Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

Chapter 111

I woke up from the shock of falling off the bed.

It felt like I was being hurled towards the floor. I lay face down, scratching the hard surface with my fingertips. A mild dizziness washed over me. After a few seconds, I barely regained my senses, only to find my heart racing madly. Reality felt distant, as if I had just awakened from a nightmare. Only after looking around did I finally realize that this was room 38 in the West District of the 4th Undersea Base.

Recalling my last memory, I quickly ran my hands over my head and face where I had been shot. I’m not dead. I’m not dead! I didn’t die from being shot!

First came a sense of liberation, as if a stone had been lifted from my chest, followed by a feeling of relief that seemed to fill my throat. Then, overwhelmed by a flood of emotions, my tear ducts burst. At that moment, my nose started bleeding as well.

I stuffed a towel that was next to the bed into my nose and spent 2-3 minutes shedding tears and blood simultaneously. Tilting your head back causes nosebleeds to flow down your esophagus or airway. I leaned against the orange whale plushie with my head bowed forward, pinching my nose. Occasionally wiping away tears with the towel, I thought:

I’m alive! Those things weren’t real!

As soon as I had that thought, my mind countered. ……Really? Are you sure you’re really alive? Then does that mean Kim Ga-young and Yoo Geum-yi didn’t die? Emma escaped from there, so did that not happen either? What about Lee Ji-hyun and Kanu? Are all the other people and animals alive too?

What’s going on? How could this happen to me? Did I have two nightmares? Is this really my room? Am I in my right mind? What time is it now?

I immediately flipped over my phone on the bedside table.

The last time I was aware of was around 4 PM on May 31st, so why does the time on my phone show early morning? Why doesn’t the time I’m thinking of in my head match the current time?

I bit the inside of my cheek hard. Then I gently probed the wound in my mouth with my tongue. Ouch ouch. ……It’s okay. It’ll heal within a week anyway.

If I can perceive pain, could this all be a dream? After pondering for a moment, I concluded that all of this couldn’t possibly be a dream.

I don’t have that great of an imagination. Dreaming about falling from a cable car and being killed by sharks, or being shot to death from the ceiling of an elevator? These were outlandish contents that I couldn’t possibly create even if I threatened my brain. Moreover, I didn’t have the talent to mentally create the appearances and personalities of people I had never met before.

No, if these were people I created in my dreams, shouldn’t they be unconditionally favorable to me, showing unlimited affection and trust? Why did they have to have irritating, cold, difficult, scary, or disgusting aspects?

And organic, organic compound decomposer? I can’t even remember where I might have seen the word “organic compound” in my life. Plus, what? I dreamed about donating 41.5 billion to a cult? Even if it was my subconscious, that’s unforgivable.

So there are two possibilities.

First, I’m being forced to experience these things due to external stimuli. Did I drink a few bottles of sorghum liquor without remembering? Or did I eat something strange? Did someone come into my room while I was sleeping last night and inject me with drugs? Maybe there’s some gas leaking in the undersea base, and my brain is reacting like this after inhaling it while sleeping.

……Thinking about gas, it crossed my mind that I might be dying right now in the Deep Blue infirmary, having inhaled an enormous amount of nitrous oxide (the laughing gas used in dentistry). Nitrous oxide is colorless and odorless. It’s used mixed with sevoflurane, a general anesthetic. I imagined someone tying me up in the infirmary, pumping in a massive amount of nitrous oxide and just a tiny bit of oxygen. And Park Moohyun is having several very vivid dreams.

It’s horrific, but it kind of makes sense? For a few minutes, I recalled all the drugs and gases that could affect the nervous system and cause hallucinations that I, as a dentist, could access, as well as all the alcohol I’ve drunk. Then I went over my past experiences that I thought were dreams.

As I recalled the memory of the shark biting into my stomach, I felt my uninjured lower abdomen tense up. I probed the wound in my mouth with my tongue again. If I’m in a hallucinatory state and can create such vivid hallucinations, my body that’s been administered these hallucinogens must already be half-dead. ……Damn it.

Now let’s think about a possibility that’s at least slightly more positive for me.

Second, things that completely disregard the laws of physics have happened to me. To put it most simply, observing the phenomena happening to me, it seems that if I live for a certain period of time and then die, I can return to a specific point in the past.

To the morning in room 38 of the West District in the 4th Undersea Base.

……This makes the least sense, doesn’t it? How much would Emma laugh if she heard this story? Although I’m someone who gave up on studying physics, in all my life experiences so far, I’ve never seen time move backwards. How could a person go from the future to the past? I suddenly remembered a question I had asked Kanu not long ago.

‘What kind of religion is that?’

‘It’s a religion where people who want to turn back time gather.’

Recalling his characteristically laid-back voice and answer sent chills down my spine.

Did I really experience the future and come back to the past? Is this anomaly I’m experiencing now a case of successfully turning back time? ……Really. I hate to think about it, but I made the assumption that religion, while sucking the blood and flesh of its followers, had succeeded in creating something terrifying in addition to causing human rights regression and wars.

What would happen if time could be artificially manipulated?

The thought of suddenly being able to go back to the past after living towards the future made me feel physically repulsed. I could pride myself on having lived by grasping the intangible fixed point of ‘present’ or ‘now’ as a compass, with time flowing one second at a time. However, just imagining time not flowing in a forward direction made it feel like the foundation of life was crumbling away. It gave me an eerie feeling, as if I had become lost in the vast ocean without any buoys.

Looking at the situation, I’ve come back to the past twice.

So when does my future come? If I came back to the past because I died, does time flow normally if I stay alive until the end?

What if I go back to the past again even if I survive? What should I do if I’m trapped in this situation forever?

No matter how much I thought about it, there was no good answer. Okay. Then let’s broaden our thinking beyond just myself and consider it more macroscopically.

Let’s assume that I’m experiencing these things because of something a cult did. ……Only terrible imaginings came to mind. Whether it’s a religion or any group resembling a religion, they shouldn’t have such power.

How would we know where and to whom an interest group would use the opportunity to go back to the past? They might kill today’s Buddha and save tomorrow’s Mara. A executed serial killer might be resurrected, and a terrorist who just died might come back to life and run around in a big city.

They might conduct ethnic cleansing claiming their religion is right, erase a few countries, and bury or justify their actions while laying out nonsensical excuses to the whole world. If they could go back to the time when saints were born, all world religions except Hinduism and shamanism might be unified. They would only need to kill at least three newborns and this Infinity Church could quickly swap them out.

The thought of unfairness came next. Time passes, and people age. Time is one of the things given equally to all living beings. Whether rich or poor, educated or not, happy or not, time flows equally for everyone.

Come to think of it, time is an innate public good that we didn’t realize. There’s no need to worry about it being taken away or altered. Of course, we can trade it. Working life is the act of sacrificing our time and lifespan in exchange for money from the company.

Humanity has consistently researched to extend the limit of time they can enjoy. When assuming death due to aging, the time allowed to humans according to DNA is said to be limited to 38 years. However, as a result of changes in hygiene knowledge and diet, development of medical technology, and consistent investment in vaccinations and education, it has now extended to 130 years. Of course, only a certain minority of people can enjoy this longevity and comfortable life accompanied by scientific technology, both then and now.

In the case of ordinary people like me, we have to work until 90-110 years old before we can retire and rest, and due to severe environmental pollution, it’s nothing to have thyroid surgery or get cancer two or three times. We live eating artificial meat and synthetic milk, alternative coffee and foods with insects as main ingredients due to food shortages, and depending on which country you’re born in, your standard of living can rise or fall vertically.

The lower the income of a country, the more people die due to natural disasters and environmental pollution. If you think about the number of people who have died just from air and water pollution from 2000 until now, it’s close to an astronomical figure. In a situation where the polarization of income disparity has grown irreversibly large, someone specific can even control time? It might be understandable if a petty person used it only for their personal downfall. The thought that someone belonging to such a religious group could use it for a specific purpose gave me a headache.

……Maybe it would be okay for something groundbreaking related to time to come out by the next next generation after I die. Right now, geniuses with groundbreakingly high IQs are taking antidepressants from the age of 9-10 and dragging humanity, which is heading towards extinction, by the scruff of its neck. Maybe in about a hundred years, we’ll live better lives than now? By then, won’t humanity be much more mentally mature than I expect?

Including myself, people now with our level of consciousness shouldn’t have the ability to go back even 1 second, let alone 10 hours, from the future to the past. I don’t know how messed up the world would become if even this last remaining public good is taken away by someone.

Of course, there would be good points too. If you could control only the time aspect as you wish, you could stay at the desired time and not age. You could always stay young and healthy, live in the desired time period, or stay with someone you like no matter how much time passes. There would be no need to say goodbye to dead people, and the sorrow of parting would become an old story only appearing in old song lyrics.

Now let’s return to my microscopic situation. ……As terrible as it is, it would be better if I was dying alone experiencing hallucination symptoms rather than a religion with crazy ideologies succeeding in attempting to turn back time.

When the Mars Base Ares exploded, the officially announced death toll was about 8,200. What if something similar happens in the undersea base? I recalled Tyler’s words.

‘I don’t know much either, but to perform the Infinity Day ritual, many people need to be in the building, and some people must die. They used to use fish, but for Infinity Day, it has to be humans.’

I know at least a thousand people work here. I had to use all my strength just to help one person and two animals escape.