No30 Ch2

“It’s claustrophobia. I can’t stay in tight spaces like this for long. I could die.”

The culprit who opened the shade was the bald woman who had been breathing anxiously earlier.

She explained in a hoarse voice as if spitting out the words, then desperately wiggled her fingers trying to open the window. But it seemed the windows weren’t designed to open, like on an airplane.

“Why won’t it open, why!”

Beyond the woman’s gasping desperation, pitch-black darkness reflected the people like a mirror.

Was it night? No, could it be this dark without a single point of light even at night?

“See, there’s nothing there after all. What corpse? We should do a drug test or something.”

Snapping out of it after watching the woman banging on the window, Dylan quickly put on a smug expression and let go of the collar he was gripping. And just as he was about to go to the window, Aslan, who had been staring intently at the window, grabbed Dylan’s shoulder with incomparably more force than the earlier collar grab. And then,

Splat.

“…”

Something hot splattered onto Liella’s cheek as she stood across from them.

She reflexively squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them in a daze as she wiped her face. Her hand was stained dark red, and a viscous liquid dripped from her eyelashes. Like blood.

Why? Whose?

“Ah, ahhh, ahhhhh!”

Even as she heard the braided woman’s piercing scream, at first she couldn’t understand the situation at all. Why dozens of black insects were wriggling out of the back of the woman who had opened the shade. Why the people who had been sitting by the opposite window turned pale, tried to stand up, but collapsed as their legs gave out.

“Run!!!”

“Get down!”

Someone shouted simultaneously. But where to?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As gunshots rang out, she instinctively flattened herself under a seat. Someone fleeing must have kicked the flashlight, as the light shook wildly, casting shadows on the wall. A long, dark shadow that had pierced through the window lifted up a person who had been running away, like a skewer piercing dozens of needles. The sound of muscles tearing and bones twisting. As if chewing a human alive. With a spray of blood, the shadow twisted at a strange angle.

Bang! Bang!

At the continued gunshots, Liella buried her face in her arms as she lay prone. Her body trembled violently. She heard Aslan shouting to go up, but her mind couldn’t comprehend. Bang, bang, bang. The ringing in her ears returned. It’s the screams of dying cells. Ghostly sounds like dozens of humans whispering softly came from all around.

Was this a dream?

Okay. That makes more sense. This can’t be real. Wake up. Wake up. Open your eyes!

“Ah, shit, it hurts!!! Aaaah, don’t move. Goddamn it, it hurts!!!”

Liella flinched at the sound of something falling and looked up, her eyes snapping into focus. Right in front of her, Dylan was hacking away with a knife, his leg impaled by a long, black worm that kept him pinned. Without a second thought, she lunged forward and grabbed it. The more tightly she gripped the slippery, wriggling creature, the more her palms were cut, and blood flowed freely.

Beside them, as they struggled, a ladder had been lowered, and a foot was almost all the way up. Before she could think about who it was, another scene caught her eye. It was the kind of sight you couldn’t help but stare at.

A person stood blankly outside the window. It was as if they had been waiting there for a very long time. Until they woke up, talked, and opened the hatch. The moment her gaze landed on the jet-black, melted hair, Liella gasped.

She understood why Aslan had called it a corpse. No human could be alive in that state.

The left hemisphere of its head was melted away, and the round, exposed eyeball was so large it looked like it could fill a child’s fist. ‘It’ grabbed the chin of the bald woman sprawled against the window and forced her mouth open. Soon, black, viscous liquid dripped from ‘it’s’ eye and teeth, pouring into the woman’s gaping mouth.

“Heuk, ugh.”

It was grotesque. Even without knowing what it was, a wave of visceral disgust washed over her, and Liella covered her mouth, then gagged at the fishy smell on her hands. The floor and her hands and feet were slippery with blood from the dead people.

Bang! Bang!

Just when she thought the gunshots had stopped, they rang out again, and the face of the human peering in through the window was instantly pulverized. Aslan, who had been watching the enemy retreat into the darkness, coldly muttered as he aimed his gun at Dylan’s leg.

“Let go.”

The moment Dylan recoiled in horror, a bullet severed the spine in one shot. Bang!

“It won’t end unless we eliminate the light. We need to find a flashlight.”

Aslan fired a series of shots at the window without even looking at her. It seemed he wasn’t going to give them a chance to get in. Come to think of it, the things that had gotten inside were already fragmented and wriggling on the floor. It was obvious who they owed their annihilation in under ten seconds to.

But if he had reloaded during the brief pause in the gunfire, he probably didn’t have many bullets left.

Liella desperately scanned the area for the source of the light. Then, as if by chance, she found it. Between the chairs. There was light there.

She ducked low and stretched her arm out with all her might, her fingertips barely touching the flashlight before pushing it away. Liella sighed. Just a little more.

“Ugh.”

She contorted her face and almost squeezed her entire body under the chair. A little, just a little more, and… finally… she got it!

The moment she grabbed the flashlight and stood up, Dylan’s ominous curse pierced her eardrums. She realized the gunfire had stopped and turned her head, but it was already too late. Something black shot out in a straight line from the window to right in front of her. At the same time as someone wrapped their arms tightly around her, Liella turned off the flashlight.

Click.

It was pitch black.

“……”

Only the thick smell of blood lingered in the silence. The survivors’ breathing was ragged.

Amidst the ringing in her ears, Liella wondered who the owner of the cool scent was. It was the soldier-like man who had been sitting next to her.

Aslan.

She felt blood dripping onto her neck, probably because he had been hurt while shielding her. She flinched, and her body trembled.

“Please hand over the flashlight. I’ll put it away properly so it doesn’t turn on again.”

After a moment, the voice that fell into her ear was low and calm. If they hadn’t been so close, she might have doubted he was hurt at all.

“Is it okay to make noise?”

“It doesn’t seem to react to sound. Fortunately.”

With his heartbeat pounding loudly against her chest, he slowly moved his hand down her arm and grasped the hand holding the flashlight. As she gradually loosened her grip, the flashlight was transferred to his thick, hard knuckles. For a long time, all three of them just sat there, catching their breath. It was Dylan who spoke first, groaning softly.

“Hey, so what are we going to do now? I can’t even see a hand waving in front of my face. Even the goddamn polar night is brighter than this.”

“There’s nothing to do. There’s a ladder nearby, so you’re responsible for groping around and finding it.”

“What? Wait a minute, don’t forget. I’m seriously injured in the leg right now…”

“Go up first with that person. You can close the door as soon as you get up there.”

Aslan continued, ignoring Dylan’s complaints. Liella was taken aback by the unexpected words.

“What about you?”

“I can open it myself.”

“That’s not what I mean, what are you going to do here? You’re out of bullets, aren’t you?”

“I’ll grab the survival kit I saw earlier. Three minutes will be enough. I don’t know what it’s like upstairs, but we need to consider the worst-case scenario.”

Aslan remained unresponsive to Dylan’s scoff. From the moment he had asked what they should do, he was already under Aslan’s command. He just didn’t seem to realize it.

Liella understood, but for some reason, her hand clutched at the clothes she was being held in. Strangely, she felt like she would fall back into danger if she left this embrace. ‘It’ was inside right now. They just couldn’t see them. The chilling sound of several people whispering still lingered in the room.

“Nothing will happen. Shout if anything happens.”

Aslan muttered softly, as if he had read her mind.

“It’s better to move as quickly as possible before the situation changes.”

“Hey. I found the ladder. Crawl over to me.”

Dylan cut back into the conversation. Liella nodded slightly, then realized it was dark and spoke aloud.

“Just come up if it’s hard to find. I’ll give you one minute instead of three. Otherwise, I won’t repay the favor of saving you.”

She didn’t hear anything, but she thought the man chuckled.

The floor was slippery. Trying to avoid imagining touching ‘it,’ Liella groped her way toward Dylan, who was clicking his tongue. Finally, the moment she grabbed his big toe, Dylan grabbed the back of her neck and yanked her forward. He put the ladder in her hand, and Liella climbed up without thinking. Her hands were clammy with sweat, and her legs were shaking. She realized for the first time how terrifying the fear of not being able to see anything was.

One second felt like an hour. Come to think of it, how long had that just taken? Counting the reloading, there had been about thirty gunshots. In reality, it might have only been three or four minutes. Even though it felt like an eternity.

“Haa… ha.”

Liella finally reached the top of the ladder and collapsed, gasping for breath. Sweat poured down her back like rain.

“Goddamn it, it’s dark up here too.”

Dylan, who had followed her up, muttered incomprehensible curses and slammed the hatch shut. They were out. Feeling a sense of relief, Liella replied between ragged breaths.

“It’s better this way. If there had been light, they might have climbed up here. But wasn’t there someone who went up first?”

She thought that someone nearby would answer if she said that. But the surroundings were silent. This place, whether it was a ship or something else, seemed to be bigger than she had thought.

“Oh, there was someone.”

Then Dylan laughed cynically.

“I’ll give you a piece of advice, don’t stay near that good-looking guy with glasses. He pushed a woman aside as soon as the guy down there lowered the ladder and climbed up himself.”