I woke up from the shock of falling off the bed.
It felt like I was being hurled towards the floor. I lay face down, scratching the hard surface with my fingertips. A mild dizziness washed over . After a few seconds, I barely regained my senses, only to find my heart racing madly. Reality felt distant, as if I had just awakened from a nightmare. Only after looking around did I finally realize that this was room 38 in the West District of the 4th Undersea Base.
Recalling my last mory, I quickly ran my hands over my head and face where I had been shot. I’m not dead. I’m not dead! I didn’t die from being shot!
First ca a sense of liberation, as if a stone had been lifted from my chest, followed by a feeling of relief that seed to fill my throat. Then, overwheld by a flood of emotions, my tear ducts burst. At that mont, my nose started bleeding as well.
I stuffed a towel that was next to the bed into my nose and spent 2-3 minutes shedding tears and blood simultaneously. Tilting your head back causes nosebleeds to flow down your esophagus or airway. I leaned against the orange whale plushie with my head bowed forward, pinching my nose. Occasionally wiping away tears with the towel, I thought:
I’m alive! Those things weren’t real!
As soon as I had that thought, my mind countered. ……Really? Are you sure you’re really alive? Then does that an Kim Ga-young and Yoo Geum-yi didn’t die? Emma escaped from there, so did that not happen either? What about Lee Ji-hyun and Kanu? Are all the other people and animals alive too?
What’s going on? How could this happen to ? Did I have two nightmares? Is this really my room? Am I in my right mind? What ti is it now?
I imdiately flipped over my phone on the bedside table.
May 31st. 7:02 AM.
The last ti I was aware of was around 4 PM on May 31st, so why does the ti on my phone show early morning? Why doesn’t the ti I’m thinking of in my head match the current ti?
I bit the inside of my cheek hard. Then I gently probed the wound in my mouth with my tongue. Ouch ouch. ……It’s okay. It’ll heal within a week anyway.
If I can perceive pain, could this all be a dream? After pondering for a mont, I concluded that all of this couldn’t possibly be a dream.
I don’t have that great of an imagination. Dreaming about falling from a cable car and being killed by sharks, or being shot to death from the ceiling of an elevator? These were outlandish contents that I couldn’t possibly create even if I threatened my brain. Moreover, I didn’t have the talent to ntally create the appearances and personalities of people I had never t before.
No, if these were people I created in my dreams, shouldn’t they be unconditionally favorable to , showing unlimited affection and trust? Why did they have to have irritating, cold, difficult, scary, or disgusting aspects?
And organic, organic compound decomposer? I can’t even rember where I might have seen the word “organic compound” in my life. Plus, what? I dread about donating 41.5 billion to a cult? Even if it was my subconscious, that’s unforgivable.
So there are two possibilities.
First, I’m being forced to experience these things due to external stimuli. Did I drink a few bottles of sorghum liquor without rembering? Or did I eat sothing strange? Did soone co into my room while I was sleeping last night and inject with drugs? Maybe there’s so gas leaking in the undersea base, and my brain is reacting like this after inhaling it while sleeping.
……Thinking about gas, it crossed my mind that I might be dying right now in the Deep Blue infirmary, having inhaled an enormous amount of nitrous oxide (the laughing gas used in dentistry). Nitrous oxide is colorless and odorless. It’s used mixed with sevoflurane, a general anesthetic. I imagined soone tying up in the infirmary, pumping in a massive amount of nitrous oxide and just a tiny bit of oxygen. And Park Moohyun is having several very vivid dreams.
It’s horrific, but it kind of makes sense? For a few minutes, I recalled all the drugs and gases that could affect the nervous system and cause hallucinations that I, as a dentist, could access, as well as all the alcohol I’ve drunk. Then I went over my past experiences that I thought were dreams.
As I recalled the mory of the shark biting into my stomach, I felt my uninjured lower abdon tense up. I probed the wound in my mouth with my tongue again. If I’m in a hallucinatory state and can create such vivid hallucinations, my body that’s been administered these hallucinogens must already be half-dead. ……Damn it.
Now let’s think about a possibility that’s at least slightly more positive for .
Second, things that completely disregard the laws of physics have happened to . To put it most simply, observing the phenona happening to , it seems that if I live for a certain period of ti and then die, I can return to a specific point in the past.
To the morning in room 38 of the West District in the 4th Undersea Base.
……This makes the least sense, doesn’t it? How much would Emma laugh if she heard this story? Although I’m soone who gave up on studying physics, in all my life experiences so far, I’ve never seen ti move backwards. How could a person go from the future to the past? I suddenly rembered a question I had asked Kanu not long ago.
‘What kind of religion is that?’
‘It’s a religion where people who want to turn back ti gather.’
Recalling his characteristically laid-back voice and answer sent chills down my spine.
Did I really experience the future and co back to the past? Is this anomaly I’m experiencing now a case of successfully turning back ti? ……Really. I hate to think about it, but I made the assumption that religion, while sucking the blood and flesh of its followers, had succeeded in creating sothing terrifying in addition to causing human rights regression and wars.
What would happen if ti could be artificially manipulated?
The thought of suddenly being able to go back to the past after living towards the future made feel physically repulsed. I could pride myself on having lived by grasping the intangible fixed point of ‘present’ or ‘now’ as a compass, with ti flowing one second at a ti. However, just imagining ti not flowing in a forward direction made it feel like the foundation of life was crumbling away. It gave an eerie feeling, as if I had beco lost in the vast ocean without any buoys.
Looking at the situation, I’ve co back to the past twice.
So when does my future co? If I ca back to the past because I died, does ti flow normally if I stay alive until the end?
What if I go back to the past again even if I survive? What should I do if I’m trapped in this situation forever?
No matter how much I thought about it, there was no good answer. Okay. Then let’s broaden our thinking beyond just myself and consider it more macroscopically.
Let’s assu that I’m experiencing these things because of sothing a cult did. ……Only terrible imaginings ca to mind. Whether it’s a religion or any group resembling a religion, they shouldn’t have such power.
How would we know where and to whom an interest group would use the opportunity to go back to the past? They might kill today’s Buddha and save tomorrow’s Mara. A executed serial killer might be resurrected, and a terrorist who just died might co back to life and run around in a big city.
They might conduct ethnic cleansing claiming their religion is right, erase a few countries, and bury or justify their actions while laying out nonsensical excuses to the whole world. If they could go back to the ti when saints were born, all world religions except Hinduism and shamanism might be unified. They would only need to kill at least three newborns and this Infinity Church could quickly swap them out.
The thought of unfairness ca next. Ti passes, and people age. Ti is one of the things given equally to all living beings. Whether rich or poor, educated or not, happy or not, ti flows equally for everyone.
Co to think of it, ti is an innate public good that we didn’t realize. There’s no need to worry about it being taken away or altered. Of course, we can trade it. Working life is the act of sacrificing our ti and lifespan in exchange for money from the company.
Humanity has consistently researched to extend the limit of ti they can enjoy. When assuming death due to aging, the ti allowed to humans according to DNA is said to be limited to 38 years. However, as a result of changes in hygiene knowledge and diet, developnt of dical technology, and consistent investnt in vaccinations and education, it has now extended to 130 years. Of course, only a certain minority of people can enjoy this longevity and comfortable life accompanied by scientific technology, both then and now.
In the case of ordinary people like , we have to work until 90-110 years old before we can retire and rest, and due to severe environntal pollution, it’s nothing to have thyroid surgery or get cancer two or three tis. We live eating artificial at and synthetic milk, alternative coffee and foods with insects as main ingredients due to food shortages, and depending on which country you’re born in, your standard of living can rise or fall vertically.
The lower the inco of a country, the more people die due to natural disasters and environntal pollution. If you think about the number of people who have died just from air and water pollution from 2000 until now, it’s close to an astronomical figure. In a situation where the polarization of inco disparity has grown irreversibly large, soone specific can even control ti? It might be understandable if a petty person used it only for their personal downfall. The thought that soone belonging to such a religious group could use it for a specific purpose gave a headache.
……Maybe it would be okay for sothing groundbreaking related to ti to co out by the next next generation after I die. Right now, geniuses with groundbreakingly high IQs are taking antidepressants from the age of 9-10 and dragging humanity, which is heading towards extinction, by the scruff of its neck. Maybe in about a hundred years, we’ll live better lives than now? By then, won’t humanity be much more ntally mature than I expect?
Including myself, people now with our level of consciousness shouldn’t have the ability to go back even 1 second, let alone 10 hours, from the future to the past. I don’t know how ssed up the world would beco if even this last remaining public good is taken away by soone.
Of course, there would be good points too. If you could control only the ti aspect as you wish, you could stay at the desired ti and not age. You could always stay young and healthy, live in the desired ti period, or stay with soone you like no matter how much ti passes. There would be no need to say goodbye to dead people, and the sorrow of parting would beco an old story only appearing in old song lyrics.
Now let’s return to my microscopic situation. ……As terrible as it is, it would be better if I was dying alone experiencing hallucination symptoms rather than a religion with crazy ideologies succeeding in attempting to turn back ti.
When the Mars Base Ares exploded, the officially announced death toll was about 8,200. What if sothing similar happens in the undersea base? I recalled Tyler’s words.
‘I don’t know much either, but to perform the Infinity Day ritual, many people need to be in the building, and so people must die. They used to use fish, but for Infinity Day, it has to be humans.’
I know at least a thousand people work here. I had to use all my strength just to help one person and two animals escape.
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