to look at me. Then she said,
“How did you know the Vermilion Bird Wing was attacked by a missile?”
“……In the dream.”
Even as I answered, I felt like I was turning into a complete idiot.
Yu Geum stared at me with her mouth open and a strange expression on her face. Ah. I understand. If someone started spouting nonsense in this situation, I’d probably look at them like that too. I thought Lee Jihyeon would react similarly to Yu Geum, but though her brows furrowed, surprisingly, she didn’t say much. She merely looked me over once, then quickened her pace again and said,
“It’s true that the Vermilion Bird Wing was attacked by a missile. My team members were caught in the explosion and nearly died while on duty.”
“Huh? Really?”
When Yu Geum asked back in surprise, Lee Jihyeon kept her gaze fixed forward and nodded. Yu Geum walked in a daze, then asked me,
“Weren’t you just talking about some weird dream you had, Mr. Muhyeon? You’re saying it’s true that the Vermilion Bird Wing research center was blown up by a missile? No, why? Who? Who would think of blowing up an entire research center with over four hundred people inside?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t dream about that part.”
“The people at the research center gathered to improve Earth’s environmental problems, you know. Not to go out into space and terraform other planets while ruining them. They’re people who came together to somehow save Earth. And a missile? ……Ugh. What about the deep-sea contamination?”
“Um…… things like concrete or rebar sink to the bottom, so wouldn’t the bathypelagic layer where we are, at one thousand to three thousand meters, be okay?”
My words didn’t seem to help much. As Yu Geum walked in utter despair, clutching the back of her neck, I worried she might collapse. But though she staggered, she was still moving forward, and watching her, I sighed inwardly. Looking at Lee Jihyeon’s back as she walked a little faster than me, I asked,
“You don’t seem very surprised, Jihyeon.”
“Is that so? I was so shocked when the research center first exploded that what I just heard feels rather ordinary.”
“No. I mean the part about me seeing it in a dream.”
Lee Jihyeon hesitated, swallowed her words, and looked into the distance before speaking.
“In the Bible, there are several instances of people having dreams that foretell the future. There’s even a case where an angel appears and tells Mary of her pregnancy. For Christians, divine revelation through dreams isn’t all that surprising. Rather, what bothers me more is what you said about people not being able to escape on the escape craft, and cultists taking over the undersea base.”
Was that so? Were these memories I was feeling some kind of divine revelation or whatever? But if that was the case, why hadn’t there been any divine revelation when my father died? Why hadn’t there been anything like divine revelation when my family had their accident? I had never once in my life felt so favored by God that I would receive something like this. If this was what a life of being favored looked like, then I’d rather live a life that didn’t receive even simple universal love.
“Is that so? I thought my dream was just a stupid dream. Until the undersea base flooded and we escaped from the White Tiger Wing, anyway.”
At my words, Lee Jihyeon summed up the situation lightly.
“In any case, the fact that we have to go save the trapped person hasn’t changed.”
“That’s true.”
The place where I’d encountered the cult wasn’t the Fourth Undersea Base. Besides, we would only know about the escape craft once we entered the escape craft port. As we headed toward the quarters, Lee Jihyeon hesitated, then asked me,
“……Mr. Muhyeon, did you escape in the dream?”
“Uh, um. Well.”
I had died in an absolutely, utterly horrible way. Should I tell her that as it was? Since it hadn’t happened yet, wouldn’t it be better to give them some hope with a more decent story rather than pointlessly explaining and breaking their will to escape? After watching my behavior for a few seconds, Lee Jihyeon said,
“I understand.”
I didn’t answer, though? Then Lee Jihyeon supported Yu Geum, who was staggering ahead, and quickly walked to the Vermilion Bird Wing quarters. I, too, half-ran with quick little steps, overtaking the two of them and arriving at the entrance to the quarters.
When I opened the pad and checked the undersea base message board, posts about Room 77 in the Vermilion Bird Wing were plastered everywhere. Most of them said the lights were all out, the water had risen too much, and she was scared.
As I relayed what was on the pad to the others, I watched Lee Jihyeon check the shutoff door connected to the quarters. She looked at the quarters, which could house five hundred people, all with their bulkheads lowered, and considered the section from rooms 50 to 99, where Room 77 was located. Then she asked me,
“By any chance, did I drain this room in your dream?”
“Drain it?”
“I mean remove the water.”
“I…… I’m not sure.”
Even to me, that was a statement that wasn’t helpful to an engineer at all. Lee Jihyeon seemed to be deliberating whether or not to press the drain button for the section where the bulkhead had been lowered. Looking at me and Yu Geum, Lee Jihyeon explained her concern.
“If it’s working normally, at least some water will drain out, but if it’s malfunctioning, I think the water could fill up faster.”
“Then can’t we open the door leading to the quarters, check the water level, and press it if it’s too high?”
Yu Geum stared blankly at the pad, then shook her head.
“I think it would be better not to take unnecessary risks like that. There are already too many things we can’t control.”
Accepting Yu Geum’s opinion, Lee Jihyeon checked the pressure displayed on the bulkhead door and opened the door leading to the quarters. A dark stairway came into view. The third step was barely visible thanks to the light from the corridor, but the rest couldn’t be seen at all. Since the lights were out, a fear like staring endlessly into a dark underground space brushed the back of my neck. I rubbed my trembling body with my arms to calm myself, looked around, and spotted the axe Shin Haeryang had taken with him. I gently set my bag down on the floor, pointed at the axe to Lee Jihyeon, and said,
“Let’s take that.”
I quickly pulled the emergency axe from the wall. It was heavier than I expected. Almost like the weight of the gun I’d held in the dream. How had Shin Haeryang carried this around? When Lee Jihyeon struck a wall-like section hard with her fist, a panel fell off, revealing a flashlight and a flathead screwdriver. Lee Jihyeon scrubbed the handle of the flashlight against her suit, then looked at Yu Geum and me and said,
“Mr. Muhyeon and I will go down, and Ms. Geum can wait for us near the door.”