Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

I took a deep breath and exhaled as I glanced at Yoo Geum-yi lying on the long bench. I wanted to go to the bathroom to check my busted face and aching side myself, but I couldn’t possibly leave Yoo Geum-yi alone here. I decided to go once Lee Jihyun and Kim Ga-young returned, and waited for them to come back.

I didn’t want to risk separating the girls with so many unfamiliar men around. No matter how decent someone seems, you never know when or how a crime might occur. This man named Kanu could be showing kindness only to me.

I was in the midst of scraping together what little vigilance I had in my head, which had rarely been activated before. Kanu, who had been trying to stop the bleeding from my forehead, was a rather cheerful man in his 40s. As he chattered about his major, research field, and lab, he asked me,

“What’s your name?”

“Park Moohyun.”

“Where are you guys from?”

“Uh…”

I wondered if it was okay to reveal that we could get out of the research center through the South District. They could be desperate to leave the research center like that Arthur Goodman guy. Seeing that I didn’t seem to want to talk, Kanu said,

“Then ask me what you’re curious about first. I’ll tell you as much as I know.”

“Why didn’t you escape?”

“Oh, well, it’s already been revealed anyway. I’m terminally ill, so I gave up my escape pod to someone else. My brain is very special, you see.”

Kanu pointed to his head and made a light tapping sound with his fingertips. Then he frowned, perhaps due to a headache, and held the area around his forehead for a moment. I watched him endure the unavoidable pain and slowly asked,

“Surgery won’t help?”

“It’s already spread a lot, and they said I might lose my memory if I have surgery, so I refused. I’ll just research until I die.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What about the others? I thought there would be more people here.”

“There are only about 10 people left now. I was a bit late getting to the escape pods because of severe dizziness, and at that time, Bel… Oh, Bel is Belial Riley, the director of this Seabed Pollution Center. He was handling the chaos of people trying to take each other’s escape pods. He sent out the teenage researchers first.”

Teenagers? Teenagers? Minors aren’t allowed in the underwater base, right? I asked Kanu in surprise,

“There are researchers that young? They’re minors.”

“You know, there are kids whose brains are a bit different. They can do even the most complex calculations in their heads, memorize a 300-page book in just 5 minutes, and instinctively grasp CD without even learning AB. Those kinds of geniuses, like a new human race created by humanity.”

Ah, there were kids like that. I’ve seen exactly one in my life. I first learned that there were separate education centers for the gifted in our country because of that kid. Usually, we would eat ice cream together, play games, watch TV, and kick a soccer ball around, so I had no idea his brain was so extraordinary. He said he was doing research somewhere.

“Out of the 500 staff members at the research center, there were only 350 escape pods, and the cargo elevator had completely stopped on the 1st floor and wasn’t working. The rare earth center, where water was pouring in like a flood, was completely blocked off by Bel. Still, the water level kept rising, people were screaming and running around, it was total chaos.”

Kanu let out a shallow cough and continued,

“Everyone gathered on the 1st floor where the escape pods were. Those special kids at the research center are treated as adults. There were a total of 8 geniuses throughout the entire research center, but they were pushed into a corner by the adults. They went out first. After that, people with disabilities or chronic illnesses were sent out first, followed by female researchers and staff members. I was a bit surprised to see Bel reciting the researchers’ physical conditions and family situations. He never showed any signs of that to me before. I had never mentioned it to anyone around me either.”

Kanu, who had shown compassion for Bel, sighed as he looked down at the escape pod port on the 1st floor from the 3rd floor. I frowned at the water filling the 1st and 2nd floors as I sat up. Maybe it was because I had been lying down and got up, but I felt a bit dizzy. I had a slight fever coming on, but I sat on the bench, swaying, worried that if I lay down, I might never get up again.

“What about the others?”

“From what I heard from the other kids who arrived earlier, the rare earth center completely disappeared. As you can see from the water below, the connecting corridor linked to the rare earth center is also… Water keeps coming in from somewhere. There were probably about 100 people in the rare earth center at that time. A few lucky ones from the rare earth side who were hanging out here survived, but to be exact, around 400 people had to figure out what to do with about 350 seats. When there were about 80 people left, the water rose to knee-level on the 1st floor.”

Kanu pointed to his knees and said,

“There were a few people who voluntarily gave up their escape pods like me and stayed behind, some stayed because their friends or family were left behind, some stayed for their research, and there were also those who desperately wanted to get on even if they died but couldn’t. Some argued about Bel forcibly closing the rare earth center, and there were those who kept yelling about why people with disabilities were being evacuated first. They were screaming at Bel, telling him not to escape.”

If only the rare earth center was destroyed, quite a lot of researchers survived. In my previous dream, it sounded like the entire South District research center was blown away by missiles. Was the damage originally this minimal? I looked at Kanu’s unscathed appearance with my one-sided vision. He didn’t seem to have any blood splatter on his body or suffered any injuries.

“Did people get on the escape pods in such an orderly manner?”

“More than you’d think. The guys who come here have their heads full of books. Even if they weren’t, what could they do by causing a commotion when so many people weren’t agreeing with them? But as the number of people decreased, problems started to grow.”

“And then what happened?”

Kanu pointed in the direction where Lee Jihyun had disappeared earlier and answered,

“Sam, who just left, said we probably wouldn’t be able to get on, so we should hide somewhere else right away. He said it didn’t seem like the situation would go smoothly through conversation. So he took a few people and hid in a storage room in the corner of the 7th floor lab. We could hear screams and fighting sounds from outside, but when we came out an hour later, the number of people had been reduced to less than half. More than half seemed to have gone to the Deep-Sea Life Center, so I closed this place off using Bel’s shattered pad, failing dozens of times. In case the guys who went to the biology section came back here.”

I turned my head from side to side. I had to turn my head more vigorously to see with one eye. There were a total of 8 men on the 3rd floor.

“Is this all that’s left of the survivors?”

“There are 8 people here, and 3 people are becoming corpses in that office over there. And there are two or three guys on other floors too.”

What do you mean, ‘becoming corpses’? Seeing my expression, he shrugged and replied,

“They hit and stabbed each other with emergency axes or hammers, fighting until they died. A few committed suicide in the corner. They stabbed people with office scissors. There were a few people still alive, but their injuries were too severe, so there was nothing we could do. Even now, there are a few guys who are resentful that they, such great humans, couldn’t escape and were abandoned with incompetent and useless humans. But when they realized they were also trapped here and couldn’t move, they went up to the 6th or 7th floor. The other kids and I took care of the corpses and injured, laying them down in the director’s office or the few labs next to it.”

“What kind of injuries do they have?”

“Are you a doctor?”

Kanu was smiling with his whole face, even though I was pressing a towel against my right eye and could only see through my left. I shook my head right away.

“No, I’m a dentist.”

Please quickly recognize my uselessness.

“Ah, you’re the new dentist who came this time. The… Deep Black, was it?”

I laughed at Kanu’s words. Laughing made my busted lips hurt. My cheeks and the corners of my eyes hurt too. How did I get hit in the face? I licked my lips and my completely torn-up mouth with my tongue and corrected the name of my dental clinic.

“It’s Deep Blue. I feel so wronged. I’ve only been here for 5 days, and this happened. This place is really a mess.”

“I think so too. I’m a senior researcher, but I’m about to quit soon.”

Kanu held out his fist to me in a friendly manner, so I held out my fist as well. The two fists collided weakly and fell apart. I touched my side and let out a low groan. Let’s not touch it. This is the first time I’ve been beaten up like this. Biting my lip at the pain that sharply rose, I said,

“If the injuries are mostly around the face, I can somehow take a look.”

“We should do something about your face, kid.”

Kanu circled his finger around my face and said,

“Who did you get hit by? Seeing that the girls’ faces are fine, it seems like you fought, but that’s what a man should do.”

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding. How busted is my face for him to say something like that? I’ve never hit anyone before today. I’ve never been hit either. And if we’re talking about the extent of injuries, Yoo Geum-yi and Lee Jihyun, who were hit with an iron chair, would be worse. I can’t even imagine how much Kim Ga-young injured her hands while pouring hydrochloric acid in the dark without being able to see properly.

“I’m ashamed to say I didn’t do much. The reason I made it here is because those people fought more fiercely than I was hit.”

Yoo Geum-yi, who had been lying down, faintly groaned, holding her lower back. Hearing that voice, I asked Kanu,

“Do you happen to have any medicine here?”

“I have painkillers, and there should be a few in the other offices too.”

“I suppose you don’t have eperisone hydrochloride or aceclofenac? Or just regular disinfectant. Cold medicine, or if all else fails, bandages. Even mouthwash.”

Looking at Kanu’s face, I hurriedly changed my question. Surely there would be at least one in the lab, right? Hey researchers, you brush your teeth, don’t you?