Chapter 13

Chapter 13

As soon as the cat left the room, a person appeared, seemingly startled by the alarm. It was Vladimir, who seemed to be drunk as he staggered out of room 65.

The man looked at the water rising up to his calves and pressed something on his wrist pad. All the doors opened at once, and the blaring alarm turned into a continuous buzzing sound. It was ear-piercing.

Vladimir’s the head of the Russian engineering team, isn’t he?

A blonde woman came out of the room he had just left, tying her hair.

“What’s going on? This is insane.”

Upon seeing the water up to her calves, the woman spat out a Russian curse. Vladimir yelled at her.

“Nikita! Go to the escape pod now!”

As soon as Vladimir finished speaking, the woman named Nikita grabbed the wrist of Yoo Geum-yi, who was next to me, and started running. Yoo Geum-yi followed suit immediately. Since the floor was flooded, they couldn’t run very fast. As they slowly moved away, I waved my hand and told them to go ahead. Then, I checked room 66 while Vladimir looked into room 67.

“Vladimir, aren’t you leaving?”

“Our guys are all drunk and asleep. They can’t even get up if we kick them.”

In room 67, a man reeking of alcohol was asleep despite the noisy alarm. Vladimir rushed in and slapped the man’s cheek with his huge palm. From outside the room, I thought the man might have lost a tooth. As his head spun around twice, the man woke up.

“Nikolai! You stupid bast*rd, wake up!”

Behind me, I heard Russian cursing and found someone lying in bed in room 68. Before entering, I saw the name “Sophia” next to the door. She was asleep without a shirt on. I shouted her name from the door. Of course, she didn’t wake up despite the blaring alarm. I picked up a blanket from the floor, threw it on her, and yanked the pillow from under her head.

“Sophia!”

As she half-opened her eyes and got up, I rushed to room 69. There, a man who seemed to be two meters tall was sleeping naked, without even a blanket, surrounded by vodka bottles. I read the nameplate next to the door with my eyes. Victor Basil... Yef or Lef?

····If I hadn’t seen it, I couldn’t have saved it. If I had decided to do it, I needed to do it quickly. I ran in the opposite direction of the others. I’m not late. I’m not late! As I splashed through the water, I checked the open Rooms 74 and 75. There was no one. In Room 76, I found a long snake. What kind of crazy person keeps this?

Unauthorized personnel were not allowed in the underwater base. Minors, in particular, were absolutely prohibited from entering the 4th underwater base. The 7-year-old-looking boy on my back didn’t seem like he was necessary personnel for this underwater base. Why on earth is there a kid here?

Swearing up a storm, I finally arrived at the central staircase next to room 40, only to find that the water had risen past my waist. I was out of breath from wading through the water.

Gasping for air, I climbed the stairs, slipping twice, but each time I clung to the stair railing with one hand. Supporting the child’s buttocks with one arm, biting onto a bag, and using one hand to hold onto the stairs as I climbed drove me insane. As I climbed the stairs and emerged from the water, something was blocking the staircase.

I could see that the staircase itself was blocked by a door, preventing further ascent. They must have blocked it like this to keep the water from flooding the living quarters and other bases through the escape ports. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, everything went pitch black in front of me. I banged on the door with all my strength as I continued to climb the stairs, screaming.

“Open the door! There are people here! People, I tell you!”

The water had already caught up to the top of the stairs. Even standing on the top step, the water that reached my instep now rose to my ankles. The thought of dying surged in.

“Hey, you bast*rds! Are you locking the door and running away to save yourselves? There are people here! Open the door! Open it quickly!”

I burst into tears.

“Open the door! Are you trying to save yourselves by running away like this?! How can people act like that?! Open the door! You bast*rds! There’s someone here! Save me!”

I screamed so much that my vision began to blur. I thought I was in the middle of shrieking when I heard a noise from outside the door and a hand reached in at the same time.

A massive hand reached in from outside, grabbed my body as if to lift me up, and then threw me into a corner. I only realized that the man who had thrown me aside like a ragdoll was the over 6-foot-tall Viktor when I slammed into the floor. He closed the door again before the water following the stairs could rise any further. Viktor locked the door and destroyed the panel next to it. My face drained of color, I asked him:

“Didn’t you board the escape pod?”

“No.”

With that, he lifted the child lying next to me with one hand and hoisted them onto his back. Then, he started walking toward the escape pod chamber.

Only then did I realize that this man had come back from the escape ship port towards the residential quarters for my sake. The child who looked around 6 or 7 years old had been taken off my back by Viktor who seemed to be carrying the boy as if the kid was a mere steel bar. It was only then that I noticed the weight of my soaked clothes pressing down on me.

Was it because the adrenaline rush was just about to wear off? Even taking a single step was a struggle. I hurriedly wiped my messy, tear-streaked face with my sleeve. Suppressing the urge to throw away all my things soaked in seawater, I walked towards the escape pod chamber.