Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

Chapter 99

At first, people were scared, but now the sound of people lying down here and there in the dark elevator and sighing could be heard. Even struggling in the pitch-black darkness out of fear seemed to be something one could adapt to to some extent as time passed.

The sound of James giggling at Sam next to him could be heard.

Jesus has abandoned you.

Shut up!

He could have dumped you on the ground, but he dumped you here because he disliked you that much.

The sound of them roughly patting each other in the dark was heard. I was turning the flashlight handle and turned it on again towards the ceiling. When I looked towards Jihyun, her eyes were closed and she was in the middle of praying. Kevin was blankly staring at Jihyun and then vacantly looking inside the elevator. Logan spoke to Kim Ga-young and Yoo Geum-yi, who were whispering.

Ladies.

Kim Ga-young looked around. Then, realizing that she and Yoo Geum-yi were the only ones close together among the women, she looked at Logan.

Tell us a fun story, anything is fine.

Youre depending on us for a story?

Anything is fine. Even what you were talking about with each other earlier is good.

Its too cruel for men to hear, though?

I dont know about the other guys, but Im a man among men, so its fine. You girls gather together, whisper in each others ears, and laugh well, arent you laughing while telling fun stories?

Kim Ga-young yawned in the dark and then stretched out both legs while sitting. Then, bending her body and folding completely in half, she said,

If you die from falling in an elevator, the state of the corpse becomes a complete mess.

What?

Yoo Geum-yi said that if you fall from this height, the flesh and bones will shatter to the point where itll be hard to put them back together. Itll be just like vomited kimchi pancake. You know, that Korean food that looks like pizza that comes out of the vegetarian restaurant in Jung-ang-dong. She said itll be like human flesh porridge as if someone ate that and vomited.

Yoo Geum-yi nodded vigorously as if to support Kim Ga-youngs words. Logans expression with his mouth blankly open didnt look very good. Kim Ga-young lifted her head, raising her chin towards the ceiling, and said,

And if you die in the deep sea like this, the speed at which the corpse decomposes and disappears is tremendously fast. What was it called again?

When Kim Ga-young asked Yoo Geum-yi, Yoo Geum-yi yawned loudly and answered,

Sea lice. Sea lice.

Ah, right. Thousands and tens of thousands of bugs and parasites living in the sea will crawl out and tear off all the flesh? So the outer skin and flesh start to decompose at a tremendous speed. And crustaceans like shrimp and crabs will all go into the nostrils or mouth to eat the internal organs in a frenzy. Fish will tear off all the soft flesh like eyeballs and lips, and all sorts of marine life will swim from far away, saying theres a famous feast here.

Logan frowned as he listened. Sam and James had stopped patting each other with fists and forearms at some point and were listening to Kim Ga-youngs story. It seemed the same for Carter and Benjamin, who were sitting far away pretending not to listen. Kim Ga-young lowered her voice ominously and said,

The time it takes for a corpse to become a skeleton in the sea is three to four days at the fastest, and no more than a week at the longest. Then, it sinks to the bottom of the sea in a state where only the bones are cleanly left, and remains in the form of a skeleton for about 3 to 4 years.

Is skeletonization that fast when you die in the deep sea? When the police found my fathers half-skeletonized corpse, it was after several years had passed.

Until some rude fish with fins, or a wobbling crab with short legs hits your bones and leaves, it stays in that shape, that form, just like that. And thanks to that one decomposed corpse, hundreds of thousands of marine life at the bottom of the sea will absorb nutrients and use it as a home to maintain their lives.

Its touching. Oh, its so beautiful.

Yoo Geum-yi said while pretending to wipe tears with the back of her hand. Kim Ga-young said to Logan, who looked like he was going to vomit,

The cycle of life. Isnt it a fun and touching story?

Do girls really talk about such things with each other?

Then what kind of story would we tell in this situation? Hair care? Pedicures?

If Kim Ga-young gets a little more aggressive, it seems like Logan will cry. Logan, with a crumpled face, said as if he was very displeased,

Why are you smiling and telling such a story as if its fun!

Whether I laugh or not, whats it to you!

At Kim Ga-youngs growling tone, Logan furrowed his eyebrows and turned his head to look at me next to him as if running away.

Thatwhat was your name again?

Memorize it. I memorized your name right away. My name isnt hard either. Its easy to pronounce too. No, but am I the next batter?

Its Park Moo-hyun. I dont have the talent to tell fun stories either.

Tell us any story.

Then, after looking at Kim Ga-young and Yoo Geum-yi, he added to me,

Something hopeful and fun.

Uma fun story. A fun and hopeful story in this situation. Im sure I heard something related to elevators.

I heard that the probability of dying from a plane crash is extremely low. But the probability of dying while riding an elevator is much lower than that. Thats why we ride planes and elevators. Because the possibility of dying is low. The probability of dying from falling in an elevator is even lower than a one-in-ten-million chance.

As I talked, the eyes of the people in the elevator were all looking at me.

So if the elevator were riding falls, its happening by breaking through an immense probability thats unlikely to happen twice in a lifetime. Whoever survives, if theres anyone, buy a lottery ticket. You might win.

As I, lacking in confidence, finished the end of my rambling story with an embarrassed smile, people either sighed, laughed lightly, or found it bland.

Huh.

Whether he was bored or it was hard to endure the silence in the darkness, Logan looked at Jihyun praying like a giggling hyena, then turned his head to look at Emma sitting in the corner.

By any chance.

I dont have any hopeful stories or anything like that!

Well

To begin with, our generation itself is like a flower that bloomed wrong in the middle of winter. Were the ones who mistook spring coming because it was miraculously less cold for a day or two out of 120 days of cold and grew our stems towards the outside. Like a rabbit or squirrel that stupidly crawled out towards the outside because it was a little warm, we have to live our whole lives shivering in the cold and starving while being hit by heavy snow, going back into a dark and cold burrow!

Why, why are you so negative!

Does it look like a situation to be positive when trapped in a powerless elevator!

When Emma snapped back irritably, Logan immediately shut his mouth. Then he completely turned his head towards the opposite side of Emma. Skipping the still-praying Jihyun, he looked towards Kevin.

As Kevin crossed his arms and leaned against the elevator wall behind his back to face Logan, he turned his body there too. As Logan turned his head towards Kanu, Kanu looked at Logan with sleepy eyes and asked,

What, you want me to tell you a story?

Whoa. No.

I do have a fun story. Its hopeful too.

I just saw several people play me big time, right? It really has to be a hopeful and fun story.

Kanu looked around at the people who were unwittingly listening, then said with a smile,

Did you know there was a survivor from the Planet Project?

This is the first time Im hearing that there was a survivor. It was a large-scale space project that existed before the underwater base.

You mean the one where they built a base on Mars and it got destroyed after 10 years, killing about 8,200 people? I know all the space-related projects except the Moon Project were canceled because of that.

Logans knowledge seems similar to what I have. When the underwater base barely took the shape of a building under the sea, it was a trend for quite wealthy people around the world to go to Mars for a while.

Officially, yes. Unofficially, only one woman from Haiti survived. She survived without major injuries, and because she was sending out a rescue signal from the escape pod, she drifted for 15 days until the rescue ship detected the signal and rescued her.

How did he know that? Is this story true? Is he another conspiracy theorist? While thoughts like that surfaced, I asked the most curious thing first, putting off the rest for later.

Why is it unofficial?

If you listen to her talk, her mind was completely gone. Plus, all the geniuses, masters and PhDs, famous celebrities and politicians died, but just one person. The only one who survived was a third-world contract worker who was hired just for being healthy and diligent and did insignificant work.

Kanu calmly said,

Plus, she was personnel who were to be replaced in 2 weeks at the base due to severe radiation exposure. Making people from third-world countries who were previously colonized and enslaved by wealthy first-world countries do fiddly, invaluable work that requires a lot of hands under the name of supporting high-level personnel, recruiting them under the name of building careers while boasting and giving them cheap salaries, exposing them to radiation to the limit, and continuously replacing them. Plus, in the case of women, theyre more vulnerable to radiation than our men.

Where in the world is there fun and hope in this story? Listening to it, it only seems like the terrible appearance of the job market in the 21st century. For someone to have no choice but to experience such unfair things, they must be a new employee in society in terms of age too. Damn it. It reminds me of my younger sibling.

People ignored what she spewed out, saying they were the words of a deranged mind due to oxygen deficiency and nitrogen poisoning from what she went through. Plus, the company that employed her went bankrupt, and she had to flee from the US as if running away after being billed a tremendous amount for rescue and hospital costs. But a very select few paid attention to the story that kid was telling. On the day the Martian base Ares was smashed to cosmic dust, that kid succeeded in surviving alone through dozens of repeated deaths and the experience accumulated from them. That kid is still alive. Although all her hair turned white from shock, shes alive and well.

I felt like an icy hand was coming from the darkness to grab the back of my neck. I looked at Kanu, who was speaking indifferently, with goosebumps from head to toe.