At first, people were terrified, but now they lay sprawled out or sighed in various corners of the darkened elevator. It seemed that even in the pitch-black darkness, where they had initially struggled with fear, they had gradually adapted over time.
A chuckling sound came from James, directed at Sam beside him.
"Jesus has abandoned you."
"Shut up!"
"He could have just left you on the ground, but how much did you annoy him to be dumped here?"
In the darkness, the sound of them roughly patting each other could be heard. I turned the handle of the flashlight and shone it at the ceiling again. When I looked at Lee Ji-hyun, she had her eyes closed in prayer. Kevin stared at Lee Ji-hyun for a while before blankly looking around the elevator. Logan spoke to Kim Ga-young and Yoo Jin, who were whispering to each other.
"Ladies."
Kim Ga-young looked around and, realizing that the only women gathered closely were herself and Yoo Jin, looked at Logan.
"Tell us an interesting story, anything."
With a helpless laugh, Kim Ga-young stretched her shoulders and said,
"Did you have a story in mind?"
"Anything is fine. Even the things you were talking about earlier."
"Isn't that too cruel for the guys to hear?"
"I don't know about the others, but I'm a man among men, so it's fine. Women gather and whisper and laugh a lot, right? It must be fun to laugh and tell interesting stories."
Kim Ga-young yawned in the darkness and stretched her legs out wide. Then, bending forward to touch her toes, she said,
"In the case of a fatal elevator fall, the body is completely destroyed."
"......What?"
"Yoo Jin says that at this height, the body and bones would shatter into pieces, making it hard to even put them back together. It would end up like a pile of vomited kimchi pancakes. You know, like the Korean food from that vegetarian restaurant in Central District. It would look like someone had eaten it and then vomited."
Yoo Jin nodded vigorously in agreement. Logan's expression, with his mouth agape, was not good. Kim Ga-young raised her head and pointed at the ceiling.
"And if you die at this depth in the ocean, the body decomposes and disappears incredibly quickly. What did you say it was called?"
Kim Ga-young asked Yoo Jin, who yawned widely before answering.
"Sea lice. Sea lice."
"Ah, right. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of bugs and parasites in the sea come out and eat the flesh. The skin and flesh start to decompose at an incredible speed. Crustaceans like shrimp and crabs will burrow into the nose and mouth to eat the internal organs. Fish will tear out the soft parts like the eyes and lips, and all kinds of marine life will swim from far away to feast on the remains."
Logan's expression darkened as he listened. Sam and James, who had been rubbing each other's fists and arms, stopped and listened to Kim Ga-young's story. Even Carter and Benjamin, who were sitting far away and pretending not to listen, seemed to be paying attention. Kim Ga-young lowered her voice to a sinister tone.
"A human body in the deep sea can become a skeleton in as little as three to four days, or at most a week. Then, it will sink to the bottom of the sea, leaving only bones for about three to four years."
Is it really that quick for a body to become a skeleton in the deep sea? When the police found my father's partially skeletonized body, it had been years.
"Your bones will remain in that state until some careless fish or crab bumps into them with their fins or short legs. And thanks to that decomposed body, millions of marine creatures on the ocean floor will absorb nutrients and use it as a home to sustain their lives."
"......That's touching. Ah, it's so beautiful."
Yoo Jin pretended to wipe away tears with the back of her hand. Kim Ga-young said to Logan, who looked like he was about to vomit,
"The cycle of life. Isn't it an interesting and touching story?"
"......Do women really tell such stories to each other?"
"What else would we talk about in this situation? Hair care? Pedicures?"
Kim Ga-young's aggressive tone made it seem like Logan was about to cry. Logan, with a scrunched-up face, said in a very unpleasant tone,
"Why do you tell such stories with a laugh?"
"Whether I laugh or not, what does it matter to you?"
With a growl, Logan turned his head to look at me as if trying to escape from Kim Ga-young.
"Y... Your name, what was it again?"
Remember it. I remembered your name right away. It's not hard to remember, and it's easy to pronounce. ...But is it my turn next?
"My name is Park Mu-hyun. I don't have any interesting stories to tell."
"Tell us something, anything."
Then, looking at Kim Ga-young and Yoo Jin, he added to me,
"Something hopeful and interesting."
Um... An interesting and hopeful story in this situation. I definitely heard something related to elevators.
"The probability of dying in a plane crash is very low, but the probability of dying in an elevator is even lower. That's why we travel by plane and elevator. The chance of dying in an elevator is so low, it's less than one in ten million."
As I spoke, I noticed that everyone in the elevator was looking at me.
"So if our elevator were to fall, it would be an incredibly rare event, something that almost never happens. ...If anyone survives, they should buy a lottery ticket. They might win."
I finished the story with an embarrassed laugh, and people sighed, laughed lightly, or seemed unimpressed.
"Huh."
Bored or unable to bear the silence in the darkness, Logan looked at Lee Ji-hyun, who was praying, and then at Emma, who was sitting in the corner.
"Maybe."
"There are no hopeful stories!"
"Um..."
"Basically, our generation is like flowers that bloomed in the wrong season. We're like plants that grew out in the cold, mistaking a few warmer days for spring. Like rabbits or squirrels that foolishly venture out in the cold, only to be caught in a blizzard, shivering and starving, and then have to return to their dark, cold burrows to live out their lives."
"......Why are you so negative!"
"We're trapped in a power outage in an elevator. How can you be positive?"
Emma snapped, and Logan immediately shut his mouth. He turned his head completely to the opposite side and looked at Kevin, who was still praying.
Kevin crossed his arms and leaned against the elevator wall, looking at Logan, who then turned away. When Logan turned to look at Canu, Canu, with sleepy eyes, asked,
"What? Do you have a story to tell?"
"......No."
"I do have an interesting and hopeful story."
"Did you just see several people get tricked? It needs to be truly hopeful and interesting."
Canu looked around at the people who were listening and said with a smile,
"Have you heard about the survivor from the Planet Project?"
I hadn't heard about a survivor. It was a large-scale space project before the underwater base.
"You mean the Mars base that was destroyed after ten years, killing about 8,200 people? I thought that's why all space projects except the Moon Project were canceled."
Logan's knowledge is similar to mine. When the underwater base was just starting to take shape, it was fashionable for wealthy people worldwide to travel to Mars.
"Officially, yes. Unofficially, only one woman from Haiti survived. She survived without serious injuries and was rescued after 15 days, having sent a distress signal from the escape pod."
How did you know that? Is this story true? Another conspiracy theorist? These thoughts arose, but I pushed them aside and asked the most pressing question.
"Why unofficial?"
"She was completely delirious. Moreover, all the geniuses, PhDs, celebrities, and politicians were dead, and only one person, a third-world contract worker hired for her health and diligence, survived."
Canu spoke matter-of-factly.
"Additionally, she was exposed to high levels of radiation and was scheduled to be replaced in two weeks. She was given menial tasks to support the 'back-end' of the high-level personnel, recruited under the guise of career building, paid a low salary, and continuously exposed to radiation until her limit, then replaced. Wealthy first-world countries, which had previously enslaved and exploited people in their colonies, now employ them under the guise of creating overseas jobs, using and exhausting them. Moreover, women are more vulnerable to radiation than men."
Where is the fun and hope in this story? It just sounds like a terrifying job market in the 21st century. If someone has to endure such injustices, they must be a young adult. ...Damn. I miss my sister.
"People dismissed her ramblings as delirium from oxygen deprivation and nitrogen poisoning. Moreover, the company that employed her went bankrupt, and she had to flee the U.S. due to the enormous rescue and medical bills. However, a few people paid attention to her story. On the day the Mars base Ares was destroyed by space dust, she survived through repeated deaths and accumulated experiences. She is still alive, though her hair turned white from shock, and she is healthy."
It felt like a cold hand had grabbed the back of my neck in the darkness. I shivered from head to toe as I looked at Canu, who spoke calmly