I left the old man's side and walked towards the stairs in a few steps. The place where I was imprisoned felt even more devastating to me now. The ground beneath my feet was slipping, and water continued to drip. Swallowing with difficulty with every breath, I knocked on the door. My fingers had become ice-cold. I was stuck here. The more I thought about how comfortably that man stayed here, the more I doubted my own mind.
I climbed the stairs slowly. My legs were trembling. Once more, I struck the iron, letting out a sound that almost drowned out my heartbeat. My stomach was cramping. I waited for the silence. No doubt, everyone saw their own monster there. I climbed another step and, trying to maintain my balance, struck violently.
"You should never have fallen in here in the first place," a voice echoed off the tunnel walls. It was that old man. He neither wanted to leave nor did he want me to. He was busy breathing for the sharp boundaries of the philosophy of life he had left himself in.
"I have to get out of here," I said, defying him.
"But this is not a place you can enter whenever you want," he said in a know-it-all voice.
"You might be right about that," I said, and once again, I slammed my fist against the iron, piercing a sharp silence.
Right at that moment, whatever happened, happened, and the bolt of the iron door was drawn.
As I took a deep breath, I waited anxiously for the face I was about to see.
Just as I was almost about to fall off the stairs, the hatch opened, and I saw a pair of shoes there.
"Thank you," I murmured as I struggled to pull my body out.
It was the blonde woman looking at me. Had she opened this door? The ground... The smell... My eyes wandered through the arena like a prisoner.
What had happened here?
There was fear in everyone's strange, dull stares.
It was as if they had seen the other end of the world.
My eyes searched for him, the group leader.
"What happened here?" I asked; "Where is he?"
Until the last sentence of my question, I hadn't noticed the face belonging to the body lying on the ground. On this face, there was a sense of loss abandoned to eternity. I swallowed with emotions knotting in my throat.
"Even the ruins of his fallen throne do not belong to him," said the blonde woman. "Because he wasn't stabbed in the back; he just destroyed himself."
"I don't understand."
The dull gazes of the people, scattered randomly like air molecules, were fixed on the face on the ground.
"Is he dead?" I asked in fear; something inside me shuddered.
She glanced toward the people in the back. They didn't seem shuddered.
An unexpected voice intervened and said, "He's not dead." Holding my breath, I turned my head toward the voice.
It was Mert.
The chest of the body I thought was a corpse was slowly rising and falling.
"I..."
"The old leader is no more," Mert said. There was a dull, peculiar expression in his eyes. "There is no Hunter. He has lost all his authority."
What Sis had gained had never been authority anyway.
"What happened... I-I don't understand."
"You were lucky you weren't in the arena," the blonde woman said with slightly sad eyes.
She had been acting soft toward me since that last conversation.
Perhaps she had realized that things that are hard break quickly.
"A commotion broke out here," she continued. "The power went out. This happens from time to time. This place turns into a life-and-death square..."
"R-rules?" I trembled.
"Rules are suspended," she said in a clear voice. She was acting as if she were used to this. Who knows how many times she had witnessed such a thing? "Forget about that now," she said dismissively. "No one will be a leader here after today."
I scanned my eyes over the crowd sitting here and there. Was I the only one seeing the fear in their eyes?
I shook my head as if losing myself. Was this possible? Everyone living in peace without one person exerting power over another?
"My mission," I said; "What happened to my mission on the holo-screen?"
"The screen hasn't come on yet," the blonde woman said, searching the surroundings with her eyes. "The people here are also waiting for their missions."
My eyes involuntarily kept catching on that body lying on the ground.
It was strange to think someone had died.
As if tearing the shroud of someone dead and giving their body back to the world.
But he hadn't died.
"What will happen to him?" I stammered.
My question must have seemed ridiculous, as a cynical smile appeared on Mert's face.
"His punishment from now on is to be defeated. To be a slave. Even not to die."
The first thing that came to my mind wasn't his life, but the letter in his pocket. The moment he took that envelope from me came before my eyes. A failed attempt at subjugation... A failed authority... A fallen throne and a body nearing death. Sis had been nothing more than these. Even a murderer... He had gone no further than being a murderer. It was a terrifying experience to see how far a human could reach without boundaries. But for a few seconds, even this idea seemed meaningless to me.
Not only bad things, but good things were also about crossing boundaries.
I focused my attention back on the envelope.
As much as my legs allowed, I approached Sis, who lay on the ground with his eyes closed. He was no different from a corpse, except for his breathing. I slowly knelt before their eyes and slipped my hand into his left pocket. The paper... It wasn't here. I checked his other pocket. Time froze. There it was—the envelope.
The blonde woman frowned, while Mert looked on without caring much.
"This envelope..." I said involuntarily, thinking they were the leaders.
The other people turned their backs indifferently.
"I found this envelope in the tunnel..." I spoke in a low voice.
"He took this envelope from me right in front of your eyes. Do you know... what it is?" I looked at both of them.
The blonde woman dropped her shoulders and pursed her lips. There was a silent look between her and Mert. It was as if they wanted to explain something but didn't.
I looked at the paper; it was stained with blood.
I felt the stickiness and fluidness of that dark red liquid between my fingers.
The paper was between my fingers again.
The same writing... The same meaninglessness...
This is truly a letter that, judging by its lines, is nothing more than a rebellion.
A single question: Why had Sis wanted to take this letter?
He must have known what was written in that letter from the beginning because he seemed to be looking for it.
I looked toward his eyelids. The blood flowing from his nose had frozen above his lips.
I wondered if there could be a connection between him and that woman in the prison.
"Is there something you know?" the blonde woman approached me.
Mert also came toward me with half-interest.
The man downstairs... Did everyone know him?
I began to doubt everything. While that man had gone so far as to tell me that I was making things up in my head, what could I ask?
"The man downstairs..." I murmured; for the first time, I fixed my eyes on the woman's eyes. I shouldn't look away. My eyes should stay right there. "Do you know him?"
As I asked my question, a sudden wave of emotion passed through Mert's eyes.
It felt as though the blonde woman was clenching her jaw tighter.
Would their answers... surprise me? Or was I still a fool for expecting a different kind of answer?
"Everyone knows him," Mert said with a bitter voice.
The woman remained silent, yet she looked as if she were about to add something.
"You don't have to believe him," she added.
Seeing even a little bit of emotion in both of their voices had relieved me.
"Why?" I asked; "Is he a—"
"You can say 'madman'," the woman completed.
Mert put one hand into his empty pocket and said, "Common stories he tells everyone. He's just a lamplighter."
"Why is he forbidden from leaving the tunnel then?" I looked straight into his eyes. I was squeezing the envelope harder without realizing it.
"Because he's just a lamplighter," he repeated.
Was that really the only thing that defined this man?
"What if what he tells is true?" I asked, gathering my courage. I felt a pain as if a hole had been opened in my stomach. Both of their gazes were on me. "What if he has stayed here long enough to know everything?"
I sowed the seeds of doubt in their eyes at that very moment.