Frozen Sea

18. Earthquake

Hongjoong hated this. He hated that San had sent him out here, that he wasn't with Seonghwa, and that the feeling of running into his certain doom intensified with every step he took. His mind kept flashing with the image of the leviathan in the ice and tried to give him the exact view on what it would look like moving. With his panic this overwhelming, all his brain did was scream at him to go back, not to test his luck and to crawl under his covers to wait it out. Yet, he kept going.

This wasn't about him or his fear.

This was about their team, and every other team or living being in Sector Zero. If the beast managed to break out of its containment, they all would be in grave danger. And with the comms disabled, there was nowhere to run.

Shuddering, Hongjoong hyperfocused on Seungyoun, so he wouldn't lose the man. The scientist's expression had settled into a grim frown, and Hongjoong nearly would have believed him to be confident if he hadn't seen his hands shake earlier.

They were a mess. A mess with no clear thought in neither of their simple brains and no way to contact their androids.

Hongjoong had never before swam so jerkily in his life. The Sea Monkey they passed giggled as it stole some unimportant object from Hongjoong's pockets, but they just passed it with ashen faces. Even its playful and happy skips around them seemed hollow and eerie like a clown in a horror carnival.

The water looked dull today. No light hit the surface, and the usual shining and shimmering plants and creatures seemed grey and bored. It all looked like death, and Hongjoong was afraid. So very afraid.

The way to the site seemed endless and way too short at the same time. While they had hurried, Hongjoong now didn't know how much time had even passed. It had felt like an eternity.

When they first poked their heads over the water in the little lake in the Glacial Basin, Hongjoong was faced with a wall of white. The fog was so thick here that he barely saw the ladder until Seungyoun carefully grabbed onto his fingers to pull him over blindly. They made their way up onto the ice, only to immediately find themselves swallowed by the raging storm. It seemed less intense here in the basin, but Hongjoong could imagine it was even worse on Delta Island where there were no ice cliffs around to protect the area.

Still, he wisely kept his helmet on and jogged hand in hand with Seungyoun over the ice. At least they wouldn't get lost, even if Hongjoong even doubted their skill to find the entrance with their sight obscured like this.

The smallest of all luck they had was at least not encountering any predator on the way there. They had all hidden from the storm, just how they should.

However, by the time they reached the large rip in the cliff that led to the cave, Hongjoong found it increasingly harder to walk. His feet felt as if made of clay, and it slowed him down greatly. His heart was beating so erratically that he feared it might jump out of his chest.

Seungyoun hesitated when he noticed Hongjoong coming to a slow halt. His eyes were wide as he uselessly pulled at the still human's hand.

"Hongjoong- Please, don't."

Shaking like a leaf in the wind all over his body, Hongjoong shook his head. His mind was playing tricks on him, was telling him that the roaring of the wind was actually the noise of the Frozen leviathan. That he could feel the earth quake with its powerful leaps as it travelled through the ice to pounce on them.

"I can't. Seungyoun, I feel so sick, I really can't... can't go in there."

Petrified, he stared into the dark tunnel. He doubted that the lights here would still work. They had to face the monster in the dark.