The exit leading to the surface.
The crumpled paper that had left my hand traced an arc through the air toward the place where distorted shapes flickered….
And was swallowed.
“Oh.”
“…Did you see the paper go through?”
“Not that. It just disappeared.”
Hoo.
‘Did that really make it outside properly?’
Holding my breath, I waited.
The silhouettes beyond the exit rippled as though someone had tossed a pebble into a spring, and then….
…Tap.
“…!”
The crumpled paper came back into the tracks.
I held myself back and left it rolling on the ground for a moment, then only after confirming there was nothing strange about it did I hurriedly pick it up.
“That’s neat. It disappeared for a second, then it looked like it hit a wall and bounced back out.”
“…I see.”
And the same words were written on the paper I unfolded.
I see.
…Manager.
Did you escape outside?
And the instant I read that sentence, I saw Manager Lee Jaheon’s handwriting vanish from the crumpled paper.
“…!”
…As though it were being dragged back into the sealed surface of Segwang Special City.
“……”
I pressed down hard and wrote my reply below the vanished words.
That’s right.
I quickly wrote down that I had been able to get outside with the counselor’s help, and that I was safe.
“Are there still people outside who haven’t woken up yet?”
“That’s right.”
And then….
Was escaping through the outskirts impossible?
…The three people still haven’t woken up.
‘Judging by the situation… their escape failed.’
It looked like, unlike the train, there had been some sort of problem with leaving on foot through the outside.
‘Is it because they went through the surface instead of empty air?’
And if I thought about why these people had been standing at this track exit….
Hadn’t Manager Lee Jaheon perhaps thought the…