Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea - Chapter 110

The woman who shot Kevin was aiming her gun at Ji-hyun, who was closest. It seemed she was asking something, but the surrounding groans and crying were louder, so I couldn’t hear properly.

The inside of the elevator wall was filled with shattered concrete and dirt dust. Not only was the elevator interior a mess, but all the lights seemed to have gone out, making it dark. To my eyes, which were covered in blood, I could barely recognize the unconscious Kanu right in front of me.

Someone was speaking next to my head, but I couldn’t hear it properly. Whether he knew that or not, Benjamin, who had collapsed next to me covered in blood, yanked my ear. Benjamin had been standing next to Yoo Geum-yi, but when did he come to my side? My whole body was in pain, but he was pulling my ear so hard that only my ear hurt exceptionally. When I let out a groan from the pain, Benjamin whispered in my ear,

“You bastard. I didn’t like you from the moment I first saw you. Pretending to be nice while meddling in everything, acting like a good person. I know that human trash like you pretend to be nice and righteous on the outside, but behind the scenes, you’re the same kind of fucking bastard who does all sorts of shitty things.”

What is this guy saying now? When I coughed out dust, Benjamin covered my mouth with his bloodied hand. He was only covering my mouth with his hand, but it was extremely difficult to breathe. Benjamin’s fingers roughly scratched my chin and cheeks. Is this crazy bastard trying to kill me in this situation?

“I hate bastards like you the most. I said I hate them the most!”

The hatred spewing right in front of me was raw, genuine emotion. Even if I end up dying from that woman’s gun, I wanted to at least curse this guy out before I die. I tried to open my mouth, but it was nearly impossible with his entire palm covering it.

Benjamin, who looked like he had been hit head-on by the truck, crawled and covered my body with his. I saw Benjamin’s chest right in front of my eyes. Because Benjamin’s upper body was practically crushing me, I could barely see the side through the gap between Benjamin’s armpits. What the hell is going on? Is he trying to suffocate me? Dizziness was rushing in, and with a guy weighing over 80kg lying on top of me, I felt even more out of it.

Then suddenly, as if Benjamin was spewing blood, I felt my hair getting soaked wet along with the sound of retching. Benjamin? Hey? At that moment, Ji-hyun was speaking in a loud, clear voice.

“Someone had damaged the escape pods. And in the research center, although the escape pods were functioning normally, there weren’t enough pods compared to the number of people.”

“No wonder. I thought fewer escape pods than expected were coming up to the surface. Did you not consider going to the 3rd underwater base?”

In a situation where the gun barrel was aimed at her, Ji-hyun hesitated and said,

“I had a dream. I dreamt that crazy people from the cult were aiming guns at people, so I didn’t go.”

After blurting that out, Ji-hyun tightly closed her eyes. However, upon hearing those words, the woman smiled. And with the gun still pointed at Ji-hyun, she said,

“You, jump into that elevator over there. Quickly. Before I accidentally shoot again like just now.”

Accidentally? Is she saying she accidentally shot Kevin? There’s no way. She blatantly shot him in the head!

When Ji-hyun hesitated at the words telling her to jump into the elevator compartment, the woman fired a shot near her feet. Ji-hyun, startled, leaped into the elevator compartment. As Ji-hyun went down, the woman surveyed the surroundings, noisy with screams and groans, and said,

“Any Infinity Church believers here?”

“Aaaah! Me, me! I’m a Infinity Church believer! Save me!”

Carter was continuously shouting with his legs crushed under the truck. Then the woman simply asked Carter,

“We are?”

“Aaaah! Save me, I said! My legs!”

“We live to?”

“Hurry and help me! We’re from the same church! I donated so much money and jewels! Hurry and save me!”

Didn’t Carter say he had no money? Carter seemed to be trying to act like an Infinity Church believer after hearing what Kanu had said. The woman, who had been listening to Carter’s wailing, quickly shot Carter in the head. She simply said one thing toward where the scream had vanished,

“If you don’t know, you die. If you didn’t memorize it, just die. Now, next. Any other Infinity Church believers?”

Sam, who was pinned under a concrete wall, grunted while trying to remove it and pointed his finger toward the unconscious Kanu.

“That guy believed in it.”

“You?”

At that question, Sam pondered as if very hesitant and asked the woman,

“Will I die depending on how I answer this?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe.”

“I like your honesty.”

With those words, she shot Sam in the head. Then she pointed the gun at the next target, Kim Ga-young. Ga-young, who was holding her side with her left hand, pointed at the gun with her right hand and asked,

“Did you accidentally shoot three people now?”

“Is it true that the black man who seems to have fainted in the corner over there is a Infinity Church believer?”

“Would my answer have any value? You seem to be shooting and killing indiscriminately.”

What a remarkable rebellious spirit. Even in front of the gun barrel, Ga-young didn’t answer and sneered. The woman replied to Ga-young,

“That’s not it. The guy I shot first was holding an ax when I saw him through the window, and he showed the most immediate reaction upon seeing someone with a gun, so I killed him first. I killed that one because he lied, and I killed that one because of the cross necklace.”

“What will you kill me for?”

“Depending on your answer.”

“Eun-ja-di Kanu did say he was a Infinity Church believer. He said he donated jewels. It’s also true that he had a lot of money normally. But since he’s dying from a brain tumor, we don’t know if that story is true or false either.”

“Good. Now the Japanese who went into the elevator compartment.”

“She’s Korean. Korean!”

Seeing from a distance, Ga-young’s side was covered in blood. Perhaps because she used abdominal strength to shout, Ga-young, who was holding her side with both hands, let out a groan saying “ugh.”

“You Asians are sensitive about useless things.”

“Can’t you think that what’s useless to you might be valuable to others?”

The woman looked at Ga-young, snorted, and said,

“Like your life? I don’t care. Since I’m a hired body, I’ll do as much as I’m paid for, but it’s a hassle for me to be this meticulous. If the pregnant woman at the 2nd underwater base hadn’t complained, these fanatics would have treated her humanely on their own. What can I do if the service is bad because they went to turn off the power? You’ll have to understand. Does it make sense to tell me to stop the ones coming up to the island from dying alone?”

“Then just get lost from here.”

When Ga-young growled those words, the woman nodded, aimed at Ga-young’s chest, and replied,

“Nothing personal.”

“Emma!”

Ga-young shouted loudly and leaped forward. The moment the gun was fired toward Ga-young, James, who had been lying on the floor as if dead, pounced on the woman.

At that moment, Emma, who had been quietly sitting in the corner covered in dust, swiftly jumped into the hole behind the woman. Then she ran out like the wind. It was an incredible speed. Running on tiptoe as if walking on air, like lightning, Emma’s back, which was getting farther and farther out of sight, was already wearing my backpack.

My backpack. I had exchanged it with Ga-young’s bag. When lifting her to the elevator ceiling, Ga-young had gone up after exchanging bags with me. It was in case a fight broke out inside the elevator and the animals got swept up. We didn’t know this would happen then. Don’t get caught. Run farther away!

The woman calmly took a few steps back and distanced herself. Then she shot James, who was running toward her, twice in the chest, and shot Kim Ga-young, who had collapsed on the floor clutching her stomach, in the head.

Even while hearing the receding footsteps, the woman didn’t turn her head or try to chase in the direction Emma had run. She seemed to expect someone else to attack from the front additionally. Rather, after confirming the kill on James’s head, she looked around and lightly exhaled and inhaled.

Then, starting from the left, she shot the heads of the people located inside the elevator one by one to the right. When she shot the head of Benjamin, who was lying on top of me, I held my breath. I was so shocked that my emotions went numb and I became oddly calm instead.

When my family’s car overturned in middle school, I couldn’t be this calm. I still dream about the accident and sometimes have these thoughts. If Mom had been rescued before me then, if I had been a bit calmer, maybe our family wouldn’t have been so broken. Those kinds of thoughts.

I barely moved my fingers under Benjamin’s corpse. Fortunately, I seemed to have broken free from muscle stiffness. The woman was counting the numbers again. I prepared to move my arm.

There was only one chance. Come to think of it, it’s a bit absurd that in my life, all chances were only once. When did I ever get a second chance? Life was never that easy.

“One, two, three, four… seven.”

The woman was counting the number of people who died crushed or hit by the truck and the number of people she had shot with the gun. She dragged the unconscious Kanu by the ankle and threw him into the elevator compartment. Ji-hyun’s scream was heard along with the thud of a person falling.

“Eight, nine. And ten who ran away.”

That woman approached me in the farthest corner. Then, when she was about to pull Benjamin off of my body, she made eye contact with me lying underneath and said,

“Eleven… Twelve. We meet again.”

A pleasant voice quickly aimed the gun barrel at my head. I pulled the O.B. (Organic Compound Decomposer) I had taken out of Ga-young’s bag toward the woman’s face.

There was no time or leisure to collect my thoughts, hold my breath, or take aim like when shooting a gun in a dream. I only thought about whether I had aimed properly and if I had already pulled the trigger.

I couldn’t even consider how close the distance needed to be for the O.B. to activate properly or not. There was only one thought in my head.

It has to touch the skin. They said it has to touch the skin. They said it’s useless if it touches over clothes. This woman is an expert at killing people with guns. There’s no exposed skin from head to toe. Except for the face! If she approaches to kill me, there’s no other chance!

Bang! After the sound, my body went limp on the floor. As the gun was fired at close range, it felt like my ears were going deaf. Strangely, nothing hurt. I just couldn’t move my body at all, but even in that situation, I caught a glimpse of a person’s ankle completely crushed under the truck. It was the shoe I had lifted up toward the air.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I couldn’t see properly in front of me. The last scene I saw was the woman wiping her face with her palm along with my blood.

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