Chapter 20: The Nexus Tunnel Aftermath

‘Someone brought us here.’
‘Who?’
‘Who, why, how, and what do they know?’
‘Right at this moment when the world needs us—.’

“Hey, what are you looking at that you’re not even answering?”

“No, no. Did you guys see this?”

“What? Ah, the heroes of the tunnel? You believe that? They say it’s a manipulated video someone made, like the monster of Beirenz last time. Why does our district get this kind of stuff even when it goes viral?”

In front of a diagonal crosswalk at a busy intersection.
Even while listening to his friend, the man’s eyes were glued to the screen.
‘The monster of Beirenz?’
‘Isn’t the quality different from that crude video of a whitish shape in the sea from afar?’
Although they belatedly covered the faces of the civilians, the corpse was clearly a corpse.
He could tell.
This video was real.
Besides, the scene largely matched the video that a social media account he followed had posted asking for help, although it was now deleted.

“I knew it was fake just by looking at their faces. Isn’t it a viral marketing campaign for a new movie?”

“Come on, it’s an incident with real victims. Unless they’re prepared to take a huge backlash and take it down…”

At that moment, the traffic light must have changed, and people’s feet started to move.
As he rubbed his goosebump-covered arm and looked up, his gaze was momentarily stolen by a huge outdoor billboard.
On the edge of the white screen, where a woman holding tomato juice was smiling brightly, there was a diagonal crack.
As he narrowed his eyes, he saw it moving slowly against the night sky.

“A snake…?”

As he stopped walking and looked up, his friends who were walking with him also looked back in wonder.
It was then that someone bumped into him and his phone fell to the ground.
As he cursed and tried to pick up his phone from between the crowded feet, someone reached out and grabbed it first.
The boy with his eyes covered by gray, shaggy hair was barefoot and wearing adult clothes that looked like he had picked them up from somewhere.

“Oh, thanks. That’s mine, can you give it to me?”

He held out his hand, but the child just stared at it intently.
To be precise, at the accident video of the tunnel that was on auto-play on the screen.
‘No matter how long the signal is, he shouldn’t be doing this here.’
He anxiously glanced at the traffic light, which had 35 seconds left, and bent his knees to talk to him.

“Where are your parents? Are you lost?”

“……”

“Uh… what should I do. If you don’t know, how about we cross the crosswalk together and you can tell me anything you know over there? What’s your name?”

“…Apophis.”

The boy’s lips moved for the first time.
Apophis?
Thinking it was a strange name, he saw the lips move again, as if whispering.
Since he couldn’t hear the sound, he unconsciously leaned closer.
Then, as the child suddenly raised his head, their eyes met at close range.
The man, frozen to the bone in an instant, screamed silently with his mouth open and fell back on his butt.
In the middle of a bustling downtown where countless people were coming and going, the eyes, filled with black pupils without any whites, stared straight at the man who was pretending to be nice and asked.

“Do you know these people? Where are they now?”

The next two days were the same.
They took turns sleeping, and while they were awake, they did bodyweight exercises indoors (this time it was possible because the room had a small sitting area. They moved the coffee table from the sitting area to the bedroom and turned the sitting area into an exercise room with a pull-up bar), and went out for a run to survey the neighborhood.
After that, they kept the news channel on 24/7 with the sound off.

The news seemed to be moderately controlled, as if they hadn’t figured out the identity of the Abaddon yet.

In any case, things must have gotten complicated since a classified unit had appeared in the police report.

Hannah, who had returned from her run, drank water and, out of habit, searched the internet for parallel universes again today.

She had looked up every theory she could find, so now all that was left to see were ghost stories, but even the ghost stories had a certain format and had become boring.
Going through an elevator, or being found and killed by yourself.
But they had come through an old-fashioned staircase, and now she was in a state where she wanted to meet her other self and ask for cooperation.

Still, it was more comforting than doing nothing.

“…Excluding the money we’ve spent so far, and considering future living expenses, we can continue this lifestyle for about three weeks to a month. If we tighten our belts, it’s about a month and a half at most.”

Feeling the signs of him waking up, she mentioned what she had been meaning to say.
She wasn’t usually meticulous about financial matters, but considering what had happened at the pawn shop, it was obvious that the man lying down with his arm over his eyes was even less interested in such calculations than she was.

“Since we don’t know how long we’ll be staying, we can’t just spend as we please. Since we agreed to pay back half, it means you have to consult with me first before you buy anything.”

She said, glaring at the black plastic bag on the table that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Though she had to see what was inside.
There was no answer from behind her.
She had clearly heard him breathing as if he were awake.
‘Is he still sleeping?’
When she turned her head, she saw his chest rising and falling regularly.
Certainly, after what had happened on the first day, he must have been tired from staying up all night.
After looking at him for a moment, she turned off the dazzling screen, and only the light from outside shone in like a quiet guest between the curtains.
Just resting her eyes for a while felt like a lifesaver.
It was then that her lips parted, breaking the silence.

“Why aren’t you doing more?”

“……”

“Your nagging was fun.”

“Does it sound like a joke?”

“No, I know it’s not, so keep doing it. Anything.”

“If that’s all you ‘want,’ I’ll do it for three days and three nights.”

At the tone that hinted at the bet in the tunnel, the arm with the watch slowly lowered.
His eyes, which were not sleepy but moderately relaxed, went well with the black hair that was disheveled on the pillow sheet.
I thought he had a face that was impossibly beautiful and practical, even though I hated him.
For the past two days, she hadn’t talked to Zakar except for necessary conversations.
It bothered her that he hadn’t demanded anything yet since he had won the bet where they hadn’t set the stakes.
It was like wanting to pay off a debt quickly.

“You’re trying to get a free ride.”

The man who was now her only colleague – there were no more reliable colleagues who worked in three shifts. The only person watching her back was Zakar – sat up and put a cigarette between his teeth.
As if to turn on a light, Zakar walked to the table and took something out of the black plastic bag.
She thought a beer would come out, but what appeared was an album.
An album…
His dark eyes moved towards her.

“Discussion?”

Following the question that seemed to ask if such a thing was really necessary, a cloud of smoke flowed from his lips with the cigarette.
The moment she saw Kieran Jaxx’s 10th album, Hannah, like a bird that had taken the bait, snatched the item.

“Where did you get this?”

“In a place full of furniture that you can find if you run behind this building.”

“You mean the antique shop? It was released in the 21st century, and it’s being treated as an antique, that’s too much.”

“Where did you buy yours originally?”

“…There are, stores that collect second-hand goods.”

The art cover, a continuation of the 9th album’s Night, was a black sky that the singer had painted himself, but this time, it was different in that it was studded with colorful, beautiful stars.
Hannah, filled with emotion, carefully opened the album and checked the various planet photos along with the lyric booklet.

“<The Shape of the Universe>.”

Hannah’s eyes lit up as she read the title scrawled on the CD out loud and then looked up.

“How’s the song? Have you heard it?”

Zakar, who was fully appreciating her unusually flushed face, raised an eyebrow and picked up the remote control as if to say he could just do it now.
The reason she didn’t stop him, even though she knew what he was going to do, was because she had already paid the reception to let her know about any news on the Abaddon, just in case she missed the news.
When the screen turned on, stimulating sounds, as if coming out of the water, pierced her eardrums.
Zakar searched for the music, passing by news of a flood, the cries of the displaced, and an analysis that global warming could no longer be slowed down even with carbon capture technology.
Her heart pounded with an unknown emotion for the first time in a long time.
She remembered the music she had heard at the facility when she was young.
The first time she had properly encountered music was when she was eleven.
Among the relief supplies sent from the Free Zone for common language education, there was a CD player with Kieran Jaxx’s 1st album in it.
At that time, she thought.
A human who can create such a beautifully decaying sound is truly amazing.
To draw something like this.
To write something like this.
To-

As the first track played, Hannah reflexively held her breath.
A black black hole filled the screen.
A mysterious and grand melody, as if in space, following the orbit of a star, flashed and then receded repeatedly.
Accordingly, in the dim space, colorful lights brushed past their features, casting long and short shadows.
Finally, Hannah’s lips quietly parted.

“It sounds like an alien.”

“He is an alien.”

A ridiculous laugh burst out at the answer of the man leaning against the table next to her.
Ah, that was true.
If anything, they were the aliens.
As she looked back at the only human from the same world, she saw a smile on the lips of the man who was taking down a cigarette.
‘Ah, am I smiling like that now?’
As her gaze was fixed as if stolen, the smile slowly faded from the man’s mouth.
Time is sharply honed, and dots of it brush past her skin.
She could feel the strong eyes as clearly as if a fire had been brought to her skin.
The waves that flow through the darkness have such power.
The power to change the surrounding air.
Seeping through the cracked and shaking gaps, collapsing from within.
The moment their gazes, which had traveled up from their lips, met, the phone on the wall rang loudly.
The expressions of the two people changed completely.