"Feel free to be angrier and curse more! The people who killed you and Tina will either be corpses or soon become corpses! Some might have survived, but will those who escaped on the lifeboats really live well? Those selfish people will die in even more terrible ways someday, no matter where they are, because they will pay for their choices!"
There was no way to control my emotions. I sobbed and raged uncontrollably. I was so sad about what had happened, and anger welled up from deep within me. I couldn't tell if my anger was directed at the selfish and angry people, the missile that caused this situation, or the submarine base itself.
Kim Gayoung and Yujin stood at the door, watching me. After hesitating a few times, Yujin approached me and quietly said to Bell,
"Tina probably wanted to stay by your side no matter what. ...She must have loved you so much that she was willing to give up the lifeboat."
Yujin, holding Bell's fingers that were about to slip away, said,
"Even if it meant becoming fish food together, she wouldn't have minded."
Yujin's whispering voice continued as Bell stared blankly at the ceiling.
"By your side, there are people who loved you and protected you, and people like me who respect you even though I don't know you well. There's also Gayoung, who owes you for coffee, and me, who was planning to raid the bakery because you offered to buy bread."
Yujin smiled and spoke softly,
"You've worked hard. I'm grateful for your intensity. Now, hold Tina's hand and rest."
Hearing those words, I realized that my anger had vanished instantly. I bit my lip to hold back my sadness. I felt like I would cry if I opened my mouth. Only then did I understand the feeling Kim Gayoung had mentioned, that she felt like crying when she saw kind people.
I washed my hands several times and unwrapped the towel that Kim Gayoung had wrapped around her burns. Kim Gayoung, who had washed her hands under running water for 20 minutes and claimed it wasn't a big deal, said,
"Mr. Mohyun, it's not as bad as I thought."
The moment I saw her hands, I almost blurted out that the nerve cells had been destroyed, but I held back. I didn't want to scare her since I couldn't fix it immediately. Her left hand was relatively fine, but her right thumb, index, and middle fingers were the worst, with third-degree burns blackening two segments of her fingers. Blisters were also forming.
I tried my best not to pop the blisters as I dressed the wounds with the supplies from the emergency kit and wrapped her fingers and hand with the cleanest cloth I could find. I asked her to open her mouth wide to check if the hydrochloric acid fumes had caused inflammation inside, but fortunately, there was none. I tried to speak calmly to Kim Gayoung.
"We need to get out of here and go to the hospital quickly. Gayoung, try not to use your right hand from now on."
"Okay."
"…Don't use your left hand either."
"What should I do then?"
"Use me or other people."
Kim Gayoung let out a small laugh, like a sigh. Why did someone else's laughter reduce my anxiety and depression? I wasn't even laughing.
As I disinfected the scratches and bruises on her knees and shins, I looked around. Eunjeong had gone down to the second floor, which was flooding, to check the cargo elevator with a few people. Yujin, holding a spray bandage she found in a lab, went into a room where bodies were piled up to spray it on her waist and back. Yujin said that dead people were less scary than living ones. …I find both scary. While disinfecting Kim Gayoung's shin, I asked in a small voice,
"Gayoung, I want to have a slightly uncomfortable conversation. If you feel uncomfortable or don't want to answer, please say so."
Kim Gayoung, after doing some neck stretches, replied,
"Sure, go ahead."
"Weren't you scared when you poured the hydrochloric acid?"
"…Were you scared that your hands would be hurt? Or that the other person would die horribly?"
"Both, but my question is about the latter."
"I was scared of both. But I was more scared of what would happen if he came closer and hurt us."
Kim Gayoung, looking at her bandaged hands, said,
"I know there are people in the world who can't be convinced by just talking and persuasion. After seeing that guy use the organic compound decomposer on a person, I gave up on trying to persuade him. Maybe it's because I'm old, but I've become too lazy to spend a lot of time trying to talk and persuade people. When I can't communicate, I easily give up on them."
"I thought that the four of us could have subdued him. …Was I naive? I'm not trying to criticize your actions."
Kim Gayoung, frowning at my intact hand while my face was a mess, said,
"Being naive isn't bad. But there are a lot of crazy people in the world. Some can't be stopped without death. There are also people with brain problems. …Hmm. I've seen such people before I came to the lab, and I've been unlucky enough to get involved with them. I think that if that guy hadn't died, one or two of us four might have died."
I've lived in a world far from violence. I'm still deeply regretting pulling the trigger in my dream. The guilt, the heaviness in my finger, and the images of the people I killed keep coming back to me. The weight of the dead cat and the blood people shed. Those deaths were all in a dream.
I kept thinking about Bell, who just died, Martina, who was next to her, the bodies around us, and Arthur, who died earlier. I'm probably not the kind of person who would hurt someone first. I can't hit first; I can only hit back. I've been lucky enough to avoid serious fights so far, but how long can that last in this submarine base?
In my life, I've never physically attacked or taken revenge on people I really disliked. I just avoided getting involved or stayed away. Usually, if things got serious, I'd call the police. Kim Gayoung, fiddling with the bandage on her right hand with her left, said,
"I don't really regret what I did."
"…That's why I'm asking, do you have any plans to go back to the deep-sea biology center to check if the person is alive or dead?"
"Go back into that darkness?"
Kim Gayoung shook her head in shock. Of course, how could we go back there? I asked just in case, as Kim Gayoung seemed tough enough to do it. I wouldn't be able to go back even if asked.
"I'm not really suggesting we go back. But that person… might still be alive. They could be rescued by others later."
"…Huh?"
"At the deep-sea biology center, I confirmed the deaths of the people we met. But with Arthur Goodman, I was too busy escaping to check. If he's alive and gets rescued, it could cause problems later. I think we might be the only witnesses to that incident."
It's a remote possibility, but what if someone tries to rescue the people here from the outside? Before declaring someone dead, we should assume they're alive. And I'm the one who should declare it. I should have been more calm and checked Arthur Goodman's condition, but I was too busy running.
It's possible that someone didn't see us clearly in the dark, but when I heard that James and Kanu had survived by hiding, a lightning-fast thought crossed my mind. What if someone had been hiding and witnessed the incident? What if they were saved by someone's first aid? Kim Gayoung, with a puzzled look, said,
"It's a slim possibility, but it could happen? Or, could he survive in that state?"
"People come to the hospital without mouths. …If we escape and that person causes problems, I'll claim self-defense and say you were an accomplice."
"…Why?"
"If I had hit him a few times, we might not have been in this situation. You and Arthur might not have been hurt so badly."
Kim Gayoung, looking surprised, soon smiled.
"Are you sorry? Hmm. I don't know you well, and we just met today, but you're really naive and kind. Eunjeong said something similar in the bathroom. She said she had a knife but lost it when she fell. She felt bad for making you do that."
"Naive and kind." Is it just an excuse for guilt? We all benefited from Arthur Goodman's death, but even if it's a remote possibility, I don't want Kim Gayoung to take on a lot of the blame if it becomes a criminal case. I pointed at myself with a curse I had heard before.
"Why don't you ask why I'm being a pushover?"
"I don't like the word 'pushover.' It's a way to mock kind people. It's like saying, 'I'm like this, so others will be too,' and dragging everyone's moral standards down. Don't use that word."
…It's really fortunate that Kim Gayoung is much more educated and intelligent than me. Opportunities to have such conversations with such people don't come easily. We can be honest because we're in a disaster situation. We