Yugeum looked at the two of us, then down the corridor toward the empty dormitory, then at the dark stairs before saying,
“I want to go down and help too.”
“We don’t know how high the water will be.”
Lee Jihyeon objected at once. Ah. Right. I remembered the water level being incredibly high before, too. Yugeum was the shortest among us. As I wondered whether I should take off my shoes, Lee Jihyeon said firmly,
“Keep your shoes on. If you hurt your feet, you won’t be able to move.”
I’d been about to take them off because I didn’t want them getting wet, but now that I thought about it, she was right. At that, I put only my bag down on the floor and held the axe in one hand. Yugeum said to Lee Jihyeon and me,
“Please, both of you, come back safely.”
After lightly making the sign of the cross, Lee Jihyeon turned on her flashlight, held it in her mouth, gripped a flathead screwdriver in one hand, left the other hand free, and began descending the stairs. Wouldn’t it be easier to just hold the flashlight in her hand?
I carefully went down the water-soaked stairs, doing my best not to fall. Now and then I forgot I was holding an axe and felt a chill run through me, so I held it as far away from my body as I could and descended into the darkness.
The Jujak-dong dormitory was dark. With all the lights out, the pitch-black darkness of the countryside made it impossible to see ahead. Only the beam from Lee Jihyeon’s pen-sized flashlight, a step or two ahead of me, illuminated the world.
Almost everything was floating in the water. Lee Jihyeon very slowly placed her foot into it, then took her time letting the water rise over her calves and thighs. After she stepped into the dark water and walked a few paces, it looked as if the water had risen almost to her chest.
I, too, slowly entered the water. It would be the worst possible time to have a heart attack. Damn it. It’s freezing. Even though this was clearly similar to the situation in the dream when I went to save Kim Gayoung, why did this feel even scarier? I recalled the dream, when the water had risen almost to my chin. It’s fine. I can do this. The water level’s lower, so it should be easier to rescue her than before.
Lee Jihyeon moved forward almost without making a sound. Every so often, she shone her flashlight through an open door, then continued onward. How can she walk so well like that? I was the only one clinging to the walls and doors like an octopus, splashing water and making noise. As I walked while holding on to doors and walls in that cold, dark place, a strange thought suddenly occurred to me.
What if the person walking in front of me wasn’t Lee Jihyeon?
What if the real Lee Jihyeon had never come down, and I was walking through this darkness alone?
What if Lee Jihyeon suddenly melted away into the dark water and disappeared?
Or what if she turned her head, looked at me, smiled, and tore her mouth open all the way to her ears?
What if that flashlight suddenly went out and I was trapped in darkness?
……Have I watched too many movies? But as time passed, I grew so frightened I felt like I would scream if anyone so much as touched me. The strength slowly drained from the hand holding the axe, and my body trembled. Even the fact that I was holding an axe felt terrifying. When you were terrified, you shouldn’t be holding something you couldn’t handle. For both our safety, that was even more true. Unable to endure the fear any longer, I called out to the person walking two meters ahead of me.
“J-Jihyeon. Jihyeon!”
When Lee Jihyeon turned her head, the flashlight beam shone right into my face, dazzling me. Lee Jihyeon took the flashlight out of her mouth and asked. Because of the light, I couldn’t see her face clearly.
“What is it?”
“Let’s go together.”
My voice sounded even more pathetic than I had expected. But Lee Jihyeon said nothing in particular to me and simply gestured. It was a gesture telling me to hurry over to her, and I swallowed my fear as I approached. Until then we had been walking in single file, but now we began walking side by side. As I pushed away a chair that had gotten caught on my foot, Lee Jihyeon turned the flashlight beam that had been illuminating the chair and my hand forward and asked,
“Was Baekho-dong submerged to about this level too?”
“Pardon? No. It went all the way over our heads. You couldn’t survive without gills.”
“I see.”
“Why do you ask?”
“My wallet, phone, passport, Bible, rosary, everything is in my room.”
“Ah. That’s unfortunate. I guess you’ll have to buy new ones.”
“There are things I can’t replace, so it weighs on me a bit.”
Lee Jihyeon let out a long sigh and lightly avoided a cup floating toward her on the water. While talking with her, I suddenly remembered the family photo I had left on the table in my room. Ah. Ah. Damn it. I think I took it with me in the dream, but did I take it this time? Did I not? Shit. Things had been so chaotic in the Baekho-dong dormitory that I couldn’t remember. The closer we got to Room 77, the slower and more cautious Lee Jihyeon’s steps became. She said to me,
“Muhyeon. Going to Room 77 itself might be a trap. It could be dangerous, so be ready.”
“Pardon?”
Right now, the scariest things to me were the cold water and the darkness. As far as I was concerned, the biggest traps were the little tables that suddenly drifted in and tried to trip my ankles, or chair legs that poked my calves. Since I seemed not to understand what she meant, Lee Jihyeon explained at greater length.
“They might not be trapped at all and could have written on the bulletin board to lure us here.”
“Uh. ……Now that you mention it, that’s possible. But why would anyone go out of their way to do that?”
“People with malice can do anything.”
“And yet, thinking that, we still came to save someone.”
Even though we could have ignored all this trouble of submerging ourselves in this cold water and walking through the darkness. When I said that with a slight smile, Lee Jihyeon replied to me with the same expressionless face she had worn all along.
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. ……We came to fish for people.”
Then Lee Jihyeon smiled faintly. I remembered that phrase being something Jesus said in the Bible when he was headhunting a few people, but I couldn’t remember the exact details.
“How many will you be satisfied with catching?”
“As many as possible.”
I’m an atheist and someone with a deep aversion to religion, but there are still times when I can’t help but be impressed. Like now, as we walked through this water, Lee Jihyeon was less afraid than me—a grown damn adult, old enough to know better and with a perfectly decent build—because she believed the Lord had her back, and because she was trying to do even a little good through that faith.
Of course, I also knew that rotten bastards were everywhere. There were so many people who spread poison in the name of God and chewed on other people’s flesh that you couldn’t count them. But whatever her reason, Lee Jihyeon was here, risking danger to save someone else. Lee Jihyeon approached the door to Room 77 and called out.
“We’re here to rescue you. Are you inside? Is anyone there?”
When Lee Jihyeon knocked on the door, a woman’s scream came from inside.
“I’m here! There’s someone here! Please save me!”
It was Kim Gayoung. I was glad to hear her voice. Kim Gayoung spoke in a rapid-fire burst.
“The door won’t open! I don’t know if it’s caught or blocked, but it won’t open automatically, and even when I press the manual button and push with all my strength, it won’t open! Please get me out!”
“Gayoung unni?”
“Yes! It’s me! ……Who are you?”
“It’s me, Jihyeon. From Engineer Team A.”
“Uhuuhuhuhuhuk. Jihyeon. I’m trapped here alone! Waaah.”
“Just wait a little.”
Then Lee Jihyeon handed me the flashlight. Touching the door, Lee Jihyeon lowered her hand, took a deep breath, and put her head underwater. I was horrified and followed Lee Jihyeon’s face with the flashlight beam.
Lee Jihyeon’s short hair swayed underwater. I could see her driving the flathead screwdriver into the inside of the door. Then Lee Jihyeon lifted her head and came straight out of the water. As she drew in another breath, I held out the axe I had been carrying all this time. Lee Jihyeon pushed her hair back and wiped the water running down her face with her hand.
“I don’t think it’ll be use— ……No, wait. In the dream, who opened this door?”
“Shin Haeryang.”
“Do you remember how he opened it?”
“I’m not sure, but when Shin Haeryang went in here, he had an axe, and when he came out, he didn’t.”
Wow. Looking back on what I had just said, I was really…… I was so helpful. It was amazing that Lee Jihyeon didn’t decide I was useless and leave me behind.
“You think our team leader would just break it open with brute force?”
Then she took the axe, drew in a breath, and put her head underwater. As I shone the light below, Lee Jihyeon was using the axe handle to widen the gap in the spot where she had driven in the flathead screwdriver and pried the door open.
When Lee Jihyeon came out of the water again, there was a gap of about three centimeters in the door. Enough for a finger to fit through. When I shone the flashlight through the gap, I sensed something moving beyond the door. When Kim Gayoung came closer and pressed her eye to the crack, my heart nearly stopped. My heart rate shot straight up. Ah. My cowardly personality, seriously.
What I felt when our eyes met was momentary terror, along with a question like, why are the whites of her eyes visible even in this darkness? With my heart pounding madly in my ears from the sudden spike in my pulse, Kim Gayoung asked me,
“What can I do to help?”
“Uh…… Jihyeon. Should we push the door sideways?”
“No. Think of it as lifting it upward.”
The three of us strained with all our might to lift up the part of the door that didn’t even have a handle. Lee Jihyeon kept kicking the axe handle wedged in the door with her foot. Then Lee Jihyeon suddenly put her head underwater again, making me panic and shine the flashlight after her. Lee Jihyeon did something, and the door began to slowly slide open sideways. When the door had opened about thirty centimeters, Lee Jihyeon came out of the water and said to Kim Gayoung,
“Gayoung unni. Try coming out through the gap.”
Through the narrow gap, Kim Gayoung tried headfirst. Her head barely made it through, and at the sight, I let out a sigh of relief.
“If your head gets through, there shouldn’t be much problem getting the rest of you out, so that’s a relief.”
At those words, Lee Jihyeon was wiping the water from her face with her palm when she coughed and asked me,
“Cough. What about her hips?”
“To put it extremely, you can’t cut through the skull, but you can cut through butt flesh.”
“We don’t need to cut anything!”
Startled, Kim Gayoung quickly wriggled her body out through the narrow gap. The moment Kim Gayoung came out from behind the door, Lee Jihyeon said,
“Let’s get out of here quickly. The water is still rising.”
At those words, I came to my senses and realized the water level had already risen to my shoulders. When did it get this high? Was it because I had already adapted to this situation that I hadn’t noticed? Holding the flashlight, Lee Jihyeon began moving like a crab while clinging to the walls and doors like a spider. Kim Gayoung and I followed behind her.