The moment Kim Gayeong opened the laboratory door, the red glow shining through my eyelids vanished. When I opened my eyes to adjust to the dark, everything was pitch-black, so utterly invisible that I had to walk trusting only in Lee Jihyeon’s hand ahead of me. Only after some time did Lee Jihyeon’s outline barely come into view. Yugeum behind me was probably the same.
There was almost nothing to see. Not even emergency lighting. If they cut the power like this, wouldn’t all the other marine life die? Did this place have an uninterruptible power supply, too? If it did, the lights would’ve come on, right? ……I don’t know.
Thinking back on what had happened not long ago, I began regretting my own stupidity. ……I should’ve brought the rope earlier. Then we could’ve tied the four of us together by the waist or arms and walked, and kept both hands free. I remembered how Shin Haeryang had made such efficient use of parachute cord in the dream. When other people do smart things, you’re supposed to watch and learn, but I haven’t changed at all. Fine, maybe other people don’t know better. But I’d already gone through a similar situation. So progressive and wise of me. Damn it.
Because Kim Gayeong had stood as close as possible to the laboratory door, and because we’d thought through how to move before the lights went out, we were able to leave the lab without any obstruction. In the darkness, we walked down the corridor in a line, relying on one another’s hands. We made our footsteps as quiet as possible.
Even at the tiny sounds the four of us couldn’t help making as we walked, I flinched and glanced around. Lee Jihyeon’s palm, gripping mine, was damp with tension. I was probably just as terrified, wasn’t I? I held Yugeum’s hand a little tighter, then worried it might hurt and loosened my grip slightly. I was scared if I gripped too hard, and scared if my grip went slack.
What would happen if I messed up and let go of this hand, getting separated from the people ahead?
Was the hand I was pulling really Yugeum’s hand?
Was the hand dragging me forward really Lee Jihyeon’s?
A chill ran over me, as if someone had snatched at the back of my head. What if I was dragging that man from earlier? What if Lee Jihyeon in front of me, or Yugeum holding my hand, or Kim Gayeong at the very front heading toward the Seafloor Pollution Center had switched places with the murderer? Were we even going the right way? Groundless, terrifying imaginings like that kept rising in my head.
But I tried to quell my fear with the silhouette of Lee Jihyeon that my eyes, adjusted to the dark, caught from time to time, and the faint sound of Yugeum’s breathing behind me. Rather than scream and go sprinting madly off somewhere into the darkness by myself, I was frightened, but I pressed my lips together and swallowed the saliva gathering in my mouth from tension.
Suddenly, bang! The sound came from the side corridor we had just passed. What was that? The hand of the person in front pulled me when I stopped. From very far away came the sound of slippers dragging. Ignoring the noise behind us, we kept walking, and it seemed Kim Gayeong had found the stairs leading from the second floor to the third.
Lee Jihyeon scratched the back of my hand twice. The action startled me, but only when Lee Jihyeon’s arm suddenly rose did I realize there were stairs in front of me. I also scratched the back of Yugeum’s hand twice with my fingernails, then climbed two steps to give Yugeum a few seconds to understand the situation. We climbed the stairs as silently as we could.
Around the time the four of us turned on the landing and continued upward, there was another bang! and, from far down the corridor, the scrape-scrape of slippers dragging. Yugeum’s hand clenched mine tightly. Wow. Come to think of it, this person was easily frightened too, and she was walking at the very back in this situation. I swallowed everything I wanted to say—hang in there, should I switch places with you—and focused on my steps.
After we left the stairs and reached the third floor, just as we had taken three steps forward, Lee Jihyeon’s body staggered. I quickly grabbed Lee Jihyeon’s forearm with one arm to keep her from falling. Lee Jihyeon and I were so close our shoulders were nearly touching, and in the darkness, her outline stretched an arm out, flailing as she searched for something. Had she lost Kim Gayeong? Seeing Lee Jihyeon’s arm and hand swing freely up and down enough to make the air hiss, I became certain she had lost Kim Gayeong.
I linked arms with Yugeum, and with each of our free arms, we swept through the air and over the floor together to search for Kim Gayeong. Lee Jihyeon’s hand and mine found and grabbed someone’s hand on the floor at the same time. The hand was too cold and firm, had a ring on the fourth finger, and was as large as mine. Lee Jihyeon flinched and threw the hand away, and only a few seconds later did I understand as well, letting go as if shaking it off. To swallow my scream, I forced myself to suck in breath after breath. My heart began pounding in my ears.
A man was lying on the floor. Judging by his condition, he was probably a corpse, and he seemed to be one of the researchers’ bodies we had found in the corridors on the third and fourth floors. Kim Gayeong must have stepped on the dead man as she entered the third-floor corridor, then tripped and rolled. Lee Jihyeon and I, searching for Kim Gayeong in the darkness, had ended up grabbing this man’s hand. Yugeum, still linked with my arm, tried to sit down on the floor. When Yugeum sat, I, with my forearm caught, had no choice but to be forced down too. Of the two of us, the only one not trembling like an aspen seemed to be Yugeum, who hadn’t experienced that.
In a situation like this, having someone calm beside you who didn’t fall into panic was incredibly helpful. Feeling Yugeum’s linked hand tap my arm twice, I found Lee Jihyeon’s trembling arm and linked mine through it. The three of us sat side by side on the floor with our arms linked, breathing in and out for a few seconds.
When Lee Jihyeon’s loud breathing began to subside, Yugeum unlinked her arm. Then she took my hand and swung her arm downward, swishing it as though sweeping with her hand. I took Lee Jihyeon’s hand and copied Yugeum’s action, and a few seconds later, the three of us were finally able to move forward, practically sweeping the floor with our hands like brooms.
Before we had taken even three steps, we found Kim Gayeong. Kim Gayeong was sitting on the floor, waving her hand through the air, so my fingers struck hers. Soon Kim Gayeong grabbed my hand. Once the four of us were holding hands again, I let out a huge sigh inside. There was a very faint sound of someone swallowing back a runny nose. And the sound of panting in pain.
I supported Kim Gayeong, with Lee Jihyeon and Yugeum walking after us. Even as Kim Gayeong swallowed painful groans, her limping gait began to grow far steadier and faster than it had been on the stairs. Ah. From the Jujak Building dormitory, through the third-floor Deep-Sea Biology Center to the third-floor Seafloor Pollution Center—this person must have commuted back and forth along this route dozens, hundreds of times. She could probably find her way with her eyes closed, I thought.
“Aaagh!”
A scream came from behind us along with a bang. I looked back, but I couldn’t see anything. Lee Jihyeon let go of my hand and shouted.
“Run!”
Lee Jihyeon turned on a flashlight I hadn’t known she’d brought and shone it down the corridor. In the corridor, a man was lifting a chair over his head. That crazy bastard had been coming while throwing metal chairs!
To think there were people who, moving through the darkness, threw chairs into a corridor thinking it would be a gain if someone got hit, while there were also people who would willingly choose to die to save someone else.
The man illuminated by Lee Jihyeon’s flashlight looked like a gigantic monster because of the shadows made by darkness and light, his great height, and the height of the chair. The moment I saw him, an instinctive terror surged up in me, demanding I flee this place immediately. ……And along with it came the conviction that if I ran away right now, I alone could just barely get out unharmed.
Among the people in my group, I was the least injured, so I could escape this place the fastest; though I lacked exercise, I was the tallest, and I was probably stronger than these three women. Fear came toward me like a tidal wave, constantly sending the message that I should run and survive.
Kim Gayeong? She was barely able to walk. Lee Jihyeon had used up all her strength in the water at the Jujak Building dormitory, so she wasn’t much different from Kim Gayeong. Yugeum seemed to have taken one of the metal chairs the other party had thrown dead-on earlier. Lee Jihyeon had told us to run, but other than me, no one could run properly. Walking was all they could manage.
……If I alone stayed unharmed, could I make it out of here safely? If I abandoned them, would my chances of survival rise dramatically? Could I be free from the guilt of having left people behind? If Yugeum hadn’t taken that chair for me from behind, it would have hit me or the backpack on my back. I did the exact opposite of what I’d been told. Gritting my teeth, I charged at him.
Lee Jihyeon did the same. Being the closest to the man, Lee Jihyeon had to block the chair he swung with both arms the moment she lunged in. Blocking the chair with her arms and then catching it with her hands, Lee Jihyeon endured his strength, getting dragged along as the chair moved. Lee Jihyeon’s flashlight swung dizzily here and there along with her. But as she was pushed back by his weight and strength, the man threw the chair backward, and Lee Jihyeon went tumbling back along with it.
While Lee Jihyeon’s flashlight was shining, I saw an object tucked into the waistband of the man’s pants that looked like a water gun, and it seemed to be that microorganism gun in question. My goal was to snatch that away and subdue him. You only die once, not twice!
I lunged in with the speed I’d built up running and drove my elbow into his torso. A shock came over me as if my elbow had shattered. Maybe he hadn’t recognized me suddenly appearing from the darkness, because I heard him gasp, “Kugh!” and exhale. The man and I rolled once across the floor side by side.
My hand tried to find the gun that should have been tucked somewhere into his waistband, but though I grabbed the man’s belly fat, there was nothing like a water gun. Horrified, I latched onto where I thought the man’s right forearm would be. He had already pulled the chemical gun from his waistband with his right hand.
I clung to this man’s right arm and right hand with almost my entire body, holding on so the muzzle couldn’t point toward me. I thought it was a good decision. Because the man couldn’t shoot it into my body. If there was one problem, it was that my opponent was a human being with two arms.
Suddenly, stars flashed on the right side of my face. He had swung his left hand at the place where my face seemed to be. His left hand didn’t stop, and he began beating at my right side, my right shoulder, and the right side of my face at random. The strength began to leave my arms and hands, which were holding onto the man’s right half. After being struck in the face three times, my head was spinning, and only one thing remained in my mind.
If I let go of this man’s right arm, I die.
It won’t just be me.
Everyone here could die.