The tunnel swallowed us whole.
Outside, the mountain was full of drones and soldiers.
Inside, there was only the smell of wet stone, old rust, and stagnant water.
Old Man Yoon and I stood on the wooden platform, our muscles straining as we pushed the heavy T-handle back and forth.
CREAK-CLACK.
CREAK-CLACK.
The rhythmic sound echoed off the curved concrete walls, bouncing back at us like a heartbeat.
The yellow glow of Yoon’s single oil lamp cut a small hole in the blackness, showing us only the slimy wet rails and the dripping rock overhead.
Behind us, Assemblyman Kang sat huddled on a wooden crate, pulling his jacket tight against the damp chill.
Sua sat near the back of the platform.
She held her injured left arm against her chest, her dark eyes staring into the dark void we were rolling through.
”How is your arm?” I called out over the squeaking iron wheels, keeping my rhythm with Yoon.
”It’s fine,” Sua said, her voice echoing softly in the tunnel.
“The pain is just background noise now.”
”Take a break, boy,” Old Man Yoon panted, wiping sweat from his forehead with a dirty sleeve.
“Let me pump for a while.”
I nodded, stepping back from the handle.
My arms felt heavy and stiff.
I walked to the back of the platform and sat down on the wooden bench next to Sua.
The air was freezing, but close to her, I could feel the faint warmth of her body.
”You’re quiet,” I said softly, making sure Yoon and Kang couldn’t hear us over the clatter of the iron wheels.
Sua turned her head to look at me.
In the dim, flickering orange light of the oil lamp, her face looked tired, but her eyes were piercingly bright.
”I was just thinking about what the old man said,” she whispered.
”About the tunnel?” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
”About me standing here in 1998.” She looked down at her own hands, turning them over.
“He said I held the blueprints.
He said I built this line.” She let out a dry, humorless laugh.
“I fix clocks, Ji-hoo.
I replace tiny gears and clean watch springs.
But hearing him talk…
my mind feels like it’s trying to wake up from a very long sleep.
Little pieces keep snapping into place.”
”Like what?” I asked gently.
”Like…
I remember the smell of ozone,” she murmured, closing her eyes.
“I remember the feeling of cold solder iron.
And I remember Baek standing over a glowing blue terminal, smiling at me.” She opened her eyes, looking straight into mine.
“He wasn’t always a monster to me.
That’s the part that hurts the most.
Before he stole my life, I trusted him.”
I didn’t say anything right away.
I reached out and gently placed my hand over hers where it rested on the wooden bench.
Her fingers were cold, but the moment I touched her, she turned her hand over and squeezed my fingers tight.
Her grip was strong, holding onto me like I was the only real thing in a world full of ghosts.
”You don’t have to carry it alone anymore,” I told her quietly.
“We’re going back to her shop.
And then we finish this.”
Sua leaned her head over, resting it against my shoulder.
The tension in her shoulders slowly eased.
”Forty-six times,” she whispered against my jacket.
”What?”
”You died forty-six times before this,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
“You lived through forty-six nightmares just to find me, didn’t you?”
”Every single time,” I answered honestly.
“And I’d do it a thousand more times if I had to.”
Sua lifted her head and looked up at me.
In the dark tunnel, with the iron wheels screaming beneath us and the cold wind blowing in our faces, she leaned in and pressed her lips softly against my cheek.
It wasn’t a long kiss, but it stopped time.
All the exhaustion, the blood, the fear of the Aegis Grid—it all faded away.
”Don’t die on the forty-seventh loop, Ji-hoo,” she whispered, her breath warm against my skin.
“Promise me.”
”I promise,” I said, wrapping my good arm around her waist and pulling her close.
Ahead of us, the tunnel began to slope downward.
The rusted rails hummed louder beneath the iron wheels, and the damp smell of mountain stone slowly shifted into something else—the dry, chemical smell of old concrete and underground city air.
We were getting closer to Seoul.
Older Man Yoon called back over his shoulder, his voice cutting through the dark.
“Hang on!
We’re coming up on the Incheon junction!
Time to go off the grid.”