Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

Chapter 20

The seawater rushed into my mouth. As I swallowed the salty, bitter water, my consciousness waned. On top of that, my waist hurt as if it had been violently twisted. When I opened my eyes, I saw Shin Haeryang pulling Seo Jihyuk and me out of the water and up the stairs. As the pain in my waist became unbearable, I realized how Shin Haeryang had managed to find and rescue us from the pitch-black water.

Unbeknownst to me, the parachute cords tied to my waist were connected to Shin Haeryang’s arm. The same went for Seo Jihyuk. Shin Haeryang had pulled us up by winding the cords around his arm continuously.

Seo Jihyuk regained his senses and, with heavy steps, climbed the stairs behind Shin Haeryang, who was like a fisherman reeling in his catch. I also crawled up the stairs, where Yoo Geum Yi and Kim Gayoung were waiting to grab Seo Jihyuk and pull him up.

‘It turns out you can climb stairs on all fours. Today has been a day of me learning new things by force.’ As I suppressed my messy emotions and continued my quadrupedal climb, Baek Aeyoung lowered the water barrier that allowed us to return to the living quarters once Shin Haeryang emerged. As the persistent water disappeared, I took in deep breaths, feeling as if my lungs would burst, and then lay flat on the floor.

Shin Haeryang’s voice resonated.

“Seo Jihyuk. Your legs?”

He seemed to be asking because he saw us fall.

“I’m fine.”

“Doctor. Are you injured anywhere?”

Then he talked to me, so I looked at Shin Haeryang while still lying down. My clothes were soaked with seawater, and I didn’t have the strength to get up. As I wrung the water out of my clothes, I replied, “My chest hurts.”

“You’re fine.”

Shin Haeryang’s decisive response reached my ears. Why are the people here so cold? Is it because they’ve been underwater for so long? I thought Shin Haeryang would help me up when he silently approached me, so I reached out my hand. However, he magically untied the parachute cords from my body and took them back. As I groaned and struggled to get up, Yoo Geum Yi and Kim Gayoung were hugging each other and crying.

“Waaaah! Eunnie! I thought you were dead!”

“Uwaah! I thought I was going to die too!”

“Gayoung eunnie, why were you locked in that room alone?! Waaaah! You said you’d be able to escape quickly if something happened!”

“The door wouldn’t open! Uwaaaah! The door! The door wouldn’t open! It seems like the doors in the other rooms opened, but mine wouldn’t! I yelled for help, and everyone was escaping together, but they left me behind! Uwaaaaah! They ran away, even though they could hear me screaming for help! Waaaah!”

According to Kim Gayoung’s tearful words, she had been reading a book on her bed when a sudden, massive shock sent her rolling onto the floor. Then, she heard the sound of doors opening from an emergency alarm and forced release, but her door remained stubbornly shut.

She pounded on the door and screamed for someone to open it, and people outside the room buzzed for a while before attempting to open the door. Eventually, however, all she heard were the sounds of retreating footsteps. From that moment, Kim Gayoung began to spam the undersea base’s bulletin board with posts pleading for help, while pounding on the door and screaming.

The door wouldn’t open, and water gradually started pouring in, and then suddenly, the electricity went out. Afraid that people wouldn’t come to rescue her if they knew she was alone, she lied that there were five people trapped in the room with her when making the request for help.

Kim Gayoung sobbed for a long time before telling her rescuers how grateful she was for their help and apologizing for lying to them. Her eyes and nose were all red from crying. I was reminded of when I got trapped in the last room of West District and thought if I could have made a rescue request through a post, and if having more people would have resulted in a faster rescue, I would have lied, saying that a thousand people from the undersea base were with me.

Yoo Geum-yi and Kim Gayoung’s eyes were red. I looked at them with warm eyes, feeling proud of the parts of their hearts that were still alive with warm emotions, and put on my socks that had been set aside. Then, I wrung out my shirt to remove the water. The two Korean researchers were quite close, probably because there were only two of them among the over a thousand people at the undersea base.

Like me, Baek Aeyoung, who was looking at them with warm eyes, spoke softly, “Gayoung, don’t cry too much. You’ll get dehydrated and lose strength.”

Really… are all engineers like this? I opened my backpack and a bright orange whale plushie with a smiling face appeared. I took out a towel next to the plushie and put it on my head. Then, with the thought that I could fix it if something went wrong, I reached in between the whale and the snake and took out a few candies.

‘Was giving out candy really for their own good? But if not now, when would they eat it? Well, let their teeth rot a little. I can fix it.’

I quickly took my hand out of the bag, feeling as if a snake was climbing up my arm, and then handed out the sugar-free candies to everyone. After introducing myself and handing over the candy, Kim Gayoung, who had put a sugar-free grape candy in her mouth, wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand before calming down and asking about the child lying on the floor.

“Whose child is this?”

“We don’t know either. We found them in an empty room in the West District.”

Hearing my casual tone as if we’d just picked up an object, Kim Gayoung responded with disbelief, “Minors aren’t allowed in the underwater base, you know?”

“Neither is seawater.”

Seo Jihyuk, who was chewing on a sugar-free plum candy, untied the parachute cord wrapped around his waist at Shin Haeryang’s signal and handed it over. As Kim Gayoung moved the candy from one cheek to the other, she suddenly exclaimed, “This is not the time for this! We need to go to the escape pod right now and get out of here! Everyone else has already escaped!”

Looking at Yoo Geum-yi’s expression, I could guess what my own looked like. After a few seconds of silence, Baek Aeyoung spoke hesitantly, “Well, the thing is…”

“We’ve given up on escaping through the North District escape route,” Shin Haeryang, who was chewing on sugar-free strawberry candy, shook his wet hair like a dog and spoke.

“We’ll either go to the nearby East District and take the remaining escape route, or we’ll take the elevator.”

“The direct elevator in Central District?”

“No, we’ll first go up to ~1000m.”

“If the direct elevator is safe, it’s the easiest way to escape. What about West District, which is as close to Central District?”

At Kim Ga-Young’s words, Yoo Geum-yi shook her head, saying, “We came from West District.”

While the engineers and researchers were discussing the quickest escape method, I carefully opened the backpack where I had stowed the cat. I was worried if it was okay since it hadn’t moved at all during the journey. As soon as I opened the bag, the cat looked into my eyes as it lay still.

It seemed to like the confined space and stayed quietly in the backpack. I stared at its cute face for a moment before zipping the bag back up. It was so well-behaved. There was no trace of the fierce demeanor it had when I first put it in the bag. Is this normal for a cat? I had never raised an animal before, so I didn’t know.

It seemed that a brief discussion lasting less than five minutes had already concluded, and preparations were being made to move to the East District, which was located to the east. If we couldn’t use the escape route in East District, we would at least take the elevator to the third underwater base.

When I heard Yoo Geum-yi grumbling, it seemed that all the external elevators intended for installation in Central District had been crowded into the research center. Elevators were essential in the research center. However, when researchers needed to go to the surface or had work-related matters, they all reluctantly came to Central District and used the direct elevator. This was because they could use the cafe in Central District, and just getting out of the research center made the researchers happy. Judging by Yoo Geum-yi’s expression, the research center seemed like a prison for the researchers. Nah, that can’t be.

After a brief discussion of less than five minutes, they were already preparing to move to the East District, located to the east. It seemed they were planning to go up to the third underwater base using the East District elevator, even if they couldn’t use the escape route.

I picked up the child who was lying down and wore the backpack on my front. Feeling a little embarrassed that I hadn’t been paying attention earlier, I asked Baek Ae-Young, who was next to me.

“What about the direct elevator in Central District?”

“It was dismissed as too dangerous.”

‘So, we’re not going there? Why?’

As I wondered, Shin Haeryang approached and tried to lift the backpack I was wearing in front, causing me to panic.

“Ah. That’s heavy.”

To be precise, the backpack weighed at least 6kg because it had a cat inside. Shin Haeryang effortlessly lifted the backpack with one hand and wore it on his back. Then he spoke just loud enough for me to hear.

“Is it your pet?”

At the comment, “It smells like an animal,” I laughed in disbelief. He had a good nose. I couldn’t even tell because of the seawater. As we divided the prohibited items among ourselves to carry, I walked slowly next to Shin Haeryang and said, “I found it.”

“You seem to pick up a lot of strange things.”

I closed my mouth, about to argue. I recalled the drunken Russians I had recently found. Shin Haeryang, who seemed to have no intention of revealing the presence of the animal to others, silently carried the bag with the cat inside.

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